Meanwhile over in the UK...

So what happened in the UK last night? 8 short weeks ago pundits were talking about a 100+ Tory seat gain and how Labour under Corbyn was completely unelectable and was facing the largest Conservative Landslide since Thatcher.... Well a number of things happened. The first is Theresa May honestly thought that she and the Conservatives could just coast to a victory on Jeremy Corbyn's unpopularity. The Torys didn't run FOR anything as much as they just ran AGAINST Corbyn. The Prime Minister's decision to not participate in any actual face to face debates just reinforced the idea that the Conservatives were a bunch of arrogant, out of touch twits who just assumed people would vote them in because there wasn't really any other choice.... Oops.

Then there is Brexit. Which didn't mean what most people outside the UK think it did. The conservative defeat is not a vote of Brexit Remorse,  as much as it was a vote against the Tory loony toon back benchers idea that a "hard Brexit" would be some sort of expression of British power and resolve. Instead of what it really would be; Economic Suicide.  The Government has never articulated a clear or even moderately coherent plan for Brexit other than the Prime Minister saying she would be a "Bloody Difficult Woman" to deal with in the negotiations .

Funny how voters didn't find that comforting...

Then there were the Manifestos. The Tory Manifesto read like a chapter out of a Charles Dickens novel. It was so bad that even the largely inept Labour PR team was able to point out that taxing dementia  patients to fund tax breaks for millionaires and billionaires was a bad idea.  The Torys may idolise Thatchernomics but the electorate has moved on and sees it as a massive scam that is nothing more than Robin Hood in reverse.

Rather than defend their plan, the Conservative response was incoherent mumblings of how "Labour's numbers didn't add up", and when that didn't work they basically gave up and ran away from their own party platform.

Contrary to what some American pundits are saying this morning, terrorism really didn't play a role in how people voted. The attacks in Manchester and London were not foremost on voters minds. The Conservatives attempts to paint Corbyn as weak on defence and not willing to combat the threat from radical extremists came across to voters as a crass and vulgar attempt to capitalise on a national tragedy. It actually served to damage the Conservatives on an issue they should have had the advantage on.

But clearly the biggest reason for the wreckage in Westminster this morning is the Prime Minister herself. She called this snap election after repeatedly saying she wouldn't. She never had a real message other than "Brexit will be great, and Labour is bad!" A problem compounded by the Prime Minister being unwilling to do any real campaigning beyond carefully staged photo ops. It became a national drinking game to see how Theresa May could only answer questions with some word salad of a response that desperately tried to work in the words "Strong and Stable" as many times as possible.

Whereas the UK voters may not like Jeremy Corbyn, what is crystal clear this morning is, they simply didn't trust Theresa May.