Poll bloodbath? Tis but a scratch insist the Tories

"The people have spoken - the bastards," would-be senator Dick Tuck notoriously remarked after being trounced. But at least he was paying attention. By contrast, the UK electorate yelled their heads off in towns and cities, and a parade of senior Conservatives responded by putting their fingers in their ears and singing "la la la".

- JOE MURPHY

Phase one of Rishi Sunak's big fightback began when the ballot boxes were opened, revealing an unmistakably odorous message from voters. However, phase one seemed to borrow from Theresa May's 2017 election ploy of pretending nothing has changed. "These results are typical for a government in midterm," la-lahed party chair Richard Holden, a sponge of a man tasked with soaking up all the mockery and taunts on the morning media round. Midterm? After four and a half years, three prime ministers, umpteen sleaze scandals and five byelections with 20-plus point swings against the government, normal folk might conclude this is not a sticky patch, but the ghastly fag end of a particularly grotesque parliament.

Holden the Human Sponge breezed "it's early days" as Labour seized back Hartlepool and won Blackpool South by a landslide, while the Reform Party sucked away blue-collar votes in key battlegrounds. "Tis but a scratch," Monty Python's Black Knight would have agreed.