UK Election - Results Thread

[rob in cal]

If I did the swingometer right, it looks like the UNS was just a little off in showing how many seats would change hands. I think Tories were projected to win in the 290s with a 5.0 swing from Labour.  Still much closer than the american guy who thought the swingometers would be way off.

[rob in cal]

If we define the Lib Dems as a center left party, looks to me like we have a narrow center left majority, counting the SDLP, SF, PC, and SNP as also center left in one way or another, so ideologically one could make a case for a narrow mandate for some form of a center left government.  Shutting out the plurality winner in terms of votes and seats is a tough one I would think though.

[rob in cal]

I love how in British elections the parties national vote %, and seat totals are given, as is done in Canada I believe. In the US, parties national vote % is never posted on election results from the news media.  This helps to discourage any move toward PR, in that people aren't conditioned to even consider the parties shares of votes and seats. The concept isn't even mentioned by the pundits and talking heads on election night in the US.

[rob in cal]

I recall an article in the Telegraph about why Tories shouldn't be afraid of PR, pointing out that other rightist parties such as the UKIP would be winning seats and would be future coalition partners.  Tories should look at Europe where there are plenty of examples of rightist coalitions elected under PR coming to power.

[rob in cal]

Does anyone have a list of "Tory near misses".  I'm trying to figure out how much more of a national swing the Tories needed for a majority of seats and I can't find that many near misses.  Most of their targeted seats that they failed to take were LD seats and they didn't come close in most of these.  They did win most of the Labour seats on their top 116 target seats, but those they failed at, most were not that close.  Seems to me they are a few points off from winning another 20 seats or so.

[rob in cal]

Do we have any indication of what the 2nd preference for supporters of the LD's, UKIP, and BNP electorate is?  This would be interesting if when all is said and done the UK goes for either an AV system like for Australia House of Reps, or Irish style STV-PR, as both systems use second choice preferences for losing candidates.