The fact the United Kingdom general election was the first December election since 1923 makes the result feel all the more bleak: campaigning in darkness and bitter cold made a difficult job harder, and the minimal hours of daylight diminish the ability to glean any upbeat thoughts from a catastrophic defeat. The Conservatives now have a strong majority for the next half-decade, and are buoyed by winning in many previously strong Labour areas, particularly in the north of England.

The reasons Labour amassed such crippling losses are myriad. Throughout the campaign, it became almost impossible to counter the heavy anti-left bias, not only in right-wing newspapers bankrolled by wealthy Conservatives, but also in the purportedly impartial British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC). Boris Johnson, for example, deliberately dodged a combative one-on-one interview after every other party leader submitted themselves to questioning, and the fact that the prime minister wasn’t pinned down before other pre-recorded interviews were broadcast easily enabled him to do so.

Labour announcements were diminished, such as the leaked National Health Service (NHS) documents that proved Johnson and the Conservatives were lying about the NHS being “off the table” and not at risk of at least part-privatization in trade talks with Donald Trump.