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

[Chancellor of the Duchy of Little Lever and Darcy Lever]

My jaw just hit the floor.

[Chancellor of the Duchy of Little Lever and Darcy Lever]

Sunderland is a relatively strong area for UKIP - this confirms they're going to do fairly well in votes.

[Chancellor of the Duchy of Little Lever and Darcy Lever]

What does "Lost deposit" mean?

You have to pay a £500 deposit to get on the ballot paper.  If you poll over 5%, you get the deposit back; if you don't, you lose it.

The BBC coverage is full of communication problems and dropped OBs tonight.  This is the sort of thing I watch live TV for.

[Chancellor of the Duchy of Little Lever and Darcy Lever]

    Would be fascinating to see UKIP become the primary opposition to Labour in the north in the future. I remember reading something about a future Red-UKIP emerging as Labours main challenger in its northern heartland.

If the number of UKIP leaflets I got through my door is any guide, that's already happened.

[Chancellor of the Duchy of Little Lever and Darcy Lever]

The Sunderland counters proved their money's worth yet again.  It's no coincidence: they do this all the time even in local polls.

Now let's get a result somewhere other than Sunderland.

[Chancellor of the Duchy of Little Lever and Darcy Lever]

BBC projecting a Tory gain in North East Derbyshire (?)

[Chancellor of the Duchy of Little Lever and Darcy Lever]

Remember everyone, we're in the wild Twitter rumour stage of the count here.  Treat anything on the Twitter with caution.

[Chancellor of the Duchy of Little Lever and Darcy Lever]

The BBC are interviewing the editor of the Scum.  Everybody in Liverpool has just switched to ITV.

[Chancellor of the Duchy of Little Lever and Darcy Lever]

The Conservatives have held Swindon North - 104th on the Labour target list.  No figures yet

[Chancellor of the Duchy of Little Lever and Darcy Lever]

Does anyone have the schedule for when constituencies announce their results?

The Press Association have a list but it's essentially fiction.  Swindon was expected to be a late declarer.

[Chancellor of the Duchy of Little Lever and Darcy Lever]

What on earth is going on?

[Chancellor of the Duchy of Little Lever and Darcy Lever]

If Clegg loses, who will be LD leader? Who will want to?

Farron.

[Chancellor of the Duchy of Little Lever and Darcy Lever]

My own seat of Bolton South East is in: easy Labour hold, UKIP just beating Tories for second.

[Chancellor of the Duchy of Little Lever and Darcy Lever]

The BBC sound engineer seems to be on work experience.

[Chancellor of the Duchy of Little Lever and Darcy Lever]

The BBC has David Butler on their program.  My night has been made - I've been missing his commentary all night.

His putdown of Jeremy Vine was sublime.  If I get to ninety with even half his faculties I'll be blessed.

[Chancellor of the Duchy of Little Lever and Darcy Lever]

Any idea why Labour had such an epic fail in Hendon, especially compared to the rest of north London?

I suspect part of the issue was that Dismore overperformed in 2010 (that he nearly held on was a real surprise) and that he did so based on his personal appeal. Loss of incumbency won't have helped there. Its possible that he lost some Orthodox Jewish support due to a dislike of Miliband's foreign policy views, but that wouldn't be enough votes to account for the result (though I'm sure that will be cited as the reason), at least not without some other factor.

But I note that the Tories also had decent results in the Harrow seats. Are the Tories making further inroads with the growing Hindu community - even if only the middle class ones - in N.W. London perhaps?

Dismore did hugely outperform in the London Assembly elections in 2012 - but the Tory candidate he was up against was Brian "Taxi" Coleman who had a strongly negative personal vote.

[Chancellor of the Duchy of Little Lever and Darcy Lever]

Three election petitions have been submitted:

Orkney and Shetland: as reported upthread four electors allege false statements by Alastair Carmichael.

Mid Bedfordshire: an independent candidate alleges false statements by Nadine Dorries.  By all accounts they hate each other with a passion so this could be fun to watch.

Woking: the "Magna Party Conservation Party" candidate alleges that the Tory MP wasn't qualified to be a candidate.