I want to thank the people of this country for turning out to vote in a December election,

that we didn't want to call, but which I think has turned out to be a historic election

that gives us now in this new government the chance to respect the democratic will of the British people,

to change this country for the better, and to unleash the potential of the entire people of this country.

And that is what we will now do tomorrow.

Thank you all very much. Or rather I should say not tomorrow, today do tomorrow. Thank you all very much.

Or rather I should say not tomorrow, today.

Today. Thank you all.

And, of course, with Boris Johnson, celebrating the victory that he just was handed by the voters of Great Britain.

I'm Warren Alney.

This is To the Point with us on the phone.

We have Mary Dyshefsky, who is the former

Washington Bureau Chief for the independent newspaper in London. She's former diplomatic editor as well,

and now chief editorial writer. We are old friends. We've had coffee together in London, and it's

great to have you back on our program. Thank you.

So, was this, in fact, historic in what sense?

That's the term that Mr. Boris Johnson himself used.

Well, it was historic in quite a number of ways.

I mean, it was a huge gamble for Boris Johnson to engineer calling an election for December. This was the first

December election since 1920-something or other. And there were all sorts of worries that maybe

the weather would be too bad, that people would be fed up, being called out to vote in

December. Nobody would turn up.

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