I think whoever is in power has an absolutely mammoth task ahead of them. Labour are clearly a shoe-in to win the next election but to me they hardly inspire confidence. The best I can say about them is that they are not tories.
I remain unconvinced they are a shoe in, they may be the biggest party but I still don't see them getting a majority, never underestimate the Schroedinger Tories which are presently moaning like fuck about everything being shit, but then will quietly vote Tory come a GE to keep the commies out.
Also worth bearing mind that in both cases last night if Reform hadn't stood and their votes remained with the Tories the Tories would have retained the seat, so no doubt a deal will be done before the next election to get Farage and Tice into the Lords and stand down their Reform candidates.
Edit - Plus also worth noting that in Tamworth Britain First, an offshoot of the BNP and considered by come to be a neo-fascist party finished 4th of 9 candidates, with 580 votes (2.3%) getting more votes then the Liberal Democrats, the Green party and UKIP.
I have no expectation of the country under Labour immediately becoming Elysium, but it at least feels like they'd try and improve things a bit, which the current government seem to have entirely given up on in favour of just picking fights over moronic shit.
Pretty much this, I honestly don't give a toss whatever colour rosette the party is wearing, just a government that at least gave the vague impression of giving a shit about all of the population, and didn't appear to have as its sole objective to be cruel to certain parts of society whilst making the already extremely wealthy and specifically and blatantly their donors more wealthy would be a massive step forward in UK politics from the present situation.
Looking at the stats, the actually Labour vote didn't really increase since their defeats at the last GE. The Tory vote just didn't turn up. Not a great place for a democracy when someone comes into power due to mass apathy/sense of disenfranchisement.
By-election turnouts are notoriously low and especially in Nadine's old constituency they Tory vote was just royally fucked off. Possibly as interesting data to look at is the changes in proportion of the votes cast.
The interesting thing will be what the parties do now, I actually think Uxbridge despite being a loss, was a big help for Labour as it set the Tories off on this #waronmotorists shtick which it seems is isn't the vote winner they think it is, now I see the Tories are coming out saying they think that people are still thinking they are doing things right, which suggests that the veering even further right will continue?
So Labour will come into power not because they are Labour but because they are neither the Tories nor the SNP.
Indeed much like the Tories got into power with a massive majority in 2019 mainly just for not being Jeremy Corbyn.