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

[kcguy]

I'm following The Daily Telegraph & The Guardian, because the American media sucks and wouldn't follow a foreign election if it's life depended on it.

If you're trying to watch something, I'd recommend the ITV broadcast on C-SPAN. I'm pretty sure it's the only way to watch the coverage on TV.

I'm watching BBC World.  It's channel 209 on my cable system.

[kcguy]

As an American I do not know much about the U.K parties, can someone break them down to me?

Like from most liberal to most conservative or something?

Ignoring more than 1/2 dozen minor parties, mainly in Northern Ireland:

Green > Scottish National Party > Labour > Liberal Democrats > Conservatives ("Tories") > United Kingdom Independence Party

[kcguy]

The returning officer's speech in Ceredigion was a shock.  I always forget that there are parts of the UK where English isn't the primary language.

[kcguy]

The 538 forecast is now 325 for Tories.

I saw that, too.  Then I realized that they had 50+ for the Lib Dems.

Tories are back down to 298 on 538's website.


EDIT:

Something's wrong with the 538 numbers.  They're fluctuating wildly.  I really don't think this is right:

[kcguy]

Who becomes Scottish Secretary if the governing coalition has no Scottish MPs?

It wouldn't be without precedent.  I don't think there's been a Northern Ireland secretary from that country in decades.

[kcguy]

BBC's exit poll looking better and better.  It's taken half the night, but 538 is finally in agreement.

[kcguy]

On the subject of the Lib Dems: what exactly is (or was ) their social and regional base of support? Do they even have one, or is part of the issue the fact that they rely a lot on protest votes scattered throughout different constituencies?

(apologies if this question has been answered before, or has an obvious answer).

This is just my impression, but it seems like Lib Dem base demographics is just several distinct groups layered on top of one another.

1.  People in regions distant from London, which were never really a part of the English Establishment.  In particular, the Scottish Highlands, rural Wales, and the southwestern peninsula.  These are not people who live in the country and commute to work for a large employer in town; these are people who live in the country and make their living in fishing or farming.

2.  People who live in regions where the Labour party acquired the image, especially in the 1970's and 1980's, of the "loony Left".  The Liberal Democrats would capture the local government, run it competently, and build upon that.  Here, their support came from not just the center and center-left, but also from right-wingers who would vote for anyone capable of getting Labour out of office.  Geographically, this would be random scattered seats in inner-city London, Liverpool, Manchester, etc.

3.  People who reacted negatively to the rise of the right wing in the Conservative Party in the 1990's, particularly reacting to stridently anti-European right-wing elements.  These people would have regarded themselves as too middle class to vote Labour.  Mirroring #2, Lib Dem support in these constituencies would be padded by people who would otherwise have voted Labour.  Geographically, the poster children for this demographic would have been the 5 well-heeled seats in outer southwestern London taken from the Tories in 1997.

4.  People on the left of the Labour Party who opposed Tony Blair and the Iraq War.  Cambridge and the two Oxford seats are the obvious examples, although the Lib Dems had already held the more rural of the two Oxford seats even before the war.

[kcguy]

I'm sure I'm missing a few seats but I can't quite figure what they are. England and Wales only here.

Lab to Con (9)

Con to Lab (10)

LD to Con (27)

LD to Lab (12)

Sky News had a list, so I compared it to yours.

It looks like the only seat you missed was Clacton, which is technically a UKIP gain compared to 2010, even if it was won by the same candidate.

[kcguy]

On the subject of the Lib Dems: what exactly is (or was ) their social and regional base of support? Do they even have one, or is part of the issue the fact that they rely a lot on protest votes scattered throughout different constituencies?

(apologies if this question has been answered before, or has an obvious answer).

This is just my impression, but it seems like Lib Dem base demographics is just several distinct groups layered on top of one another.

1.  People in regions distant from London, which were never really a part of the English Establishment.  In particular, the Scottish Highlands, rural Wales, and the southwestern peninsula.  These are not people who live in the country and commute to work for a large employer in town; these are people who live in the country and make their living in fishing or farming.

2.  People who live in regions where the Labour party acquired the image, especially in the 1970's and 1980's, of the "loony Left".  The Liberal Democrats would capture the local government, run it competently, and build upon that.  Here, their support came from not just the center and center-left, but also from right-wingers who would vote for anyone capable of getting Labour out of office.  Geographically, this would be random scattered seats in inner-city London, Liverpool, Manchester, etc.

3.  People who reacted negatively to the rise of the right wing in the Conservative Party in the 1990's, particularly reacting to stridently anti-European right-wing elements.  These people would have regarded themselves as too middle class to vote Labour.  Mirroring #2, Lib Dem support in these constituencies would be padded by people who would otherwise have voted Labour.  Geographically, the poster children for this demographic would have been the 5 well-heeled seats in outer southwestern London taken from the Tories in 1997.

4.  People on the left of the Labour Party who opposed Tony Blair and the Iraq War.  Cambridge and the two Oxford seats are the obvious examples, although the Lib Dems had already held the more rural of the two Oxford seats even before the war.

So how did these groups vote in 2015?

I'm guessing the first group voted SNP (in Scotland) and Conservative elsewhere, then groups 2 and 3 went Conservative, and then the fourth group went to Labour and maybe the Greens? Is that about right?

My first post was off-the-cuff.  You made me work for this one. 

Dividing up the lost seats (somewhat arbitrarily), I put 19 seats¹ in Group #1.  They went 12 to the Conservatives and 7 to the SNP.

I put 5 seats² in Group #2.  (I was thinking of Simon Hughes's seat when I said this, and they weren't a lot of other similar seats, so I included a couple of seats that came to the Lib Dems through the Social Democratic Party's break with Labour.)  They went 3 to Labour and 2 to the Conservatives in 2015.

I put 17 seats³ in Group #3.  (Some of these were reactions against the post-Thatcher Conservatives, but many of these were cases where the Lib Dems or their Liberal predecessors won a by-election through a protest vote and just managed to hold on through one general election after another.)  These went 13 to the Conservatives, 1 to Labour, and 3 to the SNP.

The remaining 8 seats⁴ went to Group #4.  (These were mainly university seats or seats with large Muslim populations.)  All 8 went to Labour.

1.  Argyll and Bute; Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk; Berwick-upon-Tweed; Brecon and Radnorshire; Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross; Chippenham; Gordon; Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch, and Strathspey; North Cornwall; North Devon; Ross, Skye and Lochaber; Saint Austell and Newquay; Saint Ives; Somerton and Frome; Taunton Deane; Torbay; Wells; West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine; and Yeovil.
2.  Bermondsey and Old Southwark; Birmingham Yardley; Cardiff Central; Colchester; and Portsmouth South.
3.  Bath; Bristol West; Cheadle; Cheltenham; Eastbourne; East Dunbartonshire; Eastleigh; Edinburgh West; Hazel Grove; Kingston and Surbiton; Lewes; Mid Dorset and North Poole; North East Fife; Solihull; Sutton and Cheam; Thornbury and Yate; and Twickenham.
4.  Bradford East; Brent Central; Burnley; Cambridge; Hornsey and Wood Green; Manchester Withington; Norwich South; and Redcar.

[kcguy]

Just a random thought:

I tend to associate certain UK elections with certain words or phrases.
1959 ("You never had it so good")
1979 ("The winter of our discontent")
1983 ("The longest suicide note in history")
1997 ("Were you up for Portillo?")

For now, I'm inclined to think of 2015 as the Edible Hat Election.