Sleaze, greed and broken vows catch up with Tories

The exit poll? It’s historic, unprecedented, asteroidal. But, as with any object hurtling through space to destroy a planet, we could all see this coming.

- SEAN O'GRADY

So it is no surprise, either, that the rejection of the Conservatives and all they have come to stand for is so emphatic. What is novel, not to say worrying, is the likely cadre of Reform UK populists showing up in the Commons – as many as the Liberal Democrats managed to elect at the 2019 election.

Nigel Farage, it seems, may have been right when he said that “something is happening out there”. The other democratic parties will need to take this lot a bit more seriously in future. Farage often says he wants to be a nuisance – he now has some accomplices to help.

Obviously, these oddball populists will be ill-disciplined and fractious, if their record in the European parliament is anything to go by; but they represent a bridgehead. They will be a constant siren to the Tory right, and an impediment to rebuilding that party.

In truth it’s maybe a bit better for the Tories than they might have feared – but still the worst since, well, the dawn of democratic politics and the passage of the Reform Act of 1832.