Wales has witnessed a Tory revolution

Never in modern political history has there been such a good general election for the Welsh Conservatives. The expectation before election night, shaped by the final pre-election polls, was that the Conservatives would be on the front foot. But Wales has had a very long history of Labour dominance and Welsh Labour had shown resilience in difficult circumstances before. Perhaps they would be able to do so once again?

In the end, the result was better than nearly all Welsh Tories could reasonably have hoped for. The final figures saw the party gain six seats, jumping to 14 overall. All of those seats were won from Labour, who fell from 28 Welsh MPs to 22; the remaining four Welsh seats, all in west Wales, were held by Plaid Cymru.

These seat outcomes reflected the following vote shares across Wales: (with changes on 2017 in brackets):

Labour 40.9 per cent (-8.0)

Conservative 36.1 per cent (+2.5)