Jeremy Corbyn's biggest failure
The worst Labour result since 1935 - but is there a worse metric we can judge it by?
Until 2019, there was a century-long pattern in UK general elections.
It went something like this: upon entering government, the winning party could, in subsequent elections, increase the total number of seats they held - but once they started to lose seats, they would continue to do so until the opposition party took over. The cycle would then begin again.
We can examine the Conservatives’ last period in power as an example.
Prior to entering government in 1979, the party held 277 seats. Following that election, they were ushered into power with 339 seats (a modest majority of 44).
The total number of Conservative seats went up again in 1983, increasing their majority to an impressive 144. However, that was their peak - and having been reached, they would continue to lose seats in subsequent elections until the substantial reduction from 1992 to 1997, when Labour came into government with a huge majority of 179.
Once the descent had begun, there was no coming back - what comes up must come down, as the saying goes - and this pattern had been a consistent feature of UK politics since the 1920s when, after a loss of seats in the 1923 election, Stanley Baldwin’s Conservative government won seats back the following year without a period in opposition.
A consistent pattern, that is, until the most recent election. Having done surprisingly well against low expectations two years before, Labour went on to lose seats without a period of serving in government.
The 2019 Labour campaign headed by Corbyn is largely remembered for being the party’s worst electoral performance since 1935. The arguably greater failure was to reverse what had until then seemed like an inevitable swing of political power for the first time in almost a century.