Reform, the four-year-old party for populists and right wingers, would make a big impact, running second in many constituencies. More than 4m people voted for it.

And Britain’s exit pollsters, guided by their éminence grise — the 70-year-old Strathclyde university Professor John Curtice — maintained their high reputation for getting the call right.

Since 2005, the exit poll has predicted the number of parliamentary seats of the winning party to within an average of four. In 2019, it was just three seats out. On this occasion, it forecast 410 seats for Labour.

Its secret is that it returns, as far as possible, to the same polling locations each time and compares how the votes have changed.

The question for the holders of a super-majority is how to govern on behalf of the whole country, and for us, their neighbours, whether we can expect to see a needed improvement in governmental relations.

They could hardly be worse than in the Boris Johnson years, and although there was progress under the now departed Rishi Sunak, things can only get better.

The shadow secretary of state for the North was Hilary Benn, son of the venerable Tony, and he would be a thoughtful and helpful addition to political debate on this side of the sea.

In the North, Sinn Féin completed a historic treble by becoming the largest party at all three levels of government — Assembly, council, and Westminster — the first time nationalists have achieved that position.

In the loss of Antrim North by the DUP, the first time a Paisley has not been returned for 50 years, Ireland had its own Liz Truss moment.

Although Keir Starmer can add his big result to previous Labour triumphs — Tony Blair’s majorities of 179 and 167 in 1997 and 2001 and Clement Attlee’s 145-seat defeat of Churchill in 1945 — it would be a mistake to view his achievement as wholesale validation for policies, many of which remained vague and opaque by design, during the campaign.

The level of support for Reform was eye-catching.

The party now has a seat at the table and will be in a position to capitalise should there be public dissatisfaction over the new government’s performance on immigration, tax, and pensions.

Labour’s powerful position also brings tensions for its internal coalition. The return of Jeremy Corbyn as an Independent was a remarkable symbol of this, but party managers will also be scrutinising the defeat of four heavy hitters to pro-Palestine candidates.

The rise of the Islamic vote, support for Reform, the quadrupling of Green seats, the best liberal performance since 1906, and the impact of independents all  indicate that Britain is now a multi-party system and that first-past-the-post is struggling to adjust to major tactical switches.

While the new prime minister takes his name from Keir Hardie, the first leader of the Parliamentary Labour Party in 1906, it is to Attlee, the man chosen to rebuild Britain after the Second World War, that he will look for inspiration.

“Democracy means government by discussion, but it is only effective if you can stop people talking” Attlee said after leaving office.

That challenge will be there for Starmer. We wish him well.

A never-ending demand for 'more'

There’s a moment in a new play about the Kyoto protocol — Cop3 in case you’ve forgotten among all those numbers — which could apply to Irish attitudes towards the environment as described in a significant survey this week.

A Greek chorus informs us that what the public wants is “to drive, to fly, to eat, to buy, to gorge, to waste, to war, to order more, and more, and more, and more, and more”.

Kyoto, from the Royal Shakespeare Company, is a blackly comic interpretation of the attempts, formalised in 1997, to establish timetables and targets for climate action and the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions. Nations around the world, including Ireland, have signed up for it.

These, as we know, are goals that we are missing or lagging behind.

And, if we accept the views captured in a Department of the Environment survey of 4,000 people across the country, there is relatively scant concern over this.

Men cannot see themselves eating less meat, young people who care about climate change are still unwilling to give up flying regularly, and older people are reluctant to stop using open fires to heat their homes.

Overall, the survey found that inflation, crime, healthcare, and immigration are far more likely to worry people. Some climate concerns are viewed as “Dublin-centric” and “middle class” and serve to alienate people in more regional and rural areas.

To some extent, our attitudes reflect and paraphrase the famous prayer of a young St Augustine: “Lord, give me virtue. But not yet.”

The comprehensive report identified that climate change fatigue is now commonplace with many respondents believing, wrongly, they are taking enough action. They are reluctant to live without cars, switch to a vegetarian diet, and are sceptical about the value of adopting heat pumps as part of domestic energy management.

Crucially, and despite increasing evidence to the contrary in the shape of extreme weather events, they see climate change as something that is happening far away.

To some extent, this is understandable. It was the poet TS Eliot who observed that “humankind cannot bear too much reality”. Indeed, the poem in which he made that telling comment, Burnt Norton, advises that neither the past nor the future should be dwelt upon. The former cannot be changed and the latter will never be reached.

There will be many who recognise our responsibility towards next generations and will be concerned by one of the environment department’s conclusions: “We cannot assume that worsening climate events internationally or in Ireland will lead to a dramatic uplift in the urgency with which climate actions are viewed.” 

Environment Minister Eamon Ryan says everything has to be viewed through a “just transition lens”.

“If we don’t have a fair transition, it won’t be fast, and if we don’t have a fast transition, it won’t be fair for anyone” Mr Ryan added.

This seems reasonable when the alternative might be a conflation of the famous words from Ecclesiastes:“Eat, drink, and be merry. For tomorrow we die.”