Lewis Baston: Election gambles that worked. And those that failed – like May’s this year.

And those that never were, such as 1978, 1991 and 2007. Prime Ministers tend to make the opposite error to that of their predecessors.

Lewis Baston: The election suggests that the tectonic plates of British politics are shifting

The shock over the overall result has distracted us from how remarkable some of each party’s gains really were.

Lewis Baston: The awe-inspiring, smashing, astonishing, record-breaking Conservative and National landslide of 1931

The governments of the 1930s illustrate how little a huge majority is worth if it isn’t married to a strong and imaginative policy programme.

Lewis Baston: Those predicting Conservative hegemony should remember 1992

John Major secured more votes than any other Prime Minister in unpromising circumstances – but ‘stretching the elastic of democracy’ would cost the Party dearly.

Lewis Baston: Why bids to reform the House of Lords fail

Even more than party disagreements over what should replace it, the idea of a very powerful second chamber is out of constitutional fashion.

Lewis Baston: We can learn from how papers covered the rise of Hitler

Reading back, it highlights how supposedly level-headed ‘realists’ were so slow to recognise the true nature of the National Socialist regime.

Lewis Baston: Why the British left tends to split, and the right doesn’t

Does the Anglican character of Toryism explain why it’s avoided producing the long and fascinating list of breakaways sported by Labour and the Liberals?

Lewis Baston: By-elections – and what has happened in those in which the MP has resigned his seat

The story of who won (like David Davis). And who lost (like Zac Goldsmith).

Lewis Baston: That “racist Tory leaflet” in Smethwick was certainly racist – but it wasn’t Tory

None the less, the local Conservatives exploited the climate of prejudice, while Labour sometimes bent to accommodate it.

Lewis Baston: Wilson. Attlee. Major. The costs, gains and consequences of devaluation

It has been where there is an air of panic and chaos, with a government forced to bow its knee to the markets, that there is real political damage.

Lewis Baston: The Party Conference season. So often gripping and thrilling – and never more so than this year.

They will be strange, edgy experiences: I can hardly wait.

Lewis Baston: Labour-inspired, Conservative-inclining. The swing seat story of the New Towns.

They have gone either way in successive elections, but their recent results show up electoral trends that helping the Tories.

Lewis Baston: Half a Government and no real Opposition – the general election of 1922

It was not entirely clear at the time that it had created a new political structure that would last for generations – with the Conservatives as the leading party of the state.

Lewis Baston: Yes, it was hot, turbulent, manic, and strife-ridden. But how blissfully happy Britain was 40 years ago in the summer of 1975

There was drought, I Claudius, soaring inflation, and the Prime Minister describing himself as a spider – but the year tops a national contentment index.

Lewis Baston: The Scottish Conservatives – fragile, but enduring and adaptable. A history.

A further graft from the remnants of Labour and the LibDems might be the best way of preserving the Union and providing an alternative government to the SNP.