UK 2005 Election numbers

[RBH]

Seats won with a majority of the vote

Labour: 140
Conservative: 54
Liberal Democrats: 16
Democratic Unionist: 3
Peter Law: 1
Plaid Cymru: 1
Scottish National: 1
Sinn Fein: 1
The Speaker: 1
Ulster Unionist: 1

Seats won with a plurality

Conservative: 144
Labour: 115
Liberal Democrats: 46
Democratic Unionist: 6
Scottish National: 5
Sinn Fein: 4
Social Democratic & Labour: 3
Plaid Cymru: 2
Health Concern: 1
Respect: 1

Parties that lost the highest percentage of their deposits (if you get over 5%, you get your deposit back)

English Democrats: lost 24 of 24 deposits
Rainbow Dream Ticket: lost 23 of 23 deposits
Veritas: lost 64 of 65 deposits
Socialist Labor: lost 48 of 49 deposits
Scottish Socialists: lost 56 of 58 deposits
UK Independence: lost 458 of 496 deposits
Greens: lost 179 of 203 deposits

Labour didn't lose a single deposit. The Conservatives lost 5 deposits.

Five best seats for (with the party that won in paratheses and their percentage)

Respect

Bethnal Green & Bow: 35.9% (They won here, remember?)
Birmingham Sparkrook & Small Heath: 27.5% (Labour 36%)
East Ham: 20.7% (Labour 54%)
West Ham: 19.5% (Labour 51%)
Poplar & Canning Town: 16.8% (Labour 40%)

The Greens

Brighton Pavilion: 21.9% (Labour 35%)
Lewisham Deptford: 11.1% (Labour 56%)
Hackney North & Stoke Newington: 9.9% (Labour 49%)
Holborn & St. Pancras: 8.1% (Labour 43%)
Glasgow North: 7.6% (Labour 39%)

The BNP

Barking: 17% (Labour 48%)
Dewsbury: 13.1% (Labour 41%)
Burnley: 10.3% (Labour 38%)
West Bromwich West: 9.9% (Labour 54%)
Dudley North: 9.7% (Labour 44%)

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Seats won with a majority of the vote

Labour: 140
Conservative: 54

Seats won with a plurality

Conservative: 144
Labour: 115

Now those are actually quite interesting numbers.

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The sole exception was Mr Tangerine Man himself, and even then he only just avoided losing his deposit... cruel fate that his ego wasn't damaged even more than it was. Oh well.

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Lol

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Against Dobbo as well

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They (and everyone else) actually thought they would do better than that.

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Open seat in an area that's had some racial problems over the years and in which both Labour and Tory candidates were Kashmiris.

[minionofmidas]

Glasgow North was not the Green Party's fifth strongest result - they didn't even run there.
It was the Scottish Green Party's strongest result though. They're organizationally fully separate parties, though of course allied.

[RBH]

The Conservatives won the popular vote in England by a 35.74/35.46 margin, which was good for 194 seats. Labour won 286 seats there.

The Conservatives lost 1 deposit in Scotland, 1 in Wales, and 3 in Northern Ireland.

The LibDems lost 1 deposit in Wales.

[Silent Hunter]

So Labour didn't lose any? That's good.

[Verily]

Yes. The lost deposits in Wales were both in Blaenau Gwent, where Lib Dem and Conservative voters voted strategically against Labour and for Independent Peter Law. The Lib Dems won 4.3% and the Conservatives 2.4%. (Blaenau Gwent is historically the strongest Labour seat in the country; Peter Law won a large majority, died in 2006 and was replaced in a by-election by another socialist Independent, Dai Davies.) The Conservative lost deposit in Scotland was Na h-Eileanan an Iar, where the Christian Vote Party outperformed the Conservatives, winning 7.6% to the Conservatives' 4.4%. The lost deposits in NI were because the Conservatives have this delusion that they can still be competitive there.

[minionofmidas]

Yes. The lost deposits in Wales were both in Blaenau Gwent, where Lib Dem and Conservative voters voted strategically against Labour and for Independent Peter Law.

...not to mention the other way round, as well.

[RBH]

The Conservatives should find some way to connect themselves with the parties that want more local control.

But, they're not quite thought of fondly by Nationalists. I think.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

There were never many Tory voters in that part of Wales to start with; though I do think that the Tories would have saved their deposit in the by-election had it had the sort of turnouts you can normally expect in by-elections in seats like Blaenau Gwent (there was a decent turnout for several reasons; one of which was the somewhat civil war-ish element to politics there now; Ebbw Vale against Tredegar and so on).

The Conservatives should find some way to connect themselves with the parties that want more local control.

Won't happen as the Tories have always been opposed to local control; them adovocating it would look disingenuous as it would be.

[RBH]

Well, maybe some of the more rational Kippers (UKIP) can form a party with that POV.

Granted. The UKIP isn't for local control, and the BNP wants to reunify with Ireland.

But there might be 20 or so "local control" conservatives out there.

I think PC and SNP are also both liberal parties.

[minionofmidas]

the BNP wants to reunify with Ireland.

Really? LOL.

[Јas]

The lost deposits in NI were because the Conservatives have this delusion that they can still be competitive there.

Whatever you can blame the Tories for. I don't think any Conservative is under the delusion that they can be a competitive electoral force in NI.

the BNP wants to reunify with Ireland.

Really? LOL.

^^^^

[RBH]

How they put it

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[Јas]

How they put it

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Clearly another well thought out and considered position by the BNP.

[Verily]

Well, maybe some of the more rational Kippers (UKIP) can form a party with that POV.

Granted. The UKIP isn't for local control, and the BNP wants to reunify with Ireland.

But there might be 20 or so "local control" conservatives out there.

I think PC and SNP are also both liberal parties.

The SNP is an interesting case; it's definitely left-wing, but it tends to churn a lot with the Conservatives (which makes no sense to me, given that they're polar opposites). In 2003 and 2005, they were forced to run a bit further to the left than usual because of the Scottish Socialist Party, but the SSP has imploded and is unlikely to win more than one seat in 2007 Scottish election and be irrelevant by the next Westminster election.

Plaid Cymru basically just runs in opposition to whatever Labour advocates, but usually by being further to the left than Labour.

I've never encountered a right-wing separatist party in Europe. They all seem to be social democrats or farther left.

The lost deposits in NI were because the Conservatives have this delusion that they can still be competitive there.

Whatever you can blame the Tories for. I don't think any Conservative is under the delusion that they can be a competitive electoral force in NI.

Probably not, but they certainly seem determined to run candidates there. Couldn't they just endorse the UUP like the LDs endorse the Alliance?

[Filuwaúrdjan]

The old term of abuse (favoured by Willie Ross I think) for the SNP was Tartan Tories, btw.

Plaid Cymru basically just runs in opposition to whatever Labour advocates, but usually by being further to the left than Labour.

Plaid are not to the left of Labour (except, perhaps, in some of their own late '90's propaganda)... they are basically in the centre of Welsh politics, with a pseudo-social democratic wing and a rather right-wing (and to put it bluntly; pseudo-fascist in some cases. Out and out fascist in the case of the late Saunders Lewis) nationalist wing.
There's a possibility that Plaid may be junior coalition partners with Labour after this year's elections, although nothing as far as that goes is certain.

In terms of Westminster politics, Plaid are all over the place and always have been. Not that there position in Westminster matters at all to anyone.

[Rural Radical]

The old term of abuse (favoured by Willie Ross I think) for the SNP was Tartan Tories, btw.

Plaid Cymru basically just runs in opposition to whatever Labour advocates, but usually by being further to the left than Labour.

Plaid are not to the left of Labour (except, perhaps, in some of their own late '90's propaganda)... they are basically in the centre of Welsh politics, with a pseudo-social democratic wing and a rather right-wing (and to put it bluntly; pseudo-fascist in some cases. Out and out fascist in the case of the late Saunders Lewis) nationalist wing.
There's a possibility that Plaid may be junior coalition partners with Labour after this year's elections, although nothing as far as that goes is certain.

In terms of Westminster politics, Plaid are all over the place and always have been. Not that there position in Westminster matters at all to anyone.

Good analysis again. I always thought that Plaid was full of very Left Wing and Very Right Wing people (and nothing in between).