UK Election - Results Thread

[Citizen (The) Doctor]

129-112-21

Pretty consistent numbers lately, Labour looks like it's frozen.

[ag]

LD fail to take Rochdale. And the swing to Labour: both loose, the Con fail to vote strategically in this case, though.

[Meeker]

Were the polls wrong? Or did the LD's collapse in the closing days?

[Lief 🗽]

LD fail to take Rochdale. And the swing to Labour: both loose, the Con fail to vote strategically in this case, though.

The home of that bigoted woman.

[Torie]

The Tories barely win another marginal with a 7.7 swing from Labor. If this were replicated nationwide it would be a Torie majority, but it isn't. This election appears to be quite idiosyncratic at the margins. Is it possible that British voters are tending to vote a bit more for the specific candidate rather than the party more than obtained in the past, ala US voting pattens?

[Lief 🗽]

Con holds on to their only Scottish seat.

[You kip if you want to...]

Cons hold Dumfresshire.

[Verily]

LD fail to take Rochdale. And the swing to Labour: both loose, the Con fail to vote strategically in this case, though.

The home of that bigoted woman.

LD incumbent there, too (lost his majority on the boundary changes). Disappointing. Notably, the National Front (the old BNP, mostly moribund) took 4.9% in Rochdale.

[Citizen (The) Doctor]

It's either that Labour decided to buff up this last week, or the Lib Dems have a small but extremely vocal support group (and create the illusion of many more supporters)

[Sam Spade]

Were the polls wrong? Or did the LD's collapse in the closing days?

It was pretty obvious to me through the last week's polling that LD was going to underperform.  Maybe not to this extent, but whatever.

[You kip if you want to...]

LDs gain Redcar. Bloody hell.

[Verily]

Redcar has to be a huge swing, more than 15%. The LDs had been talking it up, but really...

[Meeker]

Labour won by 30% in Redcar in 2005

[Oakvale]

or the Lib Dems have a small but extremely vocal support group (and create the illusion of many more supporters)

Nick Clegg is the British Ron Paul?

[Citizen (The) Doctor]

Overall, Lib Dems not doing as well as predicted, however where they do gain seats, the swing is great.

[Marokai Backbeat]

Redcar has to be a huge swing, more than 15%. The LDs had been talking it up, but really...

According to the BBC website, the swing was 21.8% to the LibDems there.

[You kip if you want to...]

Redcar has to be a huge swing, more than 15%. The LDs had been talking it up, but really...

According to the BBC website, the swing was 21.8% to the LibDems there.

Wasn't there some big factory (can't remember the name atm) closed down a few month ago? Could that be it?

[Citizen (The) Doctor]

or the Lib Dems have a small but extremely vocal support group (and create the illusion of many more supporters)

Nick Clegg is the British Ron Paul?

Well there are some good Libertarians in the Lib Dem party...

[Lief 🗽]

Oxford West (LibDem majority of 14% in 2005) is apparently in a recount.

[Verily]

Someone just showed his age, calling the BNP the National Front.

[Citizen (The) Doctor]

This election is sobering and depressing.

Has Clegg's constituency announced yet?

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Montgomeryshire swing had to be HUGE.

[angus]

The headline will be the LD implosion.

And that is yet another sad similarity between British reporting and American.  Sensationalizing the results to sell ad space.  Clearly the polling data has for about a week suggested the LD would gain, at most 20 seats.  And probably fewer, possibly not gaining any.  Despite many hopeful interviews broadcast here (and I assume in the UK as well), the more level-headed analysts have suggested that those who predict large LD gains are being overly optimistic (or pessimistic, depending on your ideology), especially given that their support was unfortunately distributed.  If the trend holds, then it would seem that those who said that the LD would make, at best, modest gains have called it correctly.  Breaking even is not an implosion.  As an American, you must recognize how difficult for a third party to gain seats by defeating the candidates of the larger, more entrenched parties.  The fact that they held about 60 of 650 seats coming in to this election, and will hold on to that number, roughly, in a time of severe economic insecurity and in spite of the fact that an overall party shift between the two dominant parties was in the making, is not an "implosion" in my opinion.  But don't let that stop newspaper editors from labeling it as such.

[You kip if you want to...]

hahahahahahahahahaha. BNP THIRD IN BARKING!!!!!

[Verily]

Doozie of a question for David Davis. "Would the Tories have done better under you?"