May needs support to get on with her job

THERE is no hiding from the truth. This was a dreadful night for Theresa May and the Conservatives nationally.

When the dust settles, it will also become clear that it was a grim night for Labour, too, since the result has entrenched an extremist leader whose views affront millions of decent Britons.

Indeed, the return of two-party politics means any hope of a responsible Opposition of the centre-Left has been killed off for the foreseeable future.

That said, it was far from the worst possible result. We will not have to endure, thank God, the nightmare of terroristsympathising, economically illiterate Marxists in 10 and 11 Downing Street.

That is due in no small measure to the enormous success of Ruth Davidson’s Scottish Tories.

Had it not been for the huge inroads they made into the SNP, felling big names including Alex Salmond and securing 13 seats, it would have been Jeremy Corbyn at Buckingham Palace yesterday.

Miss Davidson’s Tories have jolted Nicola Sturgeon out of her complacent assumption that Scots are clamouring for Indyref 2. Tory gains have put her plans for another referendum to the sword.

But short of the calamity of a hard-Left coalition of chaos, the inescapable truth is that the overall result shows Mrs May’s gamble has failed spectacularly.

It puts her at the mercy of Northern Ireland’s Democratic Unionists and Tory malcontents.

The party went to the country on a flawed manifesto, drawn up by a clique of advisers at No 10, committed to vote-losing policies including a free Commons vote on foxhunting.

With hindsight, it is also clear that it was a mistake for the campaign to focus so intensely on Mrs May herself.

As for Mr Corbyn’s strong showing – astonishing for an extremist-fringe politician, so clearly unfit for high office – there is a depressing explanation for this, too.

The fact is that he offered some of the biggest electoral bribes in history, making lavish promises of non-existent cash to pensioners, public sector employees and workers on the minimum wage.

He also bribed the gullible young by pledging to write off tens of billions of pounds in existing student debt.

Though criminally irresponsible and unaffordable, these empty promises lured teenagers and twentysomethings to the polling stations in unprecedented numbers.

Because of their youth, such voters have no memory of the bloodthirsty atrocities of the IRA, whose cause Mr Corbyn and his crony John McDonnell so sickeningly championed. Nor do they remember the economic meltdown of the 1970s, when overmighty unions ruled the roost, cheered on by the pair of them.

Regrettably, Labour also owes much to the blatant bias of the country’s chief source of news, the BBC. During last year’s referendum, the Corporation showed commendable balance. In this election, it reverted to Left-leaning type, letting Mr Corbyn off the hook time and time again.

Not only did it fail to hold him properly to account over the madness of spending plans that simply didn’t add up. It even imposed a virtual news blackout on his past links with terrorist groups.

Most distastefully, the BBC appeared to side with Labour in blaming the outrages in Manchester and at London Bridge on cuts in police numbers, while casting a veil over the fact that Mrs May has increased the manpower of anti-terrorist officers.

But despite her sharp setback on Thursday, this paper remains convinced she is the right woman for the job. With the public heartily sick of elections, it is the clear duty of all responsible MPs to give her the support she needs to govern effectively.

And Ruth Davidson has put Miss Sturgeon on notice that her fixation with another bid to break up the UK must be shelved.