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

[Angel of Death]

Of the 30,697,845 valid votes, 15,357,850 went to losing candidates and 7,461,407 were excess votes for winners, meaning that 74% of the valid votes were wasted.

[Hydera]

This might be far fetched.

But i was searching for map of irish ancestry and the closest i could find was a density map of the surname Kennedy. And it was quite high around labour strongholds in the North with exception of south Yorkshire.




Perhaps a reinforcement of the idea that theres a celtic vote divide with the rest of the people on the island?

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

Didn't the Irish Parliamentary Party of old once return a member from a Liverpool constituency?

[BaconBacon96]

Didn't the Irish Parliamentary Party of old once return a member from a Liverpool constituency?

Yes, T.P O'Connor was Irish nationalist MP from 1885 to 1929 for Liverpool Scotland.

[Joe Republic]

Didn't the Irish Parliamentary Party of old once return a member from a Liverpool constituency?

Yes, T.P O'Connor was Irish nationalist MP from 1885 to 1929 for Liverpool Scotland.

I just Wiki'd it for myself, but "Liverpool Scotland" is already confusing enough without having had an Irish MP for four decades as well.

[minionofmidas]

Didn't the Irish Parliamentary Party of old once return a member from a Liverpool constituency?

Yes, T.P O'Connor was Irish nationalist MP from 1885 to 1929 for Liverpool Scotland.

I just Wiki'd it for myself, but "Liverpool Scotland" is already confusing enough without having had an Irish MP for four decades as well.

When I first read that tidbit of information in an old book in the Frankfurt uni library, early this millennium or possibly very late in the last one, it said "the Scotland division of Liverpool". Now that was confusing. I did figure it out at the time, but I briefly wondered if there might conceivably be a town of that name in Scotland.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Perhaps a reinforcement of the idea that theres a celtic vote divide with the rest of the people on the island?

Er... that's probably not the right way of looking at things. What's true is that there was a lot of Irish immigration to areas of heavy industry in the 19th century and that the resulting Catholic subcultures have longstanding links with the Unions and with the Labour Party.

[ChrisDR68]

Revised migration flow graphic of the general election by Electoral Calculus:





Their accompanying blurb is interesting too:

Here is the revised graphic. Compared with the previous version, it has the correct support figures, which means that both the Conservatives and Labour are each one voter better off than in 2010. The Liberal Democrats are reduced to eight voters. There is a new flow of one voter from Labour to Conservative, and two fewer voters leaving the Conservatives for UKIP.

The UKIP group of 13 voters includes three voters who previously voted for other minor parties such as the BNP in 2010, but these voters are not shown on the diagram.

Although Liberal Democrat voters split two-to-one in favour of Labour over the Conservatives, the Conservatives gained twice as many seats (27) from the Lib Dems as Labour did (12).

[Bacon King]

so if I'm understanding the chart right, the only party that attracted a meaningful number of new voters was UKIP? (As in, they have more people with + signs in their block than the sum of people that flowed to them from elsewhere)

[Torie]

so if I'm understanding the chart right, the only party that attracted a meaningful number of new voters was UKIP? (As in, they have more people with + signs in their block than the sum of people that flowed to them from elsewhere)

The 3 excess plusses is explained by:

"The UKIP group of 13 voters includes three voters who previously voted for other minor parties such as the BNP in 2010, but these voters are not shown on the diagram."

[jaichind]

so if I'm understanding the chart right, the only party that attracted a meaningful number of new voters was UKIP? (As in, they have more people with + signs in their block than the sum of people that flowed to them from elsewhere)

The 3 excess plusses is explained by:

"The UKIP group of 13 voters includes three voters who previously voted for other minor parties such as the BNP in 2010, but these voters are not shown on the diagram."

I think it is off by a bit less than one percent.  In 2010 UKIP+BNP+English Democrats+Christian seems to have captured 5.3%  The chart seems to imply that this cluster won 6%.  They are better off rounding to 5% instead of 6%.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Just remember that that's someone's estimate not anything authoritative.

[Phony Moderate]

The SNP possibly does have a long-term problem. Look at the following modern examples of successful/dominant political duos:

Hawke-Keating
Blair-Brown
Howard-Costello
Chretien-Martin

Once of all those figures left the stage (though only Howard and Costello bowed out at the same time as each other) no one who was even half as impressive (in terms of political skill) emerged to replace them. The SNP's successful/dominant duo is of course Salmond-Sturgeon and beyond those two there doesn't appear to be any obvious successors who would be anywhere near as good.

[ChrisDR68]

My own guess (without an evidence to back it up) is that the SNP's dominance will hold up pretty well during this parliament and they'll still win the vast bulk of Scottish seats at the next general election (probably over 40 of their current MP's being returned).

Once the Conservatives are returned for a third straight term at Westminster in 2020 though the desire to get the Tories out re-establishes itself and Labour make a strong comeback north of the border in time for the 2025 general election.

That presumes that they're isn't another independence referendum in the meantime and the Scots remain within the union.

[You kip if you want to...]

My own guess (without an evidence to back it up) is that the SNP's dominance will hold up pretty well during this parliament and they'll still win the vast bulk of Scottish seats at the next general election (probably over 40 of their current MP's being returned).

Once the Conservatives are returned for a third straight term at Westminster in 2020 though the desire to get the Tories out re-establishes itself and Labour make a strong comeback north of the border in time for the 2025 general election.

That presumes that they're isn't another independence referendum in the meantime and the Scots remain within the union.

Labour will win again once voters in England don't think they'll need to get in on the back of the SNP.

[Phony Moderate]

A Comservative victory of one kind or another next time does seem likely right now. But when predicting far-into-the-future elections it is worth remembering Harold Wilson's most famous saying (which I also posted yesterday, incidentally).

After 2005 it was expected that Gordon Brown would steamroller David Davis (yes, him) in 2009 after a smooth transition between him and Blair occurred. But then the Tories elected Cameron, infighting broke out in Labour, Brown bottled an early election, the economy imploded and MPs expenses were exposed.

After 2001 many thought that the following Parliament would be dominated by a referendum on us joining the Euro (lol), public service reform and a battle between two modernisers - Blair and Portillo. But then the Tories decided to elect IDS, a major disaster occurred in Manhattan and Iraq was invaded.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Ipsos-MORI's big demographic survey results are out:



All of the usual caveats apply, of course, and with that in mind I will point out that the figures are not as theoretically accurate as the sort of demographic exit poll data that most of the non-British posters here will be used to, but it's the best you're going to get. So please read with caution: in particular be really careful with the class stuff, because (amongst other things) the model used is kind of dreck.

[Zanas]

So the global result is basically the result of the 55-64 age slice of the population ? Good to know...

[Phony Moderate]

The pollsters must be regretting that any pensioner turned out to vote.

[jaichind]

I think it is this poster that won it for CON

[YL]

As mentioned in the UK General Discussion thread an electoral petition has been submitted challenging the result in Orkney & Shetland:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-scotland-politics-32930488

[YL]

Ipsos-MORI's big demographic survey results are out:



All of the usual caveats apply, of course, and with that in mind I will point out that the figures are not as theoretically accurate as the sort of demographic exit poll data that most of the non-British posters here will be used to, but it's the best you're going to get. So please read with caution: in particular be really careful with the class stuff, because (amongst other things) the model used is kind of dreck.

However, if accurate it fits rather poorly with quite a lot of pundits' analysis of the election result.

[ChrisDR68]

The reason I think this general election felt very much like the one in 1992 (I personally felt exactly the same way on the Friday morning on each occasion) is because the same two basic dynamics were at work in both.

The UK electorate wanted the Conservatives out due to being unpopular and widely seen as out of touch but they also wanted the Labour leader (Neil Kinnock in 1992 and Ed Miliband in 2015) to be denied the keys to 10 Downing Street more.

That negative conflict in people's minds largely explains why such a large portion of the voting public were undecided and why the opinion polls got it so wrong on each occasion as the undecideds swung heavily for the Tories (probably as late as polling day itself) undetected by the pollsters.

In my opinion with a credible leader Labour wins both of these general elections.

[Phony Moderate]

According to Labour's private polling they were in a good position following the televised debates but their numbers sank during the last couple of weeks due to the SNP scare. The election was probably lost when Labour decided to (de facto) lead the Better Together campaign.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

However, if accurate it fits rather poorly with quite a lot of pundits' analysis of the election result.

Indeed. I will note that this point that it happens to fit the general pattern of results much better than said pundit-driven analysis...