The votes have been counted. The winning party, despite tepid enthusiasm for its offering and a share of just over a third of the popular vote, has somehow won a majority. A party that had until polling day been in government is now in tatters, having lost more than two thirds of its MPs. The populist right came third in terms of vote share, and second in over 100 seats, but will have next to no representation in the House of Commons. The system appears broken.
I am talking, of course, about 2015, when David Cameron won an unexpected victory, the Liberal Democrats collapsed, and Ukip got almost four million votes but ended up with one MP. Nine years later, Keir Starmer’s majority is much larger than Cameron’s, but the same trends are apparent.
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