UK General Election - May 7th 2015 (The Official Election Day & Results Thread)

[ObserverIE]

People Before Profit (the SWP in drag) get 19.2% in Belfast West to come second behind SF.

The Tories get 34 votes.

[ObserverIE]

Second seat for the Lib Dems: Westmorland & Lonsdale

They can upgrade from a Segway to a tandem.

[ObserverIE]

They're doing well in the diversifying outer London suburbs; they had a reasonable swing in Southgate and may take Enfield North.

[ObserverIE]

Alasdair McDonnell holds Belfast South for the SDLP.

[ObserverIE]

Lib Dems hold Southport to move to 4 seats. Taxi can be booked.

[ObserverIE]

Carshalton held to bring Lib Dems to 5. Now level in seats with their previous lowest figure of the last 70 years.

[ObserverIE]

Tories hold Thurrock, UKIP in third place.

Carswell may well be UKIP's only MP.

[ObserverIE]

Lib Dems return to same number of seats as 1951, 1955, 1959 and 1970.

[ObserverIE]

Lab gain Brentford and Isleworth but lose Southampton Itchen.

Tories hold Dumfriesshire, Clydesdale and Tweeddale.

[ObserverIE]

Lib Dems return to same number of seats as 1951, 1955, 1959 and 1970.

And the vote share has gone up to 7.2%. Should make 10 seats.

The only real prospect left at this stage for a hold is North Norfolk. Perhaps Hazel Grove or Cheadle.

[ObserverIE]

Lib Dems return to same number of seats as 1951, 1955, 1959 and 1970.

And the vote share has gone up to 7.2%. Should make 10 seats.

The only real prospect left at this stage for a hold is North Norfolk. Perhaps Hazel Grove or Cheadle.

Not some of the southwestern seats? Yeovil?

Yeovil and Thornbury & Yate both apparently gone.

[ObserverIE]

Belfast West largely considers itself to be in the same country as the other FF...

Lab gain Norwich South from Lib Dems. This was the other seat projected to go Green on the exit polls, so both the Greens and UKIP will be one-person parties in the next parliament.

[ObserverIE]

Sinn Fein loses South Tyrone to UUP.

Really? Wow. I knew it was close last time but I assumed that was just because there was a single Unionist candidate.

It was by 4 votes last time...I wonder what the margin is.

530.

Tom Elliott being slightly more gracious than Gavin Robinson but only slightly.

[ObserverIE]

Cameron doesn't appear too relaxed.

He'll find being PM in this parliament much harder than in the last one. His right wingers will make his life hell just like they did with John Major.

The Tories have devoured the Lib Dem lifebelt.

Lib Dems have apparently held North Norfolk to bring them up to 7.

[ObserverIE]

BBC projecting Lib Dem position "improving" from 10 to 12. I don't see how it can move beyond 7.

[ObserverIE]

LD hold Bristol West. At least, 7.

Nope. Third place as expected behind Labour and the Greens and the vote down 29%.

North Devon lost.

North Norfolk and perhaps(?) Leeds North West and Cheadle are the only remaining hopes.

[ObserverIE]

Lab gain Chester and Dewsbury.

The Lib Dems hold Leeds North West, bringing them to 8. Cheadle and St. Austell both lost.

[ObserverIE]

Labour gains Hove.

[ObserverIE]

Lowest number of Lib Dem seats and votes since 1970.

"I have run the plough over it, like the ancient Carthage of Africa, and I have had salt sown upon it...."

[ObserverIE]

Yes, to be honest Balls had become a liability and if Labour were going to lose some seats to the Tories, it was for the best that that was one of them.

Is it currently 10 Lab gains from Con and 7 going the other way?  I might have missed one or two, but it's clear that Labour simply didn't perform in the marginals, and that then the Lib Dem collapse has given the Tories a narrow majority.

Cable losing was the biggest shock for me.

There are some aspects of 1987 about this result with first-term Conservative incumbents boosting their majorities (although most of those boosted majorities collapsed again in 1992).

There are also aspects of 1992 with a tiny and unexpected Conservative majority with a large loony right on the backbenches and a lot of things coming up in the future that can go wrong (massive spending cuts that the Tories avoided talking about during the campaign, an EU membership referendum souring relations with the rest of Europe, and the Scottish problem).

#clutchingatstraws

[ObserverIE]

The sitting MP in Wells has unofficially admitted defeat; the other two seats only begin counting this morning.

[ObserverIE]

Is this the first time there have been no Liberal or Lib Dem seats in the South-West of England since the 1950s?

Yes

More exactly, they have always had some presence in the west or south-west since the 1958 Torrington by-election.

[ObserverIE]

Spreadsheet based on data scraped from BBC website here (hat-tip to https://twitter.com/stanno/status/596721840728514560).

[ObserverIE]

So what exactly is the difference between the DUP and the UUP?

UUP is more liberal-conservative, officially secular and largely aligned with the Tories on policy. The mainstream unionist party for most of NI modern history and the governing party from 1921-1972. Much more moderate than the DUP.

That depends on the particular UUPer. It would be true of Kinahan in South Antrim, but not of Elliott in Fermanagh-South Tyrone.

[ObserverIE]

That wiki entry did point me to:
East Kerry, 1885, Irish Parliamentary Party, 99%
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/East_Kerry_(UK_Parliament_constituency)#1885

...which apparently is the record for a Westminster election.

And in which the Conservatives got only four votes fewer than in West Belfast 130 years later...