Seven things we have learnt so far from the election results

The election results are still being counted but this patchwork of different contests across England has been truly fascinating, throwing up all sorts of lessons.

Here are seven things we have learnt so far:

Sometimes in politics what is most obvious is most important. These are a bad set of results for the Labour Party at their first electoral test since being swept to office ten months ago in a landslide of epic proportions.

“We did it!” the prime minister told his jubilant supporters back then as seat after seat fell to Labour, adding: “It feels good, I have to be honest.”

That’s not so much the vibe these days.

Leaving the eight-hour count in Runcorn and Helsby this morning, Labour campaigners were utterly dejected, not least at having lost by only six votes, the closest result in any by-election ever.

Yet even if they had won by six votes, the trend would have been the same – a governing party which has burnt through goodwill at an unimaginable pace.

It’s possible to overstate how dramatic the contrast with the 2024 general election is, though.

Sir Keir Starmer’s victory was broad but shallow, his 411 seats procured on just over a third of the vote. Perhaps it’s not surprising that the so-called loveless landslide has been followed by a rude awakening.

“On every door it was the same story – winter fuel and Pip.”

That’s what a Labour campaigner in Runcorn told me first thing this morning, referring to the early decision this government made to means-test the winter fuel allowance and the more recent announcement that eligibility for the Personal Independence Payment will be tightened.

Speaking to Labour MPs from different wings of the party over the course of the day, it’s been surprising how many have pretty much stuck to that same theme. For almost all of them, the original sin of this government was the decision on winter fuel.

There are nuances within that position. Some believe the cut could have been communicated better, making the case that some pensioners were receiving the benefit who simply didn’t need it. Others think it was never worth the political risk for the amount of money it would raise.

To stress, it is not just the left of the Labour Party, comprised of a handful of MPs willing to criticise Starmer publicly, who are saying this. I had a conversation with an MP on the right of the party this afternoon who believes the situation is so dire, the damage so fundamental, that Rachel Reeves should simply reverse the cut.

That is extremely unlikely. But it is where the debate may be headed when MPs return to the Commons and compare notes next week.

And of course a crucial part of that debate is the parlous economic situation inherited by the government which, those around the prime minister insist, necessitated unpleasant decisions which were always bound to be unpopular. If it had not been winter fuel, it would have been something else – the argument goes.

The consolation of sorts for Labour is that fixing their political predicament is in their hands. They are the government and the levers of power are at their command. The next general election is up to four years away. All in Labour agree that people need to be made to feel better off – and they hope that if that can be achieved, the political challenges melt away.

Turns out the only way wasn’t up. The Conservatives were reduced to their fewest MPs ever last July. That annihilation is now being visited on their local politicians.

Kemi Badenoch took charge of a crushed Conservative Party and has only had six months to begin trying to turn things round. Still, I am yet to meet a Conservative who will sincerely argue that she has made a good start.

I have, though, lost count of Conservative MPs and advisers who say to me that, in a funny way, they need Labour to be doing better. The Conservatives are still tarnished in many voters’ eyes by their governing record, meaning that the receptacle for voters’ immediate frustration with Labour, in Runcorn and elsewhere, is Reform UK.

But it’s more than just a story about the government’s woes, as longstanding Conservative strongholds such as Staffordshire and Lincolnshire falling to Reform show. Some of the results simply need to be stated to see how startling they are.

Conservatives had run Staffordshire County Council since 2009. They had 56 of the 62 councillors on Thursday morning. Now they have only 10.

The Lib Dems have taken dozens of seats from the Tories. They have pushed the party into third place in this set of elections. Leader Sir Ed Davey is claiming to have seized the title of the party of “Middle England”.

There does not seem to be any appetite at all in the Conservative Party to even begin a conversation about changing leader yet again. Robert Jenrick throwing his support behind the woman who beat him to the leadership on the BBC this afternoon was a significant moment.

Whoever is leader, a Conservative Party projected to finish fourth in these elections is a Conservative Party in an existential crisis.

It’s hard to come up with the right superlatives for Nigel Farage’s political achievement. Suffice to say the Reform surge evident in opinion polling has turned out to be real.

Yes, under Farage’s leadership Ukip won the European elections in 2014 and the Brexit Party did the same in 2019.

Their success in five constituencies at the general election – including Farage himself finally making it into parliament at the eighth attempt – suggested Reform UK was something different to his previous incarnations. That is surely now proven beyond all reasonable doubt.

But with victory comes responsibility. At the time of writing it looks like the party will control at least five councils. When Ukip ran up victories in the European elections its mandate was to scrutinise the Brussels institutions its voters loathed.

Now its mandate is to make its own voters’ lives better. That is a different task. The traditional main parties will be hoping that following responsibility comes accountability, and that if Reform councils and mayors fail, the party’s brand will suffer.

The Liberal Democrats are making solid gains across what was once traditional Tory territory, which is essentially local politics catching up with what happened at the general election last July.

In Devon they gained 18 council seats, mostly at the Conservatives’ expense, to become the largest party, and have won control of Oxfordshire, Shropshire and Cambridgeshire.

They are ecstatic to have leapfrogged the Conservatives into third in the Projected National Share.

The Greens are making gains too, although their failure to win or even come second in the West of England mayoral contest will sting. The battle between the Greens and Labour for younger, urban progressives is likely to come to the fore in future local elections.

Labour’s general election slogan was just one word: change. No wonder that it appeared at the start of new MP Sarah Pochin’s victory speech in Runcorn too.

If there’s one thing every politician and strategist from every party seems to agree on, it is that people are crying out for things to be better. In other words, for change.

It was the mantle Keir Starmer managed to seize in opposition. His challenge is to reclaim it while being in government.

The task facing each opposition party in their different ways is to stop him doing so and convince voters that they have the best shot of improving their lives.

The two-party double act which has governed Britain for a century appears to be under massive strain. It may be time to get used to elections in this country – parliamentary, mayoral, council – being won on low shares of the vote by very fine margins. Under our First Past The Post system (where the winner is simply the person with the most votes), if you have lots of parties with relatively even support, things can get really unpredictable.

Yet if there’s another lesson of British politics in recent years it’s that politics is volatile. The death of the two-party system has been pronounced before. At the 2010 general election, Labour and the Conservatives only got 65% of the vote combined. By 2017 that figure was back up to 82%. In 2024 it was back to 57%. Things can change fast in politics – they have done, again and again.

As politics begins to move at social media speed, who’s to say Reform cannot fall away as fast as they rose?

It’s a counter-argument worth bearing in mind. On the other hand, it is no longer preposterous to say that Nigel Farage could be the next prime minister.

The range of possible political futures which could unfold in the UK over the next few years is simply vast. Anyone who tells you what is going to happen next needs a whopping great dose of humility.