The former justice secretary made a farewell speech after losing out to Labour in Swindon South.
Sir Keir Starmer is on course to be the UK’s next prime minister as an exit poll indicated a landslide Labour victory.Theresa May and former chairman of the 1922 committee Sir Graham Brady have been given peerages in the dissolution honours listA lurch to the right after the election would be “disastrous” for the Conservatives, former Tory minister Sir Robert Buckland has said.
“Or do we shrug our shoulders and accept politics as a mere circus where people compete for attention by saying things that they either know to be untrue, or which raise hopes and expectations in a way that further erodes trust? “From the West Country to Greater Manchester, the map is being painted gold as Liberal Democrats sweep to victory in the Conservative Party’s former heartlands.”Reform UK’s challenger to Deputy Prime Minister Oliver Dowden has predicted voters are “going to get fed up” of Labour and “look for something different” in the near future.
He added: “Labour obviously are going to win, they’re not going to increase VAT, income tax or national insurance but they’re going to increase every other tax that there is.” Lord Mandelson said he would be “disappointed” and “surprised” if Reform won in his former seat of Hartlepool, saying many people who had backed the right-wing party were looking for a “handy protest vote”.He added: “You can call it a protest vote if you want, but actually it’s not. It’s an uprising. It’s saying to the political classes: enough is enough.”
“And what does it mean? It means we’re going to win seats, many many seats I think right now across the country. “And it’d be a huge mistake to take a lot of comfort from this, but there were people thinking, and the polls were suggesting, it could be an extinction night for the Tory party, an extinction level event, and the Tory party would never come back.
Speaking on ITV, the ex-SNP leader said: “I think one of the questions out of the SNP result tonight is whether they’ve left themselves between two stools on the independence question because I think – in my view – it wasn’t really put front and centre.” He told the BBC: “Well we don’t know whether it’s a contributing factor but I think there has been a widespread expectation that turnout would fall and these first two results are at least consistent with that expectation and to that extent at least we may well discover that we’re heading towards one of the lower turnouts in general elections in post-war electoral history and, you know, that’s what the polls are anticipating.
“The reason the Labour Party has been in the position it’s in is because we’ve changed. And we didn’t choose the unity of the graveyard either after 2019 – we had some fights and some arguments to reconnect the Labour Party with the people we lost and the people we need to win over to form a majority.
Asked whether he thought the Tories should have sought to join forces with Mr Farage, the former Conservative minister said: “We are where we are and the disaster doesn’t seem to have been averted. Reform UK candidate Sam Woods-Brass received 11,668 votes to Conservative candidate Chris Burnicle’s 5,514.
“A government powered by hope, by the belief that tomorrow cannot just be different from today, but better. A government of service, a government with purpose above all to change our society for good.” “They don’t tend to look like these ones, and if we have won this General Election, that is historic for the Labour Party, but even more importantly, is an opportunity for the country, for us to rebuild our economy and our public services and rebuild trust in politics.”Labour’s shadow education secretary Bridget Phillipson has won Houghton and Sunderland South, the first constituency to report a result in the General Election.
“We know that in this election, people were very much voting for change from this disastrous Conservative Government and if the exit poll is right and counting is just about to get under way, then I think we will see an end to the Conservative Government and people have voted in order to do that.”The Lib Dems are “back as a major force in British politics”, the party’s leader in Scotland said.
Leader of Reform UK Nigel Farage enjoying a pint of beer when he launched his General Election campaign in Clacton-on-Sea, Essex Labour peer Lord Mandelson told the BBC: “If I look back over my whole life and before, I must say I cannot identify a worse financial and economic legacy for an incoming government frankly since the Second World War.”
The shadow foreign secretary was asked on Sky News about rumours that Douglas Alexander could “give you a run for your money” to be foreign secretary. “I think there are still some people sympathetic to him and the alternative is just not there for them. I think they are reluctant but they have come out reluctantly to vote for him. That is my feeling knocking on the doors, but it is really hard this one.”Steve Baker said it was a matter for Rishi Sunak whether he stays on as Tory leader during a likely period of “recriminations”.
“But as I say, it’s a matter for him and knowing him reasonably well, I believe his mind will be set on what is right for the country and part of what is right for the country, and your viewers may not like it, but is having a functioning Conservative Party, and I’m sure he will be mindful of that.”Former first minister of Scotland Alex Salmond has said the 10 seats for the SNP predicted by the exit poll was not because of a lack of support for independence.
“It’s also set against, though, the expectations of all those predictions over the last few weeks, many of which have been that the Conservatives will get even fewer seats than that, even down to 64 seats in one prediction a couple of days ago. Speaking to the PA news agency from the counting centre in Glasgow, Stewart Hosie said: “I think that’s absolutely the case.
Of the exit poll, he said: “I think this will create a bad situation for the country but one from which we can recover.He refused to be publicly drawn on whether he would run for the Tory leadership, saying: “I don’t want to get into that tonight… I’ve got a great deal for respect for Rishi Sunak. I think he’s a man with a brilliant mind and a great heart for our country.”Lord Mandelson has said he is “gobsmacked” by the exit poll and the scale of the forecasted Labour victory.
“So I’m ready for whatever the electorate throw at me and I treat victory and defeat like those two imposters, just the same,” he said, quoting Rudyard Kipling. “So we know a number of seats were on a knife edge from our own data, but I also know that all of our activists and our candidates have been going out there not taking anything for granted and speaking to the electorate about what matters to them.”
“There was a robust and vibrant campaign, but unacceptable abuse and intimidation of candidates. We will collect evidence from people who participated in these elections as voters, candidates, campaigners and administrators, to better understand their experiences. We will recommend improvements to the systems where necessary.”Labour’s national campaign chief Pat McFadden said: “Keir Starmer’s transformation of the Labour Party has been remarkable.
The former leader of the Scottish Tories said on Sky News: “So actually 131 – while, there is no dressing it up, this is a massacre – they’ve actually, if this is right, pulled a few back from where they thought they were.”The Liberal Democrats are on course for our best results in a century, thanks to our positive campaign with health and care at its heart.
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