Welcome to the Colette Podcast. My name is Claire Lehman and I am editor and chief of Colette.

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Welcome to a special post-British election edition of the Colette Podcast.

I'm Jonathan Kay.

On Thursday, as many of you know, Boris Johnson and his conservatives were reelected and now have the biggest

majority at Westminster since Margaret Thatcher won in 1987. Johnson now has a free hand to, as his campaign slogan had it, get Brexit done.

Meanwhile, the Labor side is licking its wounds after being led to a historic defeat

under doctrinaire leftist Jeremy Corbin.

When I went looking for a British expert to help me make sense of this result, I didn't have to

go far, as my London-based Colette colleague Toby Young is not only an expert on British politics, he is also, full disclosure, a friend and former journalistic colleague of Boris Johnson himself.

On Friday, I spoke to Toby by Skype.

Here are excerpts from our interview.

So did the result of the election surprise you?

It surprised me a little bit.

I was quite nervous at about 5 to 10. The BBC and the other broadcasters

produce an exit poll at 10 p.m. which is usually pretty accurate. But in the run up to that exit poll

result being broadcast, I was so nervous.

I could barely breathe.

...