Labour down and out (and no way back).

I woke up feeling as sick as when I went to bed. Actually, I felt even worse. I am still shocked by the BBC exit poll that told a completely different story to every single opinion poll we had seen for the entire duration of the election campaign. I retired in the early hours with the awful prospect of a minority Tory government and I woke to the nightmare in Downing Street of an outright Tory majority.

The Tories have secured 36% of the popular vote but that will enable them to govern the whole country, including the 64% who didn’t vote for them, until 2020. Is that really democracy? Well, it’s the democracy we choose and if Labour had won on a similar lack of mandate, I’d probably be popping the Australian Sparkling wine all night. No one was arguing for electoral reform in this election so no one can really complain at the way it turned out. It certainly won’t happen now.

Why did Labour lose so badly? A number of reasons, really. Many people could not ever imagine Ed Miliband as Prime Minister, there was no clear and overriding message or theme to Labour’s campaign, Ukip has eaten deeply into Labour’s vote around the country, the Lib Dem vote has collapsed, many people in England were concerned by the thought of a Labour/SNP coalition and enough people stuck with what they knew.

There is no doubt that this was a terrible night for Labour. They’re finishing some four points below where the polls were showing them to be. We can complain about the fact that the Tories had more money than Labour, we can moan about the vicious anti-Labour campaign run by Rupert Murdoch, Lord Rothermere and the rest of the right wing press and we can argue that the BBC gave up on impartiality early in the campaign, but it’s much more than that. Let’s be clear: for all the anti-Labour smears and lies Labour attracts from the press, I do not believe it made that much difference. Put simply, Labour has lost its way, it failed to put across a coherent strategy the British people could buy into.

Of course, I dread the next five years as I dreaded the last. I fear that by 2020 we will no longer have an NHS free at the point of delivery, public services will be torn apart, the gap between the rich and poor will grow still greater. That’s what the Tories stand for and Labour did not convince sufficient people that they were a viable alternative. I would always vote Labour, even if my local candidate was a monkey wearing a Labour rosette, but not everyone is as tribal as me! Those of independent spirit need a reason to vote Labour and for too many people they didn’t have one.

There are slim pickings in the good news department. The odious Esther McVey lost her seat, Danny Alexander lost his, as did numerous other Lib Dem useful idiots, who richly deserve their return to obscurity. And, having attracted a large number of protest votes, the racists and bigots of Ukip have passed their high water mark, returning to the distant fringes of politics.

In terms of policy and how the country is run, I see little change ahead. The coalition governed from the right so a Tory overall majority will in reality make little difference. The next two years will see Cameron make the “difficult” decisions, meaning huge cuts to government departments just as we expected. We all knew this would happen in the event of a Tory majority government and that’s what 36% of the electorate has voted for.

Ed Miliband did his best but it wasn’t good enough, Nick Clegg did his worst and he has almost destroyed the Liberal Democratic Party. Tough.

The future will take care of its self but barring a political miracle, I see nothing but a future of Conservative Party governments. Labour cannot win without Scotland and Labour has lost Scotland, quite possibly forever. It’s a grim prospect, but I am steeling myself for a difficult future for ordinary working people.

When it came right down to it, Labour wasn’t up to it. They had no vision for the voters to buy into and there was little to persuade the undecided voters to change the direction of the country.

I despise the Conservative Party and all it stands for, but they have remembered to win elections for the first time since 1992. I can’t bring myself to congratulate them with any real sincerity but they won it, not Rupert Murdoch, and was Labour that lost it. But with the results in England and Scotland, the Dirty Digger will be a very happy man today.