To the victor, the spoils. To the sundry losers, the opportunity to spoil for a fight. Internally. Unless exceptionally deft or lucky. It is right to open by commending Sir Keir Starmer, Anas Sarwar and the wider Labour campaign.

They adhered to a mantra of “Change” without troubling us overmuch with detail or attendant difficulty. To be entirely fair, that matched the mood of voters in Scotland and across Britain. Who were thoroughly, heartily sick of the Tories.

Seldom in my extensive experience has a party worked so diligently to be ejected from power as the departing Conservatives. Some would say that Rishi Sunak mislaid the keys to Downing Street when he decided that he had better things to do than to remain at the D-Day commemoration in the company of world leaders, including the German Chancellor.

In practice, the glad confident morning clouded over for the Tories much, much earlier. When Boris Johnson said: “Party? Lead me to it.” Above all, when Liz Truss and Kwasi Kwarteng made a mega-mess of their mini-budget.

Read more by Brian Taylor

So these election results reflected revulsion with the Conservatives. Yes, they are an active endorsement of Labour – but mostly driven by a determination to kick out the Tories.

Look at tactical voting, in Scotland but primarily in England. Folk found the party most likely to defeat incumbent Tories – say Labour or Liberal Democrat – and swung behind that option with single-minded determination.

To be fair again – that is twice, a new record – Labour identified that........

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