Former MPs paid to pretend nothing is their fault were biggest winners of election night

Nadine Dorries is an authority on good governance.

Sir Keir Starmer won the election which seems big, but also a total headache. There’s loads that needs doing, there’s no money, and it means carrying a nation on his back under immense pressure for at least five years. It sounds really stressful.

Therefore the real winners are those who had good election nights, but don’t have to do anything important after. No, not journalists, I’m of course talking about the ex-MPs and staffers, the types wheeled out on television overnight to offer their brilliant analysis, so brilliant in fact the majority lost their seats or quit in disgrace.

On ITV, we were treated to the architect of austerity himself, George Osborne. This is a man whose Government slashed public services, ripping out lifelines for the most vulnerable, and here he is getting paid to offer his brilliant ideas. Not on a podcast he runs himself, but as a paid pundit!

He’s not alone in this, obviously, with the election coverage filled with those who neither had had the grace or self-awareness to think that maybe the public didn’t need to hear from them on this one.

Consider Lee Cain, Boris Johnson’s former spin doctor, wheeled out on the BBC to talk about why the Tories lost the election. Mr Johnson reportedly called his leaving drinks in November 2020 “the most unsocially distanced party in the UK right now”. Appearing to offer insight, this complete one rule for them and one for us wasn’t the reason he believed the Tories lost.

On Channel 4, it was even worse, with the more recent destroyer of the state Kwasi Kwarteng rocking up to discuss party strategy and fiscal plans, something he’s naturally an authority on having crashed the economy. It’s not that he isn’t informed, he was Chancellor for all of 38 days, but why are we hearing from him? I’m embarrassed if I spill a tea, and he’s somehow leaving the house having ruined everyone’s mortgages.

Then there is Nadine Dorries, funny, entertaining but ultimately deluded Dorries. Another hardcore defender of Mr Johnson, she delivered the night’s standout moment, aside from all the Tory ministers losing and Jacob Rees-Mogg being ousted while stood next to a man in a baked bean balaclava. It came when she suggested Mr Johnson knew what “hardship” was like, and had “no money growing up”. This prompted host Krishnan Guru-Murthy to retort that he went to Eton, as did all of his brothers, to the tune of £49,000-per-year. In 2018, Mr Johnson’s childhood home in London sold for £11.25 million. But sure, he had no money growing up.

That someone so detached from reality could be booked to analyse politics speaks to how far our debate has fallen. We rely on names, rather than those who are informed, Brexit delivering a post-truth era where saying something outrageous made you a voice, rather than saying something true.

At least it’s not something we need to worry about with the Labour party, who have excelled at saying nothing at all.