Even lifelong Conservative voters seem tired of the Tories. Signs are pointing to a total party collapse

Who are the people who will still vote Tory? True, there are not many left, but a solid core of 20% of the population will opt for more of the same, the lowest percentage in polling history, says Prof John Curtice. That many still seem willing to re-elect those who did such national damage is, to put it politely, perplexing.

Do they really back the exceptionally mean-spirited and squalid bribery of their party’s prospectus? Well, the great majority have better things to do than read manifestos. But go out and talk to ordinary Tory voters and you find their state of mind out of tune with their party’s hierarchy. That’s why most traditional Tories have fled, ignored by the manifesto writers who press on with deeper cuts to collapsing public services, adding to the 4.3 million children going hungry.

Polly Toynbee is a Guardian columnist

Guardian Newsroom: Election results special. Join Gaby Hinsliff, John Crace, Hugh Muir, Jonathan Freedland and Zoe Williams on 5 July

Our experts previously revealed what pledges they wanted to see from Keir Starmer in The manifesto Britain needs. Are they impressed by the real thing?

It’s a story of the good, the bad and the absent. There are some strong green policies in Labour’s manifesto. It will greatly increase investment in wind and solar power, block new licences for oil and gas fields, improve rail and bus networks and upgrade 5m homes. It will end the pointless badger cull, take action against polluting water companies and “expand nature-rich habitats”.

George Monbiot is a Guardian columnist

The ugly rhetoric of the Tories and Reform obscures a simple truth: most voters understand the need for foreign workers

There’s turmoil in the EU as the far right advances. Macron risks all, trusting that people vote in protest for the remote EU parliament, but vote for real governments at home. After all, we sent Nigel Farage to fart rude taunts and abuse at MEPs for 20 years until Brexit, and he got nowhere much in the UK.

But Britain, with a resurgent Labour party set to sweep in, is on a reverse path. Our own hard-right wing, in the form of Farage’s Reform party, may relegate the Conservatives to third place in votes, and the sideshow battles between the rump right will be a fascinating farrago. But the future is all with Labour and how it governs.

Guardian Newsroom: Election results special. Join Gaby Hinsliff, John Crace, Polly Tonybee, Jonathan Freedland and Zoe Williams on 5 July

Polly Toynbee is a Guardian columnist