UK

Sir Keir Starmer has become the UK’s first Labour prime minister since 2010 after his party’s landslide general election victory.

Labour is returning to power with a huge parliamentary majority of 174, following a collapse in support for the Conservatives.

Sir Keir has been formally appointed by the King at Buckingham Palace, replacing Tory leader Rishi Sunak, and will soon make his first speech in Downing Street.

Sir Keir Starmer has walked out of Buckingham Palace as the UK’s new prime minister, after holding an audience with King Charles III.

He will now travel to Downing Street to give his first speech as PMhttps://t.co/fT2zvfjYxd pic.twitter.com/pJekFHLI7Y

— ITV News (@itvnews) July 5, 2024

Nigel Farage understands the zeitgeist better than anyone – and the people of Clacton know it

In the end it was a walk-over. Having tried, and failed, on seven occasions to win a seat in Parliament, the most controversial, disruptive, and in many ways most significant, British
politician of the last 25 years finally won the opportunity to fulfil his promise to sit in the House of Commons and “make a bloody nuisance” of himself.

Wearing a mid-blue suit and tie and a Cheshire cat grin, Farage, 60, overturned a Conservative majority of 24,702 to win the Clacton seat, displaying an undisguised glee not only at his own result, but at the performance of Reform candidates across the country exceeding even Farage’s most optimistic expectations, and at the cost of the Conservative party that he clearly despises.

Note – Reform has won 4 seats.

Quicker seat counts at BBC – refresh page 

Telegraph is posting good results now

Tories on course for a bloody night, exit polls indicate a Labour landslide.

Twitter – #UKElection2024

Labour is on track to win the largest majority of any party in modern history amid evidence that voters are rejecting Rishi Sunak’s plea not to hand Sir Keir Starmer a landslide victory.

The final large-scale YouGov poll of the campaign finds that the Conservatives will be reduced to just 102 MPs, losing more than 70 per cent of the seats the party won five years ago.

Labour is expected to win 431 seats, giving Starmer a landslide majority of 212 — surpassing Tony Blair’s 1997 victory and making him the most successful leader in electoral terms. If confirmed on Friday it would also be the largest majority for any single party since 1832.

Why they elected Sunak is beyond me.

The election in the United Kingdom next week will mark another stumbled step in the descent of Britain into unprecedented political absurdity. It will bring in the sixth prime minister in eight years, a performance rivalling Third and Fourth Republic France, when General de Gaulle said that he often could not remember the name of the current head of the French government, so rapid was their turnover. (He was the only person in the history of France who served in cabinets in three different Republics.) The only time in British history when there has been such a frequent rotation of prime ministers was between 1827 and 1835, (Liverpool, Canning, Goderich, Wellington, Grey, Peel, and Melbourne, but Liverpool governed for 15 years, Grey for four, and Melbourne for six, and Canning died in office; all of them were statesmen of considerable or even great stature). The present cavalcade has been a broadening shambles, unlike anything in modern British history. It is almost certain to continue, as there is no indication that the incoming prime minister, Keir Starmer, leader of the Labour Party, possesses what will be required to bring Britain out of this nosedive. The only leader in the history of the Labour Party capable of winning consecutive full terms in office was Tony Blair, and that was largely because Margaret Thatcher and John Major had left the country in such excellent condition. Starmer has no such good fortune and there is no indication that he possesses any comparable aptitude to govern.

A campaigner for Nigel Farage has told voters that illegal migrants should be used for army “target practice” and that mosques should be turned into pubs.

In the latest scandal to hit Reform UK, undercover reporters from Channel 4 recorded an activist in Clacton advocating shooting people arriving by boat and describing Rishi Sunak as a “f***ing P***”.

They also filmed a senior aide to the Reform leader putting forward a vision for the party in government, saying “our police officers will be paramilitaries” and that “we’re going to bring back the noose”.