BLUE HEAVEN
Conservative majority 80 or more
Shock factor: 6
This would be the best result for the Tories in the 30 years that have passed since Margaret Thatcher won a third term with a triple-digit majority in 1987. Comparisons between the Iron Lady and Theresa May will revive. The airwaves will thrum to Tory MPs saying: “I always had confidence in the prime minister.”
Often these would be the same Tories who had spent the time up until 8 June briefing journalists that an awful campaign had exposed her weaknesses as a leader.
A thumping majority gives May the scope to conduct a ruthless reshuffle of the government. That could be ominous for several members of the cabinet, including one or both of Philip Hammond and Boris Johnson.
She would also be liberated to stare down Tory resistance to her domestic agenda and pursue whatever course she chose in the Brexit negotiations, for good or ill.
This will have been another crushing night for the Lib Dems. After a campaign in which improvements in Labour’s poll ratings raised the hopes of pro-Corbyn activists, there will be deep shock to discover that their party has done excruciatingly badly. Calls from the party’s surviving MPs for Jeremy Corbyn to go and go immediately will be deafening
Source: The Observer 4 June
