This is Iain Martin’s weekly newsletter, exclusively for Reaction subscribers.

A most clear analysis of situation and opportunities for Britain. Don’t blow it Sir Keir.

It is the Sunday after the Saturday, after the Friday, after the long night before, and you have probably had enough of the UK general election by now. If you are in Britain and were watching the television coverage that means you had to watch 27 hours of Alastair Campbell, the former Labour spin doctor and now full-time podcaster, who was on everything every time I turned over. At one point he or a body double seemed to be on different channels simultaneously. Broadcasters, is that necessary?

After all that, I am not going to subject you to one long essay of endless analysis. Instead, here are some quick takeaways from me – seven themes and things to look out for after one of the most bizarre and interesting election results in decades.

1) Labour gets lucky on the economy. Don’t blow it…

For all the claims that this is the worst inheritance by an incoming administration since William the Conquerer turned up and found the Anglo Saxon infrastructure of government wholly inadequate for his purposes, honestly it is not as bad as it looks or feels. I know this will prompt derision from the IFS, and the OBR, and HMT, and every other economic panjandrum. Yes, the debt is too high after the pandemic and there is a long-term productivity problem, but the economy is showing signs of growth. It is amazing what that does when it happens, the way it improves revenues and compounds confidence on the upside.

There is also a “wall of money” looking to invest in the UK, waiting for some political stability. American CEOs see the UK as an investment opportunity and compared to what is happening in France and Germany right now the UK looks like a stable opportunity.

The danger is that Labour, needing money to satisfy endless demands for spending, will introduce tax rises on capital that send precisely the wrong signal to those investors prepared to give Britain a go now they don’t need to worry for quite a few years about the Tories coming back or the madcap machinations of the 1922 committee, the backbench committee which seemed to run the country at various points during the Tory party’s most farcical spells.

2) Electoral reform row will not go away…

First Past The Post has just been vindicated, in my view. One of the main attractions of the British system is the way it enables a violent (but peaceful) swing against parties viewed by the broad mass of the electorate as having failed or run out of road. Or it may be that voters conclude at some point in a classic British way it is time to let the other lot have a go. First past the post makes this possible, rather than empowering the parties to stitch up a coalition in which they trade policy. The violent swing and big change happened in 1945, 1979, 1997 and again in 2024.

That said, my view will be thought quixotic by a great many people who say the unfairness of last week’s result means we must switch to proportional representation.

Given that the smaller parties ran up millions of votes, and Reform got only five seats out of 650 for four million votes, in the Commons and in the country there will now be a vigorous and sustained campaign. At some point there will be the exotic spectacle of Reform and the Lib Dems agreeing the voting system needs to go. Reform will hammer this issue. The Liberals did well out of First Past the Post this time, so they will be a little embarrassed and focus at first on trying to work out where they are going to pressure Labour. Eventually, the Lib Dems will turn to considering how they can prepare a series of demands for coalition negotiations next time.

Of course, Starmer has no interest in changing the system that by a series of quirks gave him a mega-majority. It may be different if next time the Tories recover, or Reform shreds Starmer’s majority. The Liberal Democrats will demand electoral reform as the price of coalition in 2028 or 2029. Starmer might give it.

3) The wokery will be off the scale…

Tony Blair, in a piece for the Sunday Times, says Labour should avoid wokery. Keir Starmer says the government he leads will dial down the wokery. I am much more pessimistic on this front. Through the institutions, allowed to become woke under the Tories, there will now be a cascade of wokery, of political correctness.

Those in positions of upper and middle management in public services and large corporations who are woke (not everyone is) will feel a sense of liberation. The terrible Tories, in this telling, have gone and the wokery can advance unimpeded.

Starmer will find that no matter how many times he says he does not want so much wokery, mindful of those Labour seats where Reform is in second place, he makes an unconvincing anti-woke warrior. His natural personal instincts are north London modern public servant wokery. Look how uncomfortable he has been, all along and especially during the campaign, when questioned on transgenderism and women’s rights. This will cause problems for the new government.

4) The world comes rushing in…

More on this after the NATO summit next week, but Labour is not prepared for the scale of what is about to hit it even in Europe. David Lammy has praised the superiority of French diplomacy – which is odd after the disasters in the Sahel and the difficulties elsewhere – and it will be interesting to see how quickly the new team realises that focusing on the broken Franco-German axis is not going to fix much, especially when Macron is a lame canard.

Although improving relations with the EU is important, after the UK’s departure from the EU and the full-scale invasion of Ukraine diplomatic Europe has moved beyond Brexit. What matters in Europe most of all is building up the European pillar of NATO, where all the practical military and strategic clout lies. And in doing that, relationships with countries such as the Baltic states, Finland, Sweden, Norway and Poland have become even more key. Poland is an absolutely central country. It is on the front line, growing, rearming fast and very keen on its excellent UK links. Call Warsaw, a lot.

5) Farage v Boris…

Simultaneously, the Conservatives have to realise that while they are going to be of no interest to anyone after what just happened, they will, counterintuitively, still be the object of a lot of media attention. Producers will still call sometimes, usually when the news is slow to try to get them on to fill airtime. Not in the interests of balance or to be nice or to be fair. The producers and runners will be calling because Tory warfare and division on the right will be regarded as amusing, a harmless but entertaining diversion while the real politics happens in the new governing party.

Somehow, in this challenging environment the Conservatives will need to undertake the serious work of rebuilding. My view is they should have a caretaker leader and try to work out what they think about the world and what they believe, before choosing a contender for the next general election late this year or early next year.

This will be complicated by a further factor. When Labour hits a patch of unpopularity mid-term – if international events do crowd in, the boats don’t stop and growth disappoints – Boris Johnson will see his moment to reenter the arena. In his fantasy this is Churchill returning from the wilderness, a war leader again.

The argument will be made by the Boris fan club that on the right only Johnson is a bigger figure than Farage. There is some truth in that, although millions of voters would be appalled by his reappearance.

Regardless, he will be back in some form, setting up a clash with Farage and making life very difficult for the unlucky person the Tories choose as their leader after a caretaker spell.

6) Starmer starts to communicate well…

Look at this video put out by the new team in Number 10.

That is a formidable piece of political communication. You may scoff, and if you are a Reform fan you will be chortling about how your genius pals are next going to destroy Labour. Stop laughing. By any objective measure Starmer and his team in power have already worked out where they need to aim their communications – at people in the middle who seek some order, discipline and quiet patriotism. It will be popular for a while, perhaps for quite a while.

7) The Nationalists got absolutely stuffed…

Although I could devote several thousand words to this one, I won’t. One note of caution for celebrating Unionists. There is still a large body of opinion in Scotland sympathetic to independence and the nationalist cause. Even if the party is out of money, the calculation will be that when Labour gets into difficulties in London there will be an opportunity for the SNP. Scottish Labour may struggle to work out whether to stick close to the UK (as it should) to make devolution work better. The risk if it does this lies in being labelled by the Nats as Starmer’s creature. Not sticking up for Scotland, and so on. The SNP is down, but not out.

It was delicious watching the knock out of the Nat machine, though. Think of how an imperious Sturgeon was portrayed just a couple of years ago by much of the media, as a mighty figure who had seen off Johnson, and triumphed in the pandemic by being creepily authoritarian. This was a figure, we were assured, who was going to break apart the UK. How hollow it all sounds now. Cheers!

Not Another One

When the UK general election was called, four of us decided to launch a new podcast for the duration. It is called Not Another One, named after Brenda from Bristol who cried “Not Another One” in a West Country accent on being vox popped by a TV reporter and told some Prime Minister or other (there have been a few of late) had called another general election.

The name – Not Another One – is also a reflection, obviously, of the reality that there is not a shortage of political podcasts. Almost everyone has a podcast. There are thousands of them. And in the main the hosts agree with each other.

We thought there was room for something different. The concept and the name was the idea of my friend Tim Montgomerie. For several years he has been saying there was a gap for a group of people with different political views to talk reasonably and politely about what is happening, to disagree agreeably. And sometimes to agree a little disagreeably. The quartet was formed with Steve Richards and Miranda Green.

Having been involved in a fair few new media launches I know the difference between people being polite when they tell you the new thing is enjoyable and something genuinely gaining a following.

The feedback has been very positive. We have decided to keep going well beyond the general election and there is a lot to discuss. 

Not Another One is available on all platforms. You can listen here on Spotify and here on Apple.

France at its best

When the general election was called I had that feeling. The date – 4 July – felt familiar. Weren’t we supposed to be on holiday in Provence that week? Yes, we were. Oh drat.

We decided not to cancel, although we returned early to vote. Deciding not to cancel was, I must admit, a liberating experience. For too long I have cancelled family holidays and spent family events writing, labouring under the superstitious journalistic delusion that if you are not there or not transmitting a view it is somehow not happening. Well, we went away and the terrible campaign still happened. 

We got on the TGV to Avignon twelve days before polling day. Poolside in the first few days I wrote a newsletter that I’m not sure made much sense. Anyway, the Reaction team were in place in London producing great coverage of the final days of the campaign and now you’ve had my thoughts (above) on what I think it means.

One thought on France. As turmoil raged, and President Macron concludes his career with an act of auto-destruction, in Provence, rural Provence and briefly the environs of Avignon, we saw nothing of the French election. Absolutely nothing. Not a poster. Nothing. Life gave the appearance of going on as it has always done.

I was going to say that the charming small town we usually stay near, an hour north of Avignon, has not changed in two decades, but that statement is not true. Immigration is changing the demographic make-up of the town and a wave of building up the hill – holiday homes for the affluent from the north, I assume – is stretching the boundaries of the place and making it much busier, more prosperous in its way, and a little less charming.

This is Le Pen country now, as is so much of France. The voters are rebelling against change, against this erosion of the familiar and the uncomfortable feelings of concern this induces. The modern world moves so fast and can look ugly.

For visitors there are still ways to experience old France. We found a few of them and ate and drank well.

What I’m reading

From holiday I’m finishing James Kaplan’s 3 Shades of Blue, a magnificent evocation of jazz building to one of its great creative peaks and poignant decline. Even if you hate jazz – and I like it a lot, and somehow even more the older I get – the storytelling is of such a high quality that you feel you were there, in the jazz clubs and the recording studios with Charlie Parker, Miles Davis, John Coltrane, Bill Evans and the wider cast of jazz luminaries, infiltrated by a fair few hucksters and drug dealers.

If I embark on writing another book (and I have a subject in mind, a completely different subject in mind) Kaplan’s is the style of narrative history, of cultural history, I’d like to try. So, let’s see.

I hope you’re having a good weekend, if you are a candidate who was defeated on Thursday, or a disappointed activist, or weary journalist, or weary reader, or irate voter, or thrilled Labour supporter, or happy Unionist, or person given the difficult task of vetting the next round of candidates for Nigel Farage’s Reform party. Whoever you are, rest well. The next five years are going to be interesting.

Iain Martin

Editor, Reaction