The general election that was described as “impossible to call” is over, and that voters chose what they regarded as the least worst option in hindsight now seems inevitable. Boris Johnson has been given a thumping majority – but just how did he get it?

On the day before the country went to vote in last week’s momentous election, the Revd Dr Sam Wells, the vicar of St Martin-in-the-Fields, ascended the winding steps of his handsome pulpit to deliver a sermon of quite extraordinary pertinacity. It was on the subject of truth.

St Martin-in-the-Fields is one of the best known churches in the country. It is a familiar name, particularly at Christmas, because of its annual charity appeal for those in need. As the church explains in its own literature, it is on the edge – not only of Trafalgar Square at the heart of the nation’s capital, but it is alongside people on the edge of society, people who have been excluded or ignored. You can encounter some of them, rough sleepers, in the streets in the vicinity of the church throughout the year. These are people whose plight might, perhaps, be seen as partly the responsibility of those we elect to legislate and govern society, which made Dr Wells’ observations on the eve of this 2019 general election even more relevant.