What the commentators said

“What went right, then,” asked Ed West in The Spectator. The Tories have achieved a 17-point lead among working-class voters, even though they’ve squeezed health and education spending and can’t offer much by way of “optimism and charisma”. The answer can hardly lie with “Mayism”, said Philip Stephens in the FT. Since May arrived in Downing Street, we’ve learnt almost nothing about her, except the “disdain she feels for Cameron and his coterie of rich chums”. The only reason she appears unbeatable, said Andrew Rawnsley in The Observer, is the “paucity of the competition provided by a Labour leadership that combines unelectable hardleftism with utter ineptness”. The Lib Dems are also less than formidable, said George Eaton in the New Statesman. Their leader, Tim Farron, had hoped that by playing the anti-brexit card he could attract the 48% who voted Remain. But “the 48% no longer exist”. Polls show that 69% of voters – more than a third of whom voted Remain – now believe the Government has a duty to leave the EU. Being anti-brexit is not a vote winner.

But being Theresa May is, said Charles Moore in The Daily Telegraph. She may be the Oxford-educated wife of a “prosperous City man”, but it’s clear from the election results she “goes down big” in the West Midlands. She has persuaded voters that she’s both a “bloody difficult woman” and a “decent and straightforward” one. As a result, she’s now more popular even than her own party, with approval ratings of 49%. She seems on her way to achieving her “most daring objective”, the revival of working-class conservatism, said Matthew d’ancona in The Guardian. My worry now is that all those former UKIP voters may drag the Tories back to the right, alienating the more moderate supporters wooed by Cameron. “Beating UKIP should not in any sense mean becoming UKIP.”