To all of you urging Theresa May to quit and suggesting we need ANOTHER election I say, get a grip
Theresa May is the right person to continue the vital work to deliver what has been promised
THE last Tory defeat of the election was announced on Friday evening at Kensington town hall - and the triumphalism of the Corbynistas could not be contained.
You might have thought they would have something gracious to say to Victoria Borwick, who for years served selflessly as my deputy mayor in London, seven days a week, lending her support to community groups and charities across the capital.
Oh no. They jeered at the outgoing MP, when it was finally clear that she had lost by 20 votes.
They called her four letter names - Tory scum being about the only printable one.
They banged their bongo drums and chanted their slogans, only breaking off to hiss when she emerged.
I record this partly to show that Jeremy Corbyn’s Momentum crew are not perhaps as nice as all that, but mainly to show that they are also slightly delusional about the election that has just taken place.
To judge by the reaction on the left, it is as if the Labour leader had won a landslide.
Corbyn is being hailed as a messiah, a miracle man - greeted with rapturous ovations wherever he goes (and no jeering from any dissenting Tories that happen to be there; one of the advantages Mr Corbyn has had in his public appearances is that Tories are generally too polite or just good natured to heckle...)
To judge by the media coverage, it is as if the Tories had been routed - reduced to a handful of shire seats, perhaps, with a walloping on the scale of 1906 or 1997.
None of this accords with the simple facts of what has happened.
Yes, it was a very disappointing night for the Conservatives, and yes, it is easy now to see - in retrospect - that the campaign did not go well, to put it mildly.
We failed to predict the collapse of the Lib Dems, or the way the UKIP vote would split.
Key Tory messages got lost or were misunderstood.
But at the risk of stating the obvious, Jeremy Corbyn Did Not Win This Election.
He didn’t even come close.
Yes, he picked up Kensington - but then he also lost Mansfield.
For all his ludicrous boasting, Mr Corbyn does not have the numbers to form a government, even if he could get the Liberals and the Scottish Nationalists to serve under him.
He has about as many MPs as Gordon Brown when he was defeated in 2010.
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Theresa May still leads by far the largest party in the House of Commons and the polls were right in one sense - that for the first time in decades the Tories got about 43 per cent of the vote.
Theresa May led a campaign that inspired 13.7 m people to vote Conservative, in the biggest total tally of Tory votes since the days of Margaret Thatcher.
That is a stunning achievement, for which she deserves the support of her party.
And she will certainly get it from me.
Without an absolute majority we will now have to coordinate with the DUP from Northern Ireland.
But that is feasible - and before Labour object, someone should remind them that they tried to do exactly the same thing in 2010.
To those that say the PM should step down, or that we need another election or even - God help us - a second referendum, I say come off it. Get a grip, everyone.
This is the third year running that we have forced the people out to the polls.
This is the third year running that they have been accosted at stations and asked for their support, or had campaign literature thrust into their hands.
My judgement is that they are fed up to the back teeth with all this.
They are fed up with politics, politicians and the uncertainty and dislocation of the electoral process.
They overwhelmingly want us to get on with the job.
Yes, of course it is partly about Brexit and we must get that right.
There can be no backsliding from the objectives the PM set out in the campaign - taking back control of our laws, our borders, our cash; but also ensuring that we have a great new partnership with the EU that allows us to trade more freely and enthusiastically than ever.
We have about 90 per cent of MPs now elected on a manifesto of getting out of the EU - and surely to goodness it is possible to build a consensus about how to do a great deal for the UK - and the EU.
But if the election taught us one thing it is that it was not just about Brexit.
We all heard the same anxieties during the campaign; about the NHS, about funding for schools, about the cost and shortage of housing.
On all those great questions we Conservatives have much better ideas than Corbyn, with his fantasy money and his obsession with bringing back the unions.
We will build record numbers of good new homes.
We will put more money into healthcare.
We will continue with the biggest programme of infrastructure for the last 100 years.
We will keep taxes low and stimulate this great enterprise economy.
The people of Britain have had a bellyful of promises and politicking.
Now is the time for delivery - and Theresa May is the right person to continue that vital work.