After the local elections, we all know which way the political wind is now blowing

Keir Starmer arrived in 10 Downing Street just over 10 months ago with one of the largest majorities ever recorded in a general election. Out of 650 seats, his Labour party won 411. The Tories scraped in with 121 and the Lib Dems snatched 72.

This was certainly a seismic result, albeit on one of the lowest turnouts in recent times. Less than 60% of eligible voters bothered to vote, which in itself is massively significant. To put this in context, Labour won only 33.7% of the vote, with half a million fewer votes than they’d amassed in 2019.

What all these statistics mean is that Labour’s majority is a mile wide and an inch deep. Very few former Tory voters actually switched to Labour (no doubt because they knew what a Labour government would mean), millions of former Tories simply didn’t vote and quite a few voted for the Tory default party otherwise known as Ed Davey’s Lib Dems. And as we know all too well, Reform led by Nigel Farage won five seats and was already the third largest party by votes.

Fast forward from 4 July and the picture is very different. Half of the voting public think Starmer is doing a bad job, with only 20% approving. Reform are now at just below 30% in most polls, with Labour in second place and the Tories in third. Farage’s party won the Runcorn parliamentary seat from Labour and while by a tiny margin, it was still Labour’s 16^th safest seat.

In short, in pure statistical terms, the odds are against Labour winning the next election. It is no guarantee, of course, but the government is in such difficulty on so many fronts that it is hard to see how they can recover public confidence.

There is huge dissatisfaction among labour MPs on a whole host of issues ranging from the botched winter fuel payment debacle to the plans for welfare reform, control of legal migration and the patent inability to do anything about the greatest number ever of boats arriving from France. Smashing the gangs has got nowhere and is now widely ridiculed with no alternative on the horizon.

Add in the damage caused by ‘Rachel from Accounts’ over increasing employers’ national insurance contributions, leading to a huge backlash from businesses of every size from supermarket chains to hairdressers, and the utterly ludicrous decision to scrap non domiciled status leading to the biggest departure of wealth in the UK for decades, and it’s hard to see where recovery will come from.

Meanwhile, Kemi Badenoch is having a hard time at the hands of her own party, some of whose nuttier right wingers are already complaining that she is not topping the polls, appearing not to recognise the scale of public aversion to the party after more than a decade of rudderless and incompetent government under her five predecessors. And Ed Davey, who ought to have resigned in shame after the way he betrayed the post office owners, thinks doing silly stunts is the way to electoral success.

So, if Starmer and co are in terminal decline, the Tories are years away from recovery and the Lib Dems are going nowhere, the real question is: who will be the next occupant of 10 Downing Street?

I offer just this. If Nigel Farage polls 30% or more in the coming months, and he’s very close to that already, then first past the post works for him. He is taking seats from Tories and Labour alike. Make of that what you will, but that is where the dial is now pointing. The next 10 months will be the real pointer to where the UK is headed come the end of the decade.