Labor landslide: A historic win for Sir Keir Starmer

Some historical perspectives on the Tories’ drubbing under Rishi Sunak’s meek leadership

By Azhar Manipady

I am absolutely thrilled to witness the brilliant victory of the Labor Party with Sir Keir Starmer at the helm in the British Parliamentary election on July 4. Equally pleasing as the massive landslide victory was the absolute thrashing of the ruling Conservative Party, which squandered their opportunity to serve the people of the United Kingdom despite holding a large majority for the past 14 years. This result has cut the Tories down to size, both literally and figuratively. The colossal rout of the Conservatives also had much to do with the meek leadership of Prime Minister Rishi Sunak.

How bad is the drubbing?

To understand the extraordinary margin of loss, one must view it in a historical context. We have to go back almost 200 years to find a comparable margin of defeat. The Tory share of votes plummeted to 22 percent, the worst since the 1830s.

Under Sunak’s leadership, the Tories lost 251 sitting members of parliament, including at least 12 cabinet ministers. The staggering scale of the loss has led many pundits and election analysts to dub Sunak the worst Tory prime minister in more than two centuries of the party’s history.

No doubt, it was a bloodbath!

Historical context:

To provide some perspective on this historic margin of defeat in British political history: the last loss of this magnitude occurred even before Queen Victoria ascended to the British throne. At that time, Victoria was just 13 years old.

This was in the year 1832, when Whig party leader Earl Grey (after whom the famous tea is named) defeated the famed Duke of Wellington with a margin of 286 during the reign of King William IV, one of the sons of the infamous King George III.

As is well known, King George III has a historical and negative reputation as the monarch who lost the American colonies.

Queen Victoria was the daughter of Prince Edward and the granddaughter of King George III. Since King William IV did not have any legitimate children (he had at least six illegitimate children who were not entitled to inherit the crown), and with Victoria’s father, Prince Edward, and all her three uncles having died a decade earlier, his niece Victoria became the queen in 1836 at the age of 17.

In the company of Duke Wellington?

Bear with me for sidetracking; I find these historical tidbits fascinating, and I hope they tickle your historical memory of the British monarchy as well.

Sunak might think that he is in the good company of the Duke of Wellington despite his humiliating and disastrous performance.

Of course, for Sunak, even in jest, he cannot be compared to the famed Duke of Wellington, a great soldier, statesman, and politician.

Everyone is familiar with the Duke of Wellington’s extraordinary achievement of defeating Napoleon Bonaparte at the Battle of Waterloo. His name is almost synonymous with Waterloo, earning him the title of Duke of Wellington of Waterloo when he was the Field Marshal of the British army.

Here are some historical facts about the famed Duke of Wellington and his connections to South India, including Karnataka, which might interest or amuse you.

During his younger days, he was posted in the British army to liaise with the East India Company in India. He was the commandant during the Fourth Anglo-Mysore War waged against the Sultanate of Mysore. The great man, Tipu Sultan, was the Sultan then. Unfortunately, Tipu Sultan was killed during that war in Srirangapatna in 1799.

Following Tipu Sultan’s defeat and death, the Duke of Wellington was made Governor of Mysore (Srirangapatna). At that time, he was a colonel and later went on to defeat the Marathas in the Second Anglo-Maratha War (1803-05) before returning to England.

In conclusion, it is heartening to note that the ever-reasonable and just people of the United Kingdom have convincingly elected the Labor Party to lead the country during this anxious juncture of the current political climate in Europe, especially as a good number of countries are turning towards extreme right-wing ideologies.

(The writer is an Indian American who lived in England for more than a decade. He completed his medical training in the UK and also worked in the country.)