Subscribe to The Spectator and get 12 weeks of Britain's most incisive politics coverage,

unrivaled books and arts reviews, and so much more, all for just £12.

Not only that, but we'll also send you a £20,000 Amazon gift card, absolutely free.

As a subscriber, you'll also be able to listen to all our other podcasts, ad-free.

Go to www.w.com.com.com.com

slash voucher to claim this offer now. Terms apply.

Hello, welcome to a special edition of Coffee House Shots, the Spectator's Daily Politics Podcasts.

I'm James Hill and I'm joined today by Tim Shipman, our political editor and Noah Hoffman, our political correspondent.

First of all, Tim, how do you think the lights gone for Reform UK?

I mean, it's been an absolute blast and here we are.

Election Day! I've got my hydration, I've got my caffeine. My phone is buzzing like something ridiculous with everybody telling us what to think. You know, if the general election is our World Cup final, this is at least, well, might be the FA Cup. Let's see how it pans up. Maybe the Carabal Cup. Semifinal. We'll see. But yes, no, it's a huge night for reform.

There's a lot of quibbling online about exactly how brilliant these results are for reform.

There are a couple of caveats to it. But they are basically winning across swathes of the country, where they've never won before.

And interestingly, in large parts of the Midlands, the North, the Northwest, particularly, they're winning seats that even Boris Johnson struggled to win in 2019.

And Labour is surrendering places that even Jeremy Corbyn held.

So that's very significant.

They appear to be wiping out the heartland of the current leadership of the Conservative Party in Essex.

They'd won the council there with 24 seats still to declare.

They'd already got a majority there.

The only caveats are that in certain parts of that sort of donut round out of London,

the bit that Boris Johnson won when he was mayor,

the Tory vote seems to have held up quite well.

...