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

[ChrisDR68]

The South East.

That's terrifying for me...

Where can Labour even try and break through?

Mr Heineken himself won 13 seats for Labour in 1997 in the south east and held them all in 2001. In 2005 the party lost just one of them (Gravesham).

http://www.totalpolitics.com/print/1303/swing-constituencies-south-east.thtml

[ChrisDR68]

Looks likely that Ed Miliband and the rest of the Labour leadership knew they were likely to lose this general election after reading this:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-32606713

[ChrisDR68]

Slight understatement lol

You'd have to assume that this is the SNP's peak so provided Scotland stays within the UK during the next 5 years (which is by no means certain) they stand a chance of regaining several of their old seats north of the border.

Only a couple of seats in the south west are in range though (in their supposed heartland). Most seats there are now pretty solidly Conservative.

A couple of their lost seats in south west London are possible and a few other seats dotted around the country including rural Wales but that's generally it.

At the very best they could maybe scrape 15-20 seats next time.

[ChrisDR68]

Something that needs to be asked is: Has FPTP ever had a more epic failure? 1983 is nothing in comparison to this.

I worked beautifully for the Conservatives as people switched from the Lib Dems to UKIP to allow the Tories to sweep away most of the Lib Dem MP's in the south of England and give them their majority.

It really couldn't have worked better for them.

[ChrisDR68]

Of the 6 general election defeats from 1979 onwards that Labour have suffered this is by the smallest margin in terms of the popular vote.

1979 - 2.2 million
1983 - 4.5 million
1987 - 3.8 million
1992 - 2.6 million
2010 - 2.1 million
2015 - 2.0 million

To put it in perspective though the election of 1979 was said at the time to be a watershed as the gap of 2.2 million between the two main parties was a then post war record (apart from the sole exception of the Labour landslide of 1945).

[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).

[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.

[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.

[ChrisDR68]

Having just watched a snippet of the 2nd Salmond-Darling debate (nothing better to do at this hour) I spotted what may have been key to ensuring the SNP's dominance of Scottish politics for a long time to come. Salmond pointed at Darling and uttered "In bed with the Tory Party! In bed with the Tory Party!" That had to have resonated.

Unless the Scots vote for independence within the next 10 years I think the present spike in support for the SNP will turn out to be an electoral blind alley.

After Labour lose again in 2020 (which seems likely right now) the desire to get the Conservatives out will reassert itself north of the border and in all likelihood Labour will make a strong comeback in time for the 2025 general election.

Ultimately all voting SNP does is make life easier for the Tories as it means fewer Labour MP's in the House of Commons. Eventually that will draw people back to voting Labour but I think it will take most of the next two parliaments for that to happen.

[ChrisDR68]

Almost half the country doesn't even want to be in the UK, though.

True but as someone said on the Daily Politics recently unless they are sure they will win a second independence referendum the SNP won't risk losing again.

Losing two referendums in a short space of time will almost certainly put an independent Scotland to bed as an issue for decades.