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By Darren McCaffrey, Political Correspondent

If you want to get an idea of ​​how our politics have changed since last Thursday, that was yesterday.

As MPs gathered in the new House of Commons, the electorate got its first glimpse of the UK’s new political landscape.

The government benches were filled with Labour MPs for the first time in more than 14 years.

When I say ‘lifted’, it was because it was filled with the House of Commons – deliberately built after the Second World War to be too small – unable to accommodate all 412 Labour MPs.

They were sitting on the stairs, many were standing at the back, others were forced up into the gallery.

On the Conservative benches, the picture was different, with a gloomy face – at one point MPs were asked to regroup to give the impression that things were getting better.

And the Liberal Democrats, with their record 72 members (the most for a third party in over 100 years), have supplanted the SNP, which has been relegated to further back seats.

This Parliament not only seems different in party terms but, as Sir Keir Starmer pointed out in his first speech as Prime Minister, it is also the most diverse in dispatches.

Of the 650 elected last week, 335 have never been MPs before. Some 263 MPs are women, more than 40% for the first time.

Ninety MPs are from an ethnic minority – 14% – compared to 66 in the last legislature.

There are also new, if familiar, faces, such as an emotional Diane Abbott who is now the Mother of the House and, of course, Sir Lindsay Hoyle, very happy to be brought back into the Speaker’s chair.

Jeremy Corbyn was re-elected and there are now four Green MPs.

But it will take some getting used to seeing Nigel Farage in the House of Representatives exchanging a few words with the new Prime Minister, Sir Keir.

Yesterday was full of jokes, frank excitement and, at times, bewilderment among the new members.

Our new politics, with such a large parliamentary Labour Party, will be different – ​​but have no doubt that the quarrels and divisions that define this place will soon emerge.