Inevitable political comment post follows (feel free to go make a cup of tea if this doesn’t interest you):
- Election result: no surprise
- Turnout: even less of a surprise, and probably speaks more than the result itself
- Conservative party leadership: not surprising either. Though, it has to be said, if there was a Portillo-Clarke pact (as has been mooted by some journalists already) that could effectively hold the two sides of the party together in the same way that the Blair-Prescott pact has so far, then the party might have a future. It would need a serious dose of rebranding though – “New Conservative”? or has that been done before? And if that doesn’t work, then Charles Kennedy might be right, and the LibDems will become the true party of opposition.
- Widdecombe: please, someone save us from the woman.