It’s not so much a matter of what’s happened as what’s to be done about it. Remedies are churning out on an industrial scale, and there are at least as many opinions as there are people. Because, as our Political Correspondent Peter Spencer reports, no one’s really winning.
Of course Reform’s Nigel Farage is hailing his historic victories. But they were a glorified protest vote, because what he’s actually leading is The Grumpy Party.
Not hard to see where and why it’s all gone so horribly wrong for Labour, the Tories and the nation. That last is the worst bit, though of course he’ll never admit to his role in it.
It goes all the way back to the banking crisis of 2008, brought about by American spivs breaking the rules and nearly bringing the world economy to its knees.
Tempting to contemplate the unhappy sense that history might be about to repeat itself, but that’s another story.
To stick with the aftermath of the first calamity, though the then Prime Minister Gordon Brown played an extremely skilful hand it did happen on his watch, and it cost him his job.
With an eye to the threat posed by Nigel Farage’s anti-Europe outfit, the incoming Tory PM David Cameron promised the Brexit referendum. Losing that cost him his job too.
That momentous move has also cost the UK a fortune. Estimates vary between two and six per cent of our overall wealth, while some put the figure at a hundred and forty billion pounds.
Meantime, Cameron’s Chancellor had started trying to repair the damage inflicted by the global meltdown via an austerity programme which many now argue was too heavy handed.
The upshot being years and years of make do and mend, with just about every public service crumbling and shambolic.
Local authorities were particularly hard hit, losing nearly half of the top-up funding they got from Whitehall. Little wonder they can’t afford to sort the potholes in the roads.
But that just for starters. Rape victims are having to wait up to seven years for their court hearings, prisons are bursting at the seams, and schools and hospitals are in dire disrepair.
All this, of course, on the Tories’ watch. No great surprise then that they got booted out at the last election. Also no great surprise that it’ll take Starmer years to make much difference.
Arguably he too made a mistake in keeping a promise. In his case, undertaking not to increase the main ways of raising the extra taxes vital to putting things right.
Instead he and his Chancellor ducked and weaved, making high-profile enemies wherever they tried. Prime examples being pensioners’ winter fuel allowance and disabled people’s benefits.
Which brings us to where we are now. Labour duly got its landslide victory last July, but with a support base that was as wide and shallow as the Thames in the middle ages.
Basically, the outcome was the voters’ way of telling the Tories to do one.
And the snapshot of their mood provided by last week’s town hall, mayoral and by elections suggests they’ve now got it in for Labour as well.
Think Mercutio here. Because getting caught up in the feud between Romeo’s and Juliet’s families was going to kill him you can’t blame him for saying: ‘A plague o’ both your houses.’
Hence Nigel Farage’s big moment. And you can’t blame him either, for revelling in the thought that he’s managed to stick a knife in both the Labour and Tory families.
There’s no denying that, having waited for years and years, he looks to be switching from a glorified one-man band to the leader of a Reform party that can actually do things.
What exactly, or even vaguely, however, remains a bit of a mystery.
All very well attuning with, and capitalising on, the widespread view that the main parties are as rubbish as one another. Taking their place would put him in the firing line instead.
All very well also having a good old grumble about immigrants – one of his candidates went so far as to suggest taking potshots at their dinghies – but that doesn’t cut hospital waiting lists.
That contestant’s egregiously vile idea, alongside another’s defence of the Southport rioters, is indicative of a second pitfall Farage knows he’s got to avoid.
With just a handful of MPs and no local powerbase he was well placed to control his own narrative. Not any more.
Nonetheless, the potency of his new threat has got the parties that more or less had the field to themselves flailing in all directions in their struggle to neutralise it.
It’s a particularly brutal wake-up call for the Tories for two reasons.
The councils they’ve lost were always vulnerable because when these seats were last contested they were on a high in the polls, so the only way was down.
But the second, perhaps more important factor, is that their leader Kemi Badenoch just hasn’t cut it. Either with the punters or her own MPs.
Which is why the hardly very subtle manoeuvring by those who’re gagging to take her place can only intensify in coming weeks and months.
Then there’s the subtext of whether they should cut their losses and team up with Farage. That way they’d scoop up his millions of supporters and pose a real threat to Labour.
Problem there being who gobbles up whom?
Farage really fancies the idea of becoming the next Prime Minister in his own right, hence his hubristic refusal to countenance any kind of deal, at least at national level.
But he’s nobody’s fool. So taking over leadership of, say, a newly rebranded ‘Reformative Party’ could just be a price worth paying for the keys to Number Ten.
Conservative Campaign Headquarters isn’t peopled by complete idiots either, so it’s within the bounds of possibility that a revamped ‘Conservatorm Party’ could work for them.
Certainly, the very idea of either of these options turning into reality is enough to give Starmer the collywobbles.
Not that there’s any particular reason to suppose a bulging, leaking, right-wing battleship would sail into a happy harbour and make everything better for everyone.
But it’s hard to escape the conclusion that it’d blow his much smaller boat into the murky deeps.
At last year’s general election the voters opted not for whom they most loved but whom they least hated. Under this scenario there’d be more of them to hate Labour. It’s that simple.
But Starmer does at least have a few years left to turn his lofty promises into tangible reality.
Houses getting built, health services improving, schools performing better, more effective justice. Perhaps even greater prosperity.
It all takes time, nifty management and, face it, a reasonable helping of good luck.
So far there hasn’t been much evidence of that last bit, given the multitudinous threats emanating from the court of King Trump. Which brings us back to where we started.
Yes, voters who were heartily sick of the last lot don’t think the new mob’s much better. So yes, in poll after poll Reform come out on top. And yes, Thursday’s results proved the point.
Three cheers for the None-of-the-above Party then. Can’t make things much worse.
The only problem being that that proposition’s every bit as dodgy as every other calculation being made – both by those in office and by those charged with putting them there.
Watch Peter’s report at peterspencer.org
Peter Spencer has 40 years experience as a Political Correspondent in Westminster, working with London Broadcasting and Sky News. For more of his fascinating musings on the turbulent political landscape, follow him on Facebook & Twitter.