Let me add something along the lines of footnotes to the accounts of the enormous victory of Prime Minister Boris Johnson and the Conservative Party in the British election last Thursday.

First, the numbers. The Conservatives won 365 seats in the House of Commons, which gives them a majority of 80 if every other member votes against them. The election yielded the most seats Conservatives have won since the days of Margaret Thatcher, when they took 397 in 1983 and 376 in 1987. It’s a parliamentary majority that will endure for the five-year limit on this term of Parliament.