Spare a thought for the losers and their ritual humiliation

The brutality of democracy is rarely expressed more eloquently than on election night. As I experienced myself, when I lost my seat in 2015, one minute you’re a tribune of the people, a leader in your community, a champion of your party. The next, it all evaporates and you’re a private citizen again.

Losing your job is always a traumatic and unpleasant experience. For politicians, we ensure it’s much, much worse. First of all, we force you to stand on a raised platform, so that everyone in the counting hall can get a good look at you as you wait for the result to be announced. And we make sure you’re isolated – don’t dare try to take your party supporters or even your partner up there with you. You think the Romans would have been content to allow the Christians to wear body armour as they entered the arena for the lions’ lunch time?

No, you must stand with the people who stood against you, including the person who has just beaten you, the person who will be heading to London next week in the first-class train seat that, until a few minutes ago, had your name on it. The person who, by a process of counting bits of paper, had just proved mathematically that people like him more than they like you.

Is that all? Is that where the public humiliation ends? Ha! If only.

Next you have to become a master of body language, to make sure that while all those eyes are focused on you, you give no appearance of being a sore loser. You must listen graciously to the words of your nemesis, perhaps even nod and smile self-deprecatingly. You must applaud along with his or her own supporters. And then you must step up to the microphone yourself and try to convince everyone watching that it’s really no big deal, that you saw it coming, that the voters are always right and you’re really grateful for the years they’ve given you.

You must not, above all else, say what’s actually going through your mind. There might be children watching, after all.

Can it get any worse? But of course!

Because we televise it. We beam your humiliation, already taking place in front of hordes of gleeful opponents, live into the living-rooms of millions of people, so that voters up and down the country can enjoy your downfall. The same cameras will probably intercept you as you finally descend from the platform, and reporters will ask that most inane of election night questions, “How do you feel?” This is where gritted teeth come in most useful.

And then it’s posted permanently to the internet, so that future generations can enjoy your big night too.

So whatever side you voted for on Thursday, spare a thought, show some human compassion for those who left their local counts denuded of public office. These are people who, however much you may have disagreed with them, served their constituents and their parties. That’s a brave and a hard thing to do. The public humiliation is inevitable and fierce. Our gratitude should be as freely given.

The biggest political scalp claimed in Scotland on Thursday night belonged to Alex Salmond, former SNP leader and First Minister. Alex is a hero to the entire nationalist movement and came closer than most people anticipated to severing the 300-year-old Union back in 2014.

But Salmond, despite his separatist aspirations, is a London-phile. He adores the social life and the buzz of the Imperial Capital and needed no persuasion to return to the Commons once he realised his term as First Minister at Holyrood had come to an end. So why not offer him a comfortable berth in the Palace of Westminster where he has felt so at home since he was first elected as an MP in 1987? Sure, his party is absolutely opposed to the House of Lords and refuses to nominate candidates for ennoblement. But who could blame Alex for accepting a gracious offer of ermine, were one to be made? And the fury and confusion that would subsequently engulf the SNP would provide hours of popcorn-related entertainment.

One of the most resilient British political traditions is the one where, after every defeat, parts of the Labour Party start calling for electoral reform. The issue will be particularly heated and paradoxical this time. In 2005, Tony Blair won 355 seats on 36 per cent of the vote – a comfortable majority. In 2017 Jeremy Corbyn took his party to 40 per cent – 3 per cent more than David Cameron won two years ago – but only got 261 seats. Yet with a significant move back towards two-party politics, the appetite for scrapping first-past-the-post will be smaller than ever.