A Bad Night for Labour as the Tories Sweep Through Stoke and Other Heartlands.

On Thursday the UK held a General Election in December for the first time since the 1920's. It turned out to be one that delivered something like an electric shock to the body politic.

The exit poll conducted for the BBC and published after voting stopped at ten pm suggested the Tories would have a fifty-seat majority. At the time this seemed somewhat optimistic; before dawn broke on Friday, they had secured one of seventy-eight.

Remarkably it was one gained by winning seat after seat in the North and Midlands where until recently they didn't count the Labour votes; they weighed them.

Election nights are an odd mix of short bursts of frantic activity and long stretches of boredom. Long before anyone makes a declaration you have drunk enough coffee to make your appreciation of what is going on as realistic as a Salvador Dali painting.

Out of the fog of confusion I was able to piece together a few observations.

As usual there were a few shock defeats, among the suddenly ex-MPs trying their best to smile as their career dissolves live on television was Liberal Democrat leader Jo Swinson. She started the campaign saying she was poised to be the UK's next prime minister and ended it with time on her hands to spend looking up hubris in the dictionary.

Another surprise exit was Denis Skinner, the Beast of Bolsover slain after almost fifty years in parliament. The next time Black Rod knocks on the door of the commons chamber there will be nobody to ask if it's the Avon lady, the political life of our country will suddenly be a little bit more vanilla than it used to be.

It was a bad night for Labour with the promise of only worse days to follow. Nowhere was this more evident than in my hometown of Stoke -on-Trent. The prediction was that the Stoke Central and Stoke North seats would go to the Conservatives as Stoke South has in 2017.

To be honest it wasn't one I took all that seriously, Stoke is the sort of city where voting Tory is anathema to most people, or so I thought. Turns out I was wrong, both seats turned blue contributing to Labour's worst defeat since 1935.

There were more worrying signs than just the pile of voting slips filling the baskets of the Tory candidates. All the young people in the hall were wearing blue rosettes, suggesting a corps of activists and potential candidates that could consolidate their hold on the council as well as the three parliamentary seats for years to come.

Labour, by contrast looked old and tired, like a party bemused by how quickly things have fallen apart. As recently as 2005 former Stoke Central MP Mark Fisher was able to walk around the room long before two am calling out 'weigh am in! Weigh so in!' as everyone gave him a standing ovation.

How far and how fast the mighty have fallen; how did they get into this mess?

In Stoke Labour's demise has been coming for years, decades of being the only game in town has made them complacent and unimaginative, a deadly combination on politics. While Labour were looking anywhere but where they were going the city was changing, the old industries were dying and with them old loyalties.

Nationally Labour were sunk by the person a small but influential cabal thought was their greatest asset; Jeremy Corbyn. In 2017 he looked almost charismatic compared to the leaden ineptitude of Theresa May, despite losing he became a minor cultural icon appearing on stage at Glastonbury and having football crowds chanting his name.

Deafened by the shouts of 'Oh Jeremy Corbyn ' he made the mistake of believing his own hype. All he had to do, it must have seemed was keep turning left and he would lead his party to the promised land.

While the leader had his eye off the ball his party was tangling itself up in ever more complicated knots over accusations of anti-Semitism and scaring the City with the most openly socialist manifesto since 1983. Now he, or rather lots of MPs in former safe Labour seats have paid the price.

Where do Labour go next? Jeremy Cornyn has said he will not lead the party into another election; but will stay on while the party goes through a period of reflection. He is unlikely to get his wish, no head rolls quicker than that of an icon who has failed.

Whoever takes on the Labour leadership will be taking on one of the most unenviable jobs in British politics. They will be obliged to swallow some bitter truths.

The bitterest of these is that working-class culture as the Labour Party understood it has changed. Their core vote no longer work and play together, they aren't happy to take what the leadership think they should be given for their own good either

They have embraced a cynical individualism that that is ripe to be exploited by an equally cynical populist like Boris Johnson.

The left, at least in the incarnation represented by Jeremy Corbyn has failed, the centre probably won't hold either. Quite what sort of country is going to slouch away from Brexit and its birth I shudder to think.