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

[Kalimantan]

Ipsos-MORI: Con 36 (+1) Lab 35 (+5), UKIP 11 (+1), Lib Dems 8 (nc)

Not sure about the Greens' figure.

82% say they are "absolutely certain to vote".

Talk about coming into line with everyone else. Now I think every poll has Labour and the Tories within 1 of each other

[Kalimantan]

Poor Libdems. Blamed for everything bad in the last government and not given credit for the good stuff. When the truth may well be the opposite.

[Kalimantan]

Why is SW UK so slow in their count?

SW UK people are pretty slow in everything

[Kalimantan]

Lab gain Chester and Dewsbury.

Which, just to point out for others benefit, are two separate seats, thus making the Tories hopes of an absolute majority a little less certain

[Kalimantan]

Lab gain Chester and Dewsbury.

Which, just to point out for others benefit, are two separate seats, thus making the Tories hopes of an absolute majority a little less certain

ooh, and Hove (my old stomping ground, how on earth has this become a Labour seat again?!)

[Kalimantan]

BALLS LEFT DANGLING FOR HOURS, BEFORE SWINGING AWAY AND THEN GIVEN A KICKING

Amidst the dismal results this morning, Balls losing is one shining light. The unpopularity of the two Ed's crippled the Labour party, they'll both be gone now. Meanwhile this will make it a lot easier for Ball's wife, Yvette Cooper, to win the leadership. She is one of the shining lights of the party but there was the obvious fear that a husband-wife 1-2 would be seen as hugely nepotistic.

[Kalimantan]

I think I mentioned this before.  But this will the the first time an incumbent ruling party managed to increase BOTH seat and vote share after a full term since the 1950s.  Harold Wilson manged this twice in 1964/1966 and the 2 1974 elections but I do not count either one, especially the 2 1974 elections since anti-incumbency did not have enough time to sink in either case, especially in 1974.  CON in 2010 to 2015 went the entire 5 years and still managed to increase its vote share and seat share.

Well technically the incumbent was the Con+LD coalition, and as a group they did lose seats (and probbaly vote share but haven't checked)

[Kalimantan]

Is this the most dissapointing/crushing election night in the history of the Labour Party?

Can't be far from it. Of course, 1970 and 1992 are also good candidates (strange how often the pollsters strongly overestimate Labour's chances). 1983 was terrible of course, but so expected that it can't have felt anywhere near this bad.

No, 1992 (in my memory at least). Really this election result was very predictable, we just allowed ourselves to be kidded by the polls that perhaps Miliband and Balls weren't as unpopular as we all knew they really were, and that losing Scotland didn't matter because the SNP are left-wing anyway. All a big house of cards and the cold light of day reveals these beliefs to be the fallacy we secretly knew all along. But a new leader, a miserable Tory government run by the 60 or so far right in their ranks, and a big win in 5 years beckons