AFTER all that we’re right back where we started.

Yes, it’s all a bit up in the air in Westminster – we still don’t know exactly what the shape of the new government will be as I’m writing this – but here in Gwent it’s meet the new boss, same as the old boss.

As the campaign got underway the Conservatives were predicted to make significant gains in Wales, with some predicting both Newport seats could turn blue for the first time in more than 30 years.

But when it came down to it Labour won the day.

To their credit, members of the Welsh Conservatives have been pretty reflective about what went wrong.

Nicholas Webb put in a decent standing against Paul Flynn in 2015, coming within nearly 3,500 votes of unseating the Labour man, and offered to stand again this year but was rejected by the party’s national office in favour of newcomer Angela Jones-Evans, who increased the party’s share of the vote from 32.5 per cent to 39.3 per cent, but ultimately fell more than 5,500 votes short of victory.

On Friday he penned an interesting look at why the party didn’t do as well as hoped, saying it had run a largely negative campaign focused too heavily on attacking Jeremy Corbyn, and this had backfired.

And in a press conference yesterday morning leader of the Welsh Conservatives Andrew RT Davies said the election in Newport and across the country was a “two horse race” between the Tories and Labour, and his party had suffered as a result.

Mr Davies, who some have suggested may be on his way out of the door as leader of the group, also said if the other smaller parties such as Plaid Cymru, the Liberal Democrats and Ukip, all of which lost their deposits in both Newport constituencies after failing to win even five per cent of the vote, had put more effort into campaigning the majority may have fallen in favour of the Conservatives.

And he has a point, while Plaid Cymru has always struggled in Newport and Ukip seems unable to mobilise supporters to actually get out and vote, the city was at one point a hotbed of support for the Liberal Democrats, with the late Ed Townsend coming second in the race for Newport East in both 2005 and 2010, the second time coming within 700 votes of unseating his Labour rival.

The party has also historically done reasonably well over the border in Newport West, but this year support collapsed, with neither candidate managing even 1,000 votes.

This is no doubt partially due to a collapse in the party’s support following the 2010 coalition, and last week former deputy prime minister Nick Clegg shockingly lost his seat, while the party’s sole Welsh MP Mark Williams was also voted out.

But maybe it also shows a move back towards the two-party dominance of Labour and the Conservatives.

Elsewhere in Gwent Conservative David Davies held on to Monmouth while Islwyn’s Chris Evans and Torfaen’s Nick Thomas-Symonds were also re-elected, to the surprise of no one.

But the result in Blaenau Gwent was a bit more of a surprise, with Labour’s Nick Smith not only winning his seat back for Labour, but doing so with more than twice as many votes as Plaid Cymru’s Nigel Copner.

Considering Plaid had been putting some real effort into the seat this year and word on the ground was they had a real chance of taking it this year, this came as something of a surprise, particularly following May’s council election, which saw and Independent surge take control of the council.

Ultimately, as with May’s council elections, what this seems to show is, Monmouth aside, Labour voters in Gwent can always be counted upon to show up when the chips are down.

So what now for Theresa May?

While commentators were penning her political obituary on Friday morning, the fact that more than a week later she’s still in the post, and apparently with the support of her party, suggests she’s likely to stick around for the long haul.

I suspect she’ll do her best to stay in Number 10 until the Brexit negotiations are over, and then either gracefully step aside or resign in disgrace, depending upon how that goes.

And there’s always the possibility of another election, which many are saying could be sooner rather than later.

Just as long as it’s not in the autumn, I’ve got a holiday booked for the end of September.