Mogg and Mordaunt on fire off the shoulder of Somerset. I watched Corbyn-beams glitter in the dark near the Trusshäuser Gate. All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain.”

So that was two things I did on holiday recently: watched Blade Runner again and stayed up to watch the election.

I say stayed up: I got as far as the Mordaunt Penny-drop and then the ascension of Corbyn (wasn’t missing that) before the middle aged darkness fell.

And there was the bleary-eyed delight of the morning after: I had missed the defenestration of Mogg and Truss but could still drink in the details of their demise like a bracing morning draught.

There were other things to consider too, some good, some not so. Scotland is, well, at least interesting again, and I believe every side has everything to play for over the next two years till the Scottish Parliament poll, as this Westminster election was an anti-Tory purge, as much as 2019 was deformed by Brexit, or, going much further back, 1983 was coloured khaki.

It was good to see an advance for the Greens down south, plus some wins for progressive independents; much less so the rise of Reform: though I believe these phenomena are at some levels linked. They represent in a dialectic sense a desire for change in a country wracked by crisis after crisis and an ultimately failing and complicit centre.

How that desire expresses is yet to be determined, there’s a world to win or lose – but just look at France as an example of how politics here could play out: a process both terrifying and inspirational.

There could be a new politics emerging, uncouth but at least truthful, one that won’t be easily constrained by parliamentary politeness and the deceiving arithmetic of first part the post.

As expected, the voluntary sector now has to deal with the reality of what a Labour government will look like and do. And on the face of it, the new day is a huge relief after the 14 years of night that proceeded it.

But this is where the replicant Roy Batty’s famous quote becomes relevant: the relief will be short lived. It always is. Things move on very, very quickly, like tears in the rain, and we move to confront reality, like we always have.

The reality of foodbanks, the cost of living crisis, shrinking funds, ramping demand. The reality the voluntary sector confronts every day.

You would hope there will be some quick and important wins – the abolition of the two-child cap on Universal Credit, or (longer shot) reversing Tory cuts to international aid, for example.

It may be that by engaging positively and robustly, this new government will be receptive to our ideas, though its commitments to the sector have been as slight as most of its commitments elsewhere.

You would have to expect that at the very least, we won’t be told to stick to our knitting, to re-use a phrase which I think best sums up the past Tory regime’s attitude to charities.

It may be a passing figment caused by the strange new light, but things at least seem more hopeful.

So let’s get stuck in. Time to try?

Graham Martin is editor of TFN.