As local election results were tallied yesterday all sides claimed victory but none truly deserved to. The winners were not the parties but two individuals, Ruth Davidson and Sadiq Khan, whose local victories will have national implications.
For all the confidence of Jeremy Corbyn’s supporters that a radical left-wing programme is a path to power, Labour did disastrously in Scotland while Ms Davidson made history by leading the Conservatives into second place behind the Scottish National Party. Mr Khan made history, too. He is not just London’s first Muslim mayor. At a stroke he has become the most prominent Labour moderate in the country.
Scottish politics has been unbalanced for the entire period of devolution. All the dominant Scottish parties have been in favour of a bigger state, more spending and more regulation. Thursday’s elections have not transformed Scotland but, with Ms Davidson’s replacement of Labour’s Kezia Dugdale as the main opposition leader, a more normal and healthy politics might emerge.
With twice as many MSPs as she had on Wednesday, Ms Davidson also has more parliamentary privileges and more standing in the media. She should be able to lead the charge against nationalist failures on schools, hospitals and the economy. She can present an alternative path to growth and social justice that does not inevitably mean a raid on taxpayers’ earnings.
Her triumph is a very personal one. The word “Conservative” hardly appeared on any of her party’s literature and David Cameron played no role in the campaign. Her pugnacious but chatty style, her stout defence of the Union and her support for lower taxes, education reform and a better deal for the low-paid helped the Tories achieve their best result in Scotland since 1992. Downing Street could learn from her, as Mr Corbyn could from Mr Khan.
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Although this newspaper thought Zac Goldsmith was the better candidate to succeed Boris Johnson, it is welcome that a Muslim has achieved high office. At a time when a presumptive American presidential nominee is tarnishing all Muslims with the brush of extremism, the decision of Londoners to put Mr Khan in City Hall should improve community relations.
His win was not a win for Mr Corbyn. Far from it. The new mayor of London was careful throughout the campaign to distance himself from the Labour leader, whom he nominated in the middle of last year. He, like Labour’s re-elected first minister of Wales, Carwyn Jones, now has a responsibility to demonstrate that a moderate, reform-minded Labour party is still alive. They must be the keepers of a sensible left of centre politics even as Mr Corbyn appears to be consolidating his grip on his party’s leadership.
Herein lies the great irony of these elections. Partly because of Mr Khan’s victory, the biggest losers are Labour’s other moderates. By taking the London mayoralty and holding councils in Southampton, Crawley, Harlow and other important districts where losses had been anticipated, Mr Corbyn can claim to have done well enough to justify staggering on.
In reality he has underperformed Michael Foot, Iain Duncan Smith, Ed Miliband and every other doomed opposition leader of modern times. Although most Labour MPs know that only a new leader can hope to win the 2020 general election, tens of thousands of members who have joined their party since Mr Corbyn’s election do not share that opinion. These activists have joined because they support Mr Corbyn’s extreme economic and social views.
It is an unhappy situation for democracy. Mr Cameron’s government might perform better if, as is now true in Scotland, a rational and plausible opposition held power to account.