As the dust settles – who are the real winners and losers from the general election?

From the BBC’s Andrew Neil and Laura Kuenssberg to Len McCluskey and the DUP – who has fared best and worst, asks Sean O'Grady, after weeks of intense campaigning

Nigel Dodds was ousted and the DUP’s moment in the sun is over (Getty)

We are all highly familiar with the big beasts of the political jungle who enjoyed great triumphs and catastrophic failures during this election – but as the dust settles and with parliament due to return this week, who are the real winners and losers from the campaign?

1. Corbynite pundits

Losers. In all senses. The likes of Paul Mason, for example, former economics editor at Channel 4 News, now free to express his leftist sympathies and credentials. Ever since the financial crisis Mason has been predicting a popular uprising along the lines of the revolutions of 1848. He believed that the wolf was at the door of capitalism. Instead it was Boris Johnson, a man proud of his record on sticking up for the bankers.

Other left-wing commentators/agitators could draw on older columns expressing initial dismay and despair at the arrival of Jeremy Corbyn, claiming they had been right all along.

2. The European Research Group

Losers. Ironically they were at the very peak of their power under Theresa May, when they could threaten and cajole. Now Johnson has a majority big enough to ignore them and, if he wants, pursue as soft a Brexit as he likes. Jacob Rees-Mogg, former ERG leader, can be sacked from the cabinet in the spring after the withdrawal agreement is passed, and there is nothing the ERG can do about it.

3. Professor Sir John Curtice

Winner. As usual, Curtice’s psephology called it right and the exit poll was uncannily accurate. The only flaw was some overestimation of the SNP’s gains in Scotland. Soon the UK may be able to dispense with general elections and just ask Curtice who should form the next government.

4. Laura Kuenssberg

Loser. The BBC’s political editor is a target for everyone. As she says on her Twitter account – which has become the centre for such abuse – you shouldn’t shoot the messenger. Even so, repressing some overdone Tory posturing during “punch gate” did her reputation some harm, as did a tweet about postal votes. Her personal documentary on Tuesday might put matters in perspective.

5. Seumas Milne

Loser. As the man many hold responsible for some of the most egregious errors of the Corbyn era, it seems unlikely he will hold a central position in guiding his party or his nation’s fortunes as we enter the 2020s. Like Nick Timothy who rendered similarly disastrous advice to Theresa May in the 2017 election, Milne might be rewarded with a regular column by a friendly newspaper. He might also try and fail to stand as an MP in one of Labour’s few remaining safe seats. Maybe he has an entertaining memoir in him. Similar remarks apply to the rest of team Corbyn – and the EHRC report into antisemitism is yet to come out.

6. Andrew Neil

Winner. Obviously. Boris Johnson’s reluctance to appear before Neil was a low point of the campaign, but a huge boost to Neil’s reputation as the man they all fear. Johnson endured an embarrassingly bad interview with Neil during his Tory leadership bid, and was understandably unwilling to repeat the experience. Nigel Farage, Nicola Sturgeon, Jeremy Corbyn and Jo Swinson at least turned up.

7. Vladimir Putin

Winner. Maybe – who knows? The extent of Russian interference in the 2016 referendum or 2017 election is still unknown because ministers refuse to publish the parliamentary report into it. The same goes for the 2019 election. Were Russians pumping out bogus tweets about the boy lying on the floor of a hospital ward in Leeds? Were the Russians responsible for the leaks of government documents on Brexit and the NHS, either directly to Labour or via Reddit? Whose side were the Russians on anyway? Both? Have they now got a friend in Downing Street or not?

8. Len McCluskey

Loser. Had things turned out rather better, McCluskey, as leader of Britain’s biggest union Unite, would today be one of the most powerful figures in the land. He would have been ready to exert power unknown for a trade union leader since 1979. Instead he has reduced to trying to manoeuvre Rebecca Long-Bailey into the irrelevant post of leader of the opposition. Which was the kind of activity that got them into this mess in the first place.

9. Laura Pidcock

Loser. Labour’s lost leader. No one outside the Westminster bubble and her parliamentary seat has heard of her. Still, she was one of the favoured candidates to succeed Jeremy Corbyn as leader and/or prime minister when the moment arrived. Though only shadow secretary for employment rights and mostly obscure, she plainly impressed her chiefs as the best vehicle to guarantee the continuation of Corbynism by other means. That is, until her North West Durham constituents chose to kick her out of her supposedly rock solid seat and elect a Conservative. She’ll be back, though.

10. The DUP

Losers. On so many levels the DUP is a palpably declining force. The loss of Westminster leader Nigel Dodds to Sinn Fein is a symbolic humiliation but not the only one. Unionist MPs are now outnumbered by nationalist and republicans. The thumping Tory majority means Johnson can carry on betraying them and ignoring them, and their friends on the ERG seem keen to follow suit. They hold no power at Westminster or Stormont and the chatter about a united Ireland is building. How long can leader Arlene Foster – major obstacle to the return of devolved government – survive?