Uk politics

There wasn't much pomp around today's Queen's Speech, despite the fact that this second speech of the autumn is the one that will actually get delivered. With a majority, Boris Johnson is able to say confidently that his government is going to introduce all the policies listed in the Speech and that they will pass too. This means that the government can transmit its key messages for the voters it has just won over without fear that its own MPs will scupper those policies before they have a chance to be implemented. In his introduction to the speech, Johnson writes: 'I am humbled by the trust millions of voters placed in this government last week. The work to repay that trust starts here.' And it's a weighty list of policies, too.

Boris Johnson and Jeremy Corbyn have just faced one another in the Commons for the first time in this new Parliament, though it is highly unlikely to be the last. The pair were responding to the election of the new Speaker, Lindsay Hoyle, and both chose to use their statements to make a few remarks about the election itself. Naturally, Johnson was greeted with a huge cheer from his MPs when he rose, and told the Speaker that 'I mean absolutely no disrespect to those who are no longer with us - but I think this Parliament is a vast improvement on its predecessor'. He then promised that 'this Parliament is not going to waste the time of the nation in deadlock and division and delay', and that on Friday MPs would vote on the Withdrawal Agreement Bill.

With a majority of 80, Boris Johnson has his pick when it comes to forming his new look government. However, for now the Prime Minister is contenting himself with a mere minor reshuffle – with plans for a wide-ranging reshuffle in the new year. Today he has filled vacancies in his Cabinet made from MPs standing down, resigning or losing their seat. Simon Hart has been appointed Secretary of State for Wales replacing Alun Cairns who stood down from the role in November over allegations that a former aide sabotaged a rape trial. Hart – the MP for Carmarthen West and South Pembrokeshire – entered parliament in 2010 and is well-liked across the party.

Parliament returns tomorrow - without 47 of the people who were MPs just a few weeks ago. Some, like those standing as independents, had a pretty good hunch that they'd be booted out by the electorate on Thursday. Others had less notice, and realised only as the campaign wore on that their constituencies, many of which had been solidly Labour for decades, were turning away from them. Many of them will be in Westminster in the next few days to clear out their offices and make their staff redundant. You can usually tell the difference between a re-elected MP and one of their colleagues who lost as you watch them walk through the corridors of parliament.

‘If Darlington high street isn’t visibly better in four years’ time, we’ll be in trouble’, one of Boris Johnson’s confidants told me the other day. Boris Johnson and his team are, as I say in The Sun this morning, acutely away that if they are going to make Thursday night’s electoral shift permanent then they are going to have to deliver for those places that swung to the Tories in this election. Part of Boris Johnson’s answer will be improving the infrastructure serving these places. In his interview with The Spectator during the campaign, he indicated that he was going to rip up the Treasury’s rules on capital spending to ensure that more gets built outside of London and the South East.

Labour’s defeat is so terrible that it provides the kind of creative destruction that could save the party. It will be extremely difficult for the Corbynites to argue with much authority that one more push or slightly nicer newspapers would have got them over the line when the party hasn’t had a result this bad since 1935. But does the failure of Jeremy Corbyn necessarily mean that the ‘moderates’ in the party are going to be able to rescue it? In 2015, centre-left Labour MPs were confident that the members were so bruised by what they’d heard on the doorstep that they would happily elect a leader who took the party back to the middle ground of politics.

The two stand-out moments of the campaign? 1) Jeremy Corbyn refusing to say sorry to the Jewish community, in Andrew Neil’s BBC interview, for the hurt and anxiety he caused by failing for years to eliminate anti-Semitism from the Labour party. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0oB2OcXAjSc 2) Boris Johnson’s refusal to look at a picture of a four-year-old with suspected pneumonia lying on the floor of Leeds General Infirmary, which ITV News' Joe Pike tried to show him on his phone, and then Johnson’s pocketing of Pike’s phone. https://twitter.com/itvcalendar?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw Each leader showed a wilful refusal to take personal responsibility for the consequences of their respective party’s actions.

When the first YouGov MRP poll of the election campaign was published last month, it was a cause of anxiety in Conservative Campaign Headquarters. The projection of a Tory majority of 68 was seen as overly optimistic – and there were concerns that it could lead to complacency in the polling booth. The second – and final – YouGov MRP poll of the election campaign does not carry the same baggage. With two days to go until polling day, it now suggests the Tories are on course for a small majority of 28. Were the election held tomorrow, YouGov forecasts that the Conservatives would win 339 seats with Labour on 231, the Lib Dems on 15 and the SNP on 41. The previous MRP poll had Labour losing 44 seats to the Conservatives – this has now been reduced to 29.

John McDonnell was insisting this morning that Labour was going to win a majority, but just in case, insiders are suggesting that the Shadow Chancellor is planning to take over as interim leader if Jeremy Corbyn resigns after a general election defeat. McDonnell has long championed Rebecca Long-Bailey as a future leader, and there is speculation that he could install her as his shadow chancellor in order to boost her credentials. This explains why those around Corbyn were so keen to try to abolish Tom Watson as deputy leader in September. They tried to force a rule change at the party's ruling National Executive Committee meeting which would scrap the post.

Believe it or not, there was yet another televised election debate tonight, this time on Channel 4, called the 'Everything But Brexit' debate. The Tories had refused to take part, and while their decision will have been partly down to their ongoing battle with the broadcaster, which they have accused of being biased, they will also have viewed tonight's programme as an opportunity for them to make their central election pitch without even turning up. This debate worked in the Conservatives' favour because it was chaotic, with the representatives of the five parties who did turn up constantly talking and even shouting over each other and the presenter Cathy Newman. At times it sounded like a school playground at the end of term when everyone is tired, including the teacher.

There are, as I say in the Sun this morning, two possible outcomes to this election: a Tory majority or a hung parliament. The seats where Labour are now concentrating their resources show that they don’t think they can win outright. Instead, their hopes rest on stopping Boris Johnson from getting to 326 seats. Right now, the Tories are on course for a majority. I understand that their own internal numbers indicate a working majority. But these margins are very fine, and victory could slip away if voters don’t turn out. If Boris Johnson does win a majority next week, it will be because he has presented himself as change. Not just the person who can break the deadlock, but a leader with a different agenda to the one that the Tories have had these last nine years.