Britain is undergoing the shift that happened in Australia when Labor was elected in 2022.
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It's as though the voters have collectively said "enough" after a prolonged period of rule by the party of the right.
In Labor's case, the Liberals had been in power for just under a decade. In Labour's, the Conservatives had governed for 14 years.
But whereas Labor's victory was a gentle tide moving leftwards, Labour's has been a tsunami.
There are parallels between the Australian and British results.
Labour and Labor won by keeping close to the centre.
Both Keir Starmer and Anthony Albanese are similar. Neither is over-endowed with showy charisma. They aren't rabble-rousing tub-thumpers but exude solid, middle-class stability.
Both might once have been described as social democrats who have a belief in public spending and also taxation to fund it.
Both knew that they had to reassure voters that paying for public projects did not involve tax hikes (even if, a sceptic might say, they eventually might).
Mr Albanese stuck with the promised tax cuts he inherited from the Liberals - but then tweaked them in office to skew the benefits of the cuts towards lower paid people. Sir Keir has threatened/promised to put the equivalent of GST on private schools but little beyond that in the way of tax rises. He insisted that economic growth will fund better education and health care. Conservative cries that the sums didn't add up fell on deaf ears.
But the main lesson is one all politicians already knew: when the mood is for change, there's nothing they can do about it.
![From left, incoming UK prime minister Keir Starmer, Australian prime minister Anthony Albanese, former Australian prime minister Scott Morrison and outgoing UK prime minister Rishi Sunak. Pictures ACM, Shutterstock From left, incoming UK prime minister Keir Starmer, Australian prime minister Anthony Albanese, former Australian prime minister Scott Morrison and outgoing UK prime minister Rishi Sunak. Pictures ACM, Shutterstock](/images/transform/v1/crop/frm/3BUUzmFAhrhLyX9rFCubPq5/b8fe6e87-1f78-415a-8ce4-6f8b1e48117a.jpg/r0_0_3840_2159_w1200_h678_fmax.jpg)
Little did it matter when Anthony Albanese failed to know the rate of unemployment at the start of the Australian election. And little did it matter when independent economists were sceptical about Labour's tax plans.
When the political wind shifts behind a party, nothing seems to go wrong. And when the wind turns into a hurricane against a party, everything goes wrong.
Scott Morrison's government came to seem tired and directionless (a sense only emphasised after he had lost by the revelation of his secret undertaking of various ministries).
And the Tories in Britain had overseen scandal after scandal. Tory donors got easy, favoured access to multi-million dollar contracts during the pandemic - and for goods which turned out to be defective.
There were sex scandals which the prime minister of the time, Boris Johnson, seemed unconcerned about.
And there was the sight of him drinking in parties while the rest of the country was in lockdown.
An inquiry heard heartbreaking accounts by tearful people who had not been allowed to be with their relatives on their deathbeds. A mother was unable to visit her dying16-year-old son at time when the glasses were clinking away at the top of government.
But you can still shoot yourself in the foot - and, in the case of the Tories, go back for the gun and blast the other foot.
Even on the last day of campaigning in Britain, the bedraggled Conservative party couldn't help itself: prime minister (soon to be former prime minister) Rishi Sunak went onto the sofa of one of the big breakfast shows - and found himself photographed alongside "Britain's most tattooed woman".
There he was, trying to present a picture of stability and sensibleness - next to a woman in a bikini, tattooed from head to toe. A more surreal, absurd image was hard to imagine.
He said he favourite food was a sandwich (it's the kind of think you get asked on breakfast shows). She responded that she would like to give Mr Sunak a sandwich.
You can only imagine the groans of anguish from Tory spin doctors.
There was image of chaos and incompetence on the very first moment of the campaign, when Mr Sunak announced the date of the election in the drenching London rain - without an umbrella.
At the Titanic Quarter in Belfast (who thought a venue with the word Titanic in it was a good idea?), he was asked: "Are you captaining a sinking ship going into this election?"
And so on.
Under the four Conservative prime ministers since 2010, public spending has been slashed, leaving a sense of what is sometimes called "broken Britain". Trains get cancelled minutes before departure; horror stories from the health service abound.
"Since 2010 funding for health has been cut by 4.8 per cent in real terms, which meant incalculably greater problems for the National Health Service," the venerable and widely respected political journalist Geoffrey Wheatcroft wrote.
"The cut for education was 15 per cent, housing 21.2 per cent, and the Justice Department by 50.8 per cent."
Sir Keir Starmer will have to pick up the pieces of the bits of Britain which are broken. The honeymoon may be short.