Fourteen years of Tory-led government is over. The second-longest period of dominance by one party since the war is done. For the left, that means relief and joy. For many on the right, there is a sense of frustration, a sense of waste: power has been squandered and little about the country feels more conservative, or even more successful than it did a decade ago. Much of it, bluntly, feels worse.
Much of their legacy will be swept away by the stroke of a statutory instrument or a line in the next budget
In some ways, this analysis is unfair. There have been some successes in the last 14 years of government. Education in the country has been transformed with the extension of academies, the rollout of free schools and rigorous new qualifications. In England, especially, children score better than ever in international education comparisons.
Crime has fallen to an all-time low, both according to police records and surveys which aim to capture unreported incidents.
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