Four iconic photos that show the historic nature of the general election results

Following Labour’s historic general election victory, MPs are starting their journey at Westminster and new government ministers are being appointed. With the Tories suffering their worst ever defeat and many seats changing hands, there are many new MPs heading to the House of Commons.

These results have produced some stark images which show the scale of change at the election.

This photo shows the huge size of the new Parliamentary Labour Party. With 411 seats, Labour now has its second highest number of MPs ever – below only 1997.

The photo below (Number 10 – Creative Commons) shows Keir Starmer chairing the first Labour cabinet meeting for over 14 years. Of those round the cabinet table, just eight have had previous experience in government, and only three have been cabinet members before.

It wasn’t only Labour that had major success in the general election. Other parties on the left also made significant inroads. The Liberal Democrats won 72 seats – its best ever result in a general election. The photo below shows the new Liberal Democrat Parliamentary Group being welcomed to parliament by their leader Ed Davey. Long gone are the jokes about the Lib Dem MPs being able to all fit in a single taxi.

The Green Party also achieved its best ever general election result. Prior to this year’s election, there had never been more than one Green in parliament. Now there are four – and none of them are named Caroline Lucas. The photo below shows all four of the party’s new MPs outside parliament.

Chris Jarvis is head of strategy and development at Left Foot Forward

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