Nick Cohen Nick Cohen

Labour will swing left as it heads for power

Keir Starmer congratulates new Blackpool Labour MP Chris Webb (Getty images)

Labour people are used to defeat. Before every election they wonder if the Tories will defy expectations. Real votes are not the same as opinion polls, after all, they say. And yet ever since Boris Johnson broke his own lockdown rules, disastrous performances for the Tories in opinion polls have been replicated by disastrous results in real elections. We are only beginning to grasp the consequences of an inevitable Tory defeat.

Not all the results of the 2024 local elections are in by any means, but come on now. At the time of writing, Labour has taken the Blackpool South parliamentary seat. Conservative support collapsed by 32 per cent. 

This was not a one off. As the unstoppable electoral stats machine, Rob Ford, professor of politics at Manchester University points out, Tony Blair achieved four swings of 20 points or more from the Conservatives when he was opposition leader.

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