Twenty different things.

I spent yesterday and earlier today wondering what to blog about. In the end I couldn't choose so here are just some random thoughts about lots of things. In no particular order and with no particular conclusion.

1. Outwith the special case of Edinburgh South, there was effectively no Labour/Tory anti Nat tactical voting. In most of the seats the Tories took in the North East the Labour vote went up! And in the seats Labour gained the Tory vote went up! The big thing wasn't the other Parties gaining votes (indeed Labour barely did) it was the SNP losing them.

2. Labour's share comprised different people from 2015. We did lose older unionist votes to the Tories but replaced them with younger left wing voters from the SNP.  The Nats consoling themselves that these younger voters would still be Yessers is illusory if there is not going to be another  referendum. In electoral politics the significant thing is that they are now no longer SNPers.

3. The great post 2015 question was whether Labour had lost Scotland forever or whether a popular Labour leader with a  real chance of victory might bring them back. And UK Labour's problem was that, without Scotland, an absolute  Westminster majority looked impossible. That question has been answered. I go on to say below that I don't think there will be a second 2017 election but, if there were, Labour would gain seats in spades. A mere 3.4% SNP to Labour swing brings an immediate 17 seats to us. And a 32/32/32 split result next time would, because of their vote being more evenly spread, result, under First Past the Post, to the Nats  being almost wiped out.

4. The SNP are stuffed (part 1). An independence referendum is off the table for a real generation. It is definitely off the agenda before the next Holyrood poll and that poll it is highly unlikely to produce a pro-referendum majority even if the Nats risk an unconditional pledge in their manifesto.

5. The SNP are stuffed (part 2). What is now the way forward for them? Do they shift their rhetoric to the right (particularly on Brexit) to try and regain the North East or do they shift it to the left in an attempt to hold off the "Corbyn surge" in the seats they still hold? Answers on a postcard please.

6. The SNP are stuffed (part 3). Getting on with the day job will not be simple. Take education (which I suspect all Parties would privately agree was the second reason for their collapse). Something needs done. There is the Labour solution: more teachers; more money; if necessary paid for by higher taxes, and then there is the Tory solution: more innovation; more testing; more power to heedies; more emphasis on attendance and discipline (not just regarding pupils). But you can't make an  omelette without breaking eggs. A move either way will annoy as many people as it pleases. And the losers are always more vocal than the winners. (cf the forthcoming Teacher's strike). A particular problem for a party already decelerating in public standing.

7.The SNP are stuffed (part 4). It's all very well to say "take independence off the table" but, if they do, what is the purpose of the SNP at all? Grievance without even a supposed solution? Good luck with Nicola selling that to the zoomers. Or indeed to anybody else.

8. The SNP are stuffed (part 5). Even her opponents recognise that Nicola Sturgeon is an accomplished politician. But if she loses the next Holyrood poll she would have to go. Except there is literally nobody else in their Holyrood group who would be up to the job of Leader. And now there is nobody in their Westminster group either.

9. The Greens are stuffed. There is considerable anger about how they have allowed themselves to become the wholly owned subsidiary of the SNP, most noticeably by their withdrawal at this election past. I was among those who devised the "Regional AMS" system the Parliament uses. But it was meant to involve only one constituency vote, with the constituency votes then being aggregated to provide additional members as proportionate to the overall result. That somehow got lost during the Convention process, allowing a Party to stand on the list as, essentially, a second choice option for another Party. After the next Holyrood poll the single vote concept should be brought back. And the electoral system is now devolved.

10. The Ruth Davidson Party is over. Ruth has restored the Tory fortunes as required by putting a nuanced difference between herself and the UK Party. That is no longer tenable as "she" is now responsible for the Tories being in power at all. And anyway, she gets herself that the Scottish Tories are still Tories, members of the same Party across the UK. "She" doesn't have MPs. The Tories have MPs, who happen to have been elected in Scotland. She is entitled to gratitude, not least for her role in getting them there at all, but it can't, indeed shouldn't, be blind gratitude. I give, by way of but one example, Brexit. Ruth is for the softest of Brexits. Possibly even for something which is de facto not really Brexit at all. But these Tories who have just ousted the Nats on the North Sea coast are never going to sign up for staying in the Common Fisheries Policy, not least because for them, it was a promise to leave that won them their seats every bit as much as Ruth's efforts.

11. The UK Conservative Party is not about to become the new Ruth Davidson Party. This doesn't have to involve whether she wants to do it, or whether she could win. It's a simple matter of process. In terms of the Conservative Party rules, to even be eligible to stand, you need to be a Member of [the Westminster] Parliament. Ruth is not.

12. The Tories do not need a deal with the DUP. (Part 1).The DUP would never conceivably vote against the Tories in circumstance which meant the result of that vote would mean an election where Jeremy Corbyn might become Prime Minister.

13. The Tories do not need a deal with the DUP  (Part 2). There is no way the SNP would currently vote against the Tories where the result of that vote triggered another election at which the Nats would be almost wiped out. That might change in time but not for at least some time.

14. There will not be an early election. For the reasons I give immediately above, the Tories have a workable majority when it matters, on third readings and confidence votes. And they are helped by EVEL where they have a comfortable overall majority on England only legislation at its earlier stages. There is not going to be a need for an election any time soon, possibly not even for five years. Anyway, the Tories have just disastrously called an early election. It would be a "brave" (in the Sir Humphrey Appleby sense of the word) for any new leader to call another early poll. So they won't. And anyway, fatally wounded though she is, Theresa May will probably hang for a good bit, not least as the Tories would emerge horribly split from any battle to replace her. Yet clearly she personally could not fight another election.

15. Abolishing tuition fees is exceptionally popular. I wrote in my last blog why this shouldn't be a priority. I stand by that. But there is no doubt that it is a hugely favoured course of action.with not only young people but also older adult graduates who simply feel it unfair that this generation has to pay for something they themselves got for free. It propelled the Libs to record numbers in 2010, secured (in a slightly different form) a Holyrood plurality and then majority for the SNP. (Scottish Labour looked at dropping it in 2016 and recoiled at the focus group response). It almost brought Bernie Sanders the Democratic Party nomination. Now it has boosted the youth turnout for Jeremy Corbyn to record levels. Labour can't simply abandon that pledge now. But some way has to be found to pay for it. Because it simply can't can't be justified as an area of expenditure if it comes at the expense of other more pressing areas of education expenditure. Graduate tax anyone?

16. Jeremy Corbyn won't fight another election. He is 68. If it becomes clear there is to be a full term Parliament he'd be 73 by the next election. And proposing to serve until he was 78. He has earned the right to go in his own time but he will go then.

17. Corbyn's legacy will be a more left wing policy platform. You can argue, indeed I would, that Corbyn only did as well as he did because it was "known" that he couldn't win. But that's not what the Party will hear, or our public sector union paymasters. They'll buy into "one more heave/just a 3% swing.. Who knows, particularly if Brexit goes tits up, then perhaps that will work.

18. The Party will unite under a new leader. The centre of the Party's real unhappiness with Corbyn has been his strategy of "no enemies to our left." coupled with "any anti-establishment movement is our movement". Any new leader, even one on the left, will get the damage this does both internally and with the electorate. So they'll stop it. And to be honest, that, together with the prospect of office, will be enough to do the rest.

19. The next leader will be neither Corbynista nor Blairite. Personality has been the key to this election. Perhaps, with the benefit of hindsight, it was the key to Corbyn becoming leader in the first place. But the other key to that was the feeling that none of the contenders could win anyway, so we might as well go down with our colours flying. That has changed. Next time we are picking not just a battling loser but a potential winner. When it comes to any vote, who best fits that requirement will be much more important, to even this expanded Labour electorate, than who is most faithful to the principles of Marx and Lenin.

20. Brexit means Brexit. For good or ill, despite there being no majority for it in the Commons, despite it being an act of astonishing self harm, despite there being a willingness in Brussels to talk, despite all that, it will happen on some terms. It remains the case that no matter how poor a Prime Minister Theresa May has proved to be, thanks to one monumental error of judgement, history will recall David Cameron as being much much worse.