Silent Hunter's reaction

[minionofmidas]

1. How on earth did we lose Enfield Southgate and Manchester Withington?
I guess Enfield Southgate's just got large no.s of typical swing voters. It was safer for the Tories than North in 92, safer for Labour in 97 and 01. Withington also is volatile, it was Tory from 83-87.
3. How did we hold Dumfries and Galloway?
Lots of tactical anti-Tory voting going on. The old Galloway was a Tory-Nat marginal, and lots of Labour voters went SNP. After the redistricting, the Nats were certain not to win. Instead Labour had a chance due to the addition of ultra-Labour Dumfries city. Those votes drifted back, plus Nats likely repaid the favour.
7. The 'decapitation' strategy didn't work did it?
It certainly did not. Except in keeping turnout up.
9. This isn't a Tory revival- most their gains were due to Labour-Lib Dem swing, not great improvements on their own.
True. The Tories made some minimal gains, but the big story of the night should be Labour being deserted for the LDs by a) tactical voters who always preferred the LDs
b) Socially liberal, pacifist middle class lefties

Tory gains by region
London 1.4
SE 2.1
E 1.4
SW 0.1
W Mids 0.2
E Mids -0.2
Yorks -1.1
NW -0.7
NE -1.8
Wales 0.4
Scotland 0.3
Seems that Al's increased regional polarization thingy turned out true.

[minionofmidas]

Nationally (well, tri-nationally) Labour are down 5.8, LD's are up 3.8, Cons are up .6. The BBC calls that a "3.2 point swing from Labour to the Tories". Wouldn't it make a hell of a lot more sense to call it a 4.8 point swing from Labour to the LDs?

[minionofmidas]

Seems that Al's increased regional polarization thingy turned out true.

See, I get some things right

More class polarisation too: we held all bar one North Kent seat but got nearly wiped out in Hertfordshire.

Fun thing is it's evident in the Tory vote but not in the Labour and LD votes (the Northeast and Scotland were the LD's best results actually).