UK Election - Results Thread

[DL]

Maybe someone tried to explain this before and I missed it - but remember "bigot-gate" (I'm really sick of how the media puts the suffix "gate" after every single incident no matter how trivial)? We were told that it would destroy the Labour Party, send them into third place, endless hyperbole from the media about the "incalculable damage" it would do the the Labour Party.

Not only did Labour actually gain ground afterwards - but the whole incident happened in the constituency of Rochdale near Manchester. Rochdale went LibDem in 2005 and actually had a very long history as a Liberal relative stronghold. In this election, the trends was SUPPOSED to be Labour dropping like a stone and the Lib Dems gaining ground like crazy. Well lo and behold in the Rochdale constituency - ground zero of "bigot-gate" - the Lib Dem incumbent lost to a challenger from Labour!!!

Any explanstion of how this could have happened?

[DL]

I guess in the end most things that happen during an election campaign don't really matter. In fact I would argue that the only single event during the entire UK election campaign that had a real material impact on the election results was the first leaders debate - and even there it had lss of an impact that many expected. Othern than that - the British could have voted the day the election was called and it would have been the same result as after a month of campaigning.

[DL]

The thing is - there is no way of knowing how many of those UKIP voters would have voted Tory otherwise. maybe they would not have voted at all or voted BNP? We could also look at ridings where Green party and various other leftwing candidates might have cost labour a seat or two. But in any of these exercises - 1+1 never seems to equal 2.