Socialism is no longer shameful

But Labour still must learn to win

Labour Leader Jeremy Corbyn leaves Labour Headquarters on Friday A triumphant Jeremy Corbyn said politics had changed, as he spoke in his constituency on the morning after the election.

He’s right. But how has it changed?

For a start, this talk about Mr Corbyn’s leadership will end. Labour MPs won’t dare move against him now – even if some of them haven’t changed their views about him in private.

Left wing politics is back. It’s no longer a shameful secret to believe in socialism.

Labour didn’t win this election. But it made gains, and proved that you can do that on fullblooded leftwing manifesto.

The Conservatives appear set to get a new leader. Just two years after former Prime Minister David Cameron destroyed his career by choosing to hold a vote which he lost, Theresa May has done the same.

And the Conservative Party now looks like something of a shambles, again.

It was easy to forget that from around 1989 to 2005, the Tory party was a chaotic mess riven by splits. Its general election campaign in 2001 in particular was a joke.

In recent years, it’s Labour that’s looked chaotic. Now, the boot is on the other foot.

It’s unclear whether Brexit will change.

Some people think voters turned against the all Conservatives because they opposed Theresa May’s plans for a “hard Brexit”.

But Labour and the Conservatives have roughly the same policies on Brexit.

They both want to leave the single market and end freedom of movement.

One big change is that we’ve lost some of the big hitters of British politics.

So it’s farewell, for example, to Nick Clegg, the former Lib Dem leader. He lost his seat.

And another thing that may have changed is that people might stop trusting the views of experts, when it comes to politics.

The political establishment – the experts, the media and most politicians – have got it wrong time after time.

They thought Theresa May would get the landslide win she wanted. Even Labour politicians thought this. They were wrong. But it’s happened before – when Donald Trump was elected president, and when the UK voted to leave the EU.

Politics is changing in a way that people who think they know it all just don’t seem to understand.

A word of caution. Labour lost the election, in terms of seats and share of the vote.

If Labour really wants to change Britain, it still needs to find a way to win a general election.