The Tory survivors of their electoral Somme are ready to battle for the leadership

BY THE time Sir Keir Starmer spoke of the “sunlight of hope” in the early hours, it was more a matter for the Conservatives of who was left standing under the rubble of a Labour landslide than salvaging dignity.

- Anne McElvoy

Rishi Sunak’s dejected expression said it all — holding his North Yorkshire seat, but leaving office as leader of a party in shock and anger at its dramatic electoral demise and a repudiation of his leadership and performance.

The numbers are punishing — a party with a majority over 80 in 2019 is now about 292 behind Labour. True, it is not the “extinction-level event” of Tory MPs’ worst fears. But the Tories’ results, falling short of exit poll predictions, also mean that even modest hopes of breaching the 130 mark were ultimately dashed.

The London map — a vast tranche of Labour red with a dash of Lib Dem yellow — is more like the national picture than usual. A sign that not only metropolitan voters have turned their back on the Tories. Much will change as a result, not least the party’s presence in national life after a long period of dominance. There will be over half as many Lib Dem MPs in Parliament as the remaining rump of Conservatives, who can at least congratulate themselves on surviving the cull, as one joked mordantly to me, “like the remains of the aristocracy after the French revolution”.