Fallen serial winners facing mother of all identity crises

The Conservatives' perilous state was illustrated when some party figures were privately relieved the exit poll on Thursday night gave them just 131 MPs. "I'll take that," one MP said. Some opinion polls had put the Tories a humiliating third place behind the Liberal Democrats. Their worst result in history could have been even worse. The relief will not last long, once the scale of the defeat sinks in.

- ANDREW GRICE

Nigel Farage, whose Reform UK inflicted huge damage on the Tories, hailed the election result as "the beginning of the end" for them. The Tories are certainly on life support; whether they can revive is in their own hands. It's a long road back to health, and there is every chance they will take a wrong turn: should they stick to a centrist approach or veer right to become a smallstate, low-tax, low-regulation party, committed to a tougher line on immigration and "wokery," abolishing the net zero target and withdrawing from the European Convention on Human Rights?

The Tories' post-Brexit identity crisis is the biggest in their 180-year history. Do they favour the free market or Boris Johnson-style interventionism? A small state or a big one? Do they believe in the welfare state or want to demolish it? Do they celebrate immigration or hate it? Should the UK play a positive role on the global stage, or retreat into a Little Englander comfort zone?