so who won
No one won, ultimately.
The Tories have the most votes and seats, but less than they had before calling the election, and less than the majority required to pass laws unimpeded and independently.
Labour did well for themselves, but they still fell very short of the majority needed to form a government.
The SNP did terribly and lost 20 seats, which is bad for SNP as they were running the campaigns in Scotland as a question of supporting a call for Scottish independence. Vote SNP if you want another referendum, vote others if you don't.
Clearly a sizable portion of Scots are now tired from the last 5 years of UK/EU Independence Referendums and campaigning.
The other small parties had middling results, UKIP lost their seat and leader, Lib Dems gained a couple of seats but are still decimated from the previous election, and Green/Plaid Cymru tick on with a few seats but no power.
As for the people, none of us really win.
We have a minority Tory Government, who are forming a special relationship with a Northern Irish party, the DUP, who are controversial.
The agreement seems to be that DUP will back Tories in key areas, particularly Brexit.
But, it's not a coalition, and in other affairs the Tories are on their own and can be vetoed by the opposition.
The Tory/DUP alliance also has a very slight majority (less than Tories had on their own), so they really need strong whips as even a couple of MPs from either party who do not vote in favour of the governments wishes can jeopardise them.
Likewise a weak opposition of parties from across the spectrum with a wide range of views may find it difficult to cooperate and challenge the Government.
And overall the situation means we are going into Brexit talks in just days with a weakened Government, facing their own upheavals and reshuffling.
So yes, no one really won at all.
Personally I'm obviously annoyed at the Tories not doing anywhere near as well as hoped, and it seems like the PM accidentally shot herself in the foot by calling an election.
BUT, I still think it was a good idea at the time, and necessary to try.
It's just a shame that the country faced national tragedies in that time, and it's unfortunate that the Tories weren't more successful with campaigning.
But hindsight is a bitch.
