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

[ChrisDR68]

Is this the most dissapointing/crushing election night in the history of the Labour Party?

Can't be far from it. Of course, 1970 and 1992 are also good candidates (strange how often the pollsters strongly overestimate Labour's chances). 1983 was terrible of course, but so expected that it can't have felt anywhere near this bad.

No, 1992 (in my memory at least). Really this election result was very predictable, we just allowed ourselves to be kidded by the polls that perhaps Miliband and Balls weren't as unpopular as we all knew they really were, and that losing Scotland didn't matter because the SNP are left-wing anyway. All a big house of cards and the cold light of day reveals these beliefs to be the fallacy we secretly knew all along. But a new leader, a miserable Tory government run by the 60 or so far right in their ranks, and a big win in 5 years beckons

I think it will be incredibly difficult for Labour to win remembering their wipeout in Scotland. Not impossible but incredibly difficult.

It's doubtful that any of the possible new Labour leaders will have anything like the broad appeal that Tony Blair had. He was very, very unusual in that regard.

[/]

*Crying at Tory majority*

[Wake Me Up When The Hard Border Ends]

And the Tories have gained St. Ives.

[Lief 🗽]

RIP Andrew George, FF. He should have just stood as an independent.

[Simfan34]

And the Tories have gained St. Ives.

elelelelelelelelelele!

[Talleyrand]

Tantalizingly close.

[The Free North]

St Ives comes in, Tory gain from Lib Dems

Pretty much the story of the night.



We had 2 major developments

1) Rise of SNP: hurt labor disproportionately
2) Collapse of Lib Dems: helps conservatives disproportionately
3) Rise of UKIP: FPTP prevents this from being an issue in tandem with strategic voting

[YL]

Is this the first time there have been no Liberal or Lib Dem seats in the South-West of England since the 1950s?

[Torie]

Do the LD's have much prospect of ever coming back in their traditional stronghold of the west country?  What do you guys think?  Will Scotland vote again on its final exit during Cameron's term? Does anyone see Scotland as part of the UK ten years' hence?  The England map looks more and more like the US map - the left party has lots of seats that you have trouble seeing on the map without a zooming in, and not too much outside it (except up in the far north of England).  Is that trend likely to continue?  I wonder if Labour will over time continue to hold its more rural northern constituencies.

[Lurker]

Is this the most dissapointing/crushing election night in the history of the Labour Party?

Well, no. If we're just talking postwar defeats, cases can be made for 1951, 1959, 1970, 1979, 1987 and 1992. The wins in 1950 and in October 1974 was also very disappointing as Labour had reasonable expectations of clear majorities.

I would have thought that the addition of the SNP factor/total wipeout in Scotland, combined with a thoroughly unexpected Conservative majority,  might have made this one even worse - even though there, of course, have been other  surprising defeats to the Tories as well.

Though both 1979 and 1987 must have been rather expected, right? Virtually all of the final polls showed Tory leads (not that the British polling industry has proven to be particularly reliable   ) .

[Hnv1]

It appears Cameron actually implemented Netanyahu campaign strategy applied to Scotland and well it worked.

I'm not familiar with LD interior politics, how do they select a leader? must he be an MP?

[Silent Hunter]

Is this the most dissapointing/crushing election night in the history of the Labour Party?

Can't be far from it. Of course, 1970 and 1992 are also good candidates (strange how often the pollsters strongly overestimate Labour's chances). 1983 was terrible of course, but so expected that it can't have felt anywhere near this bad.

No, 1992 (in my memory at least). Really this election result was very predictable, we just allowed ourselves to be kidded by the polls that perhaps Miliband and Balls weren't as unpopular as we all knew they really were, and that losing Scotland didn't matter because the SNP are left-wing anyway. All a big house of cards and the cold light of day reveals these beliefs to be the fallacy we secretly knew all along. But a new leader, a miserable Tory government run by the 60 or so far right in their ranks, and a big win in 5 years beckons

I personally attribute it to the economy. If I ask myself the question "Am I better off than I was five years ago?" I have to answer in the affirmative.

If Labour couldn't beat Thatcher with 3 million out of work... they certainly couldn't beat Cameron with 1.9.

[Hydera]

http://a.uguu.se/ylsioo.webm


Also those tactical votes by UKIP supporters saved cameron's ass the last minute.

And even with PR a narrow right-wing majority would of been possible with Conservatives+UKIP+DUP+UUP with 50.5% of votes.

Is this the most dissapointing/crushing election night in the history of the Labour Party?

Can't be far from it. Of course, 1970 and 1992 are also good candidates (strange how often the pollsters strongly overestimate Labour's chances). 1983 was terrible of course, but so expected that it can't have felt anywhere near this bad.

No, 1992 (in my memory at least). Really this election result was very predictable, we just allowed ourselves to be kidded by the polls that perhaps Miliband and Balls weren't as unpopular as we all knew they really were, and that losing Scotland didn't matter because the SNP are left-wing anyway. All a big house of cards and the cold light of day reveals these beliefs to be the fallacy we secretly knew all along. But a new leader, a miserable Tory government run by the 60 or so far right in their ranks, and a big win in 5 years beckons

I personally attribute it to the economy. If I ask myself the question "Am I better off than I was five years ago?" I have to answer in the affirmative.

If Labour couldn't beat Thatcher with 3 million out of work... they certainly couldn't beat Cameron with 1.9.

https://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/series/LFEM74TTGBQ647S


Close to 2.3 million new jobs created under the tories, don't how how much of that was due to 0 hours contracts. But really can't say that brits aren't better off than they were five years ago when the GFC hit. At this point anything would be better than the depths of a global financial recession.

[jaichind]

St Ives comes in, Tory gain from Lib Dems

Pretty much the story of the night.



We had 2 major developments

1) Rise of SNP: hurt labor disproportionately
2) Collapse of Lib Dems: helps conservatives disproportionately
3) Rise of UKIP: FPTP prevents this from being an issue in tandem with strategic voting

I would say the collapse of LD does help CON more than LAB but the ratio is more like 2:1 versus something 40:1 for rise of SNP.  LAB is helped by fall of LD not just from LAB->LD seat gains but LAB is able to take a few CON seats even as CON vote share goes up since LAB goes up more as more LD votes goes to LAB in these seats.

[njwes]

Lol Russel Brand

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rRUQ6aPvs58

[muon2]

Do the LD's have much prospect of ever coming back in their traditional stronghold of the west country?  What do you guys think?  Will Scotland vote again on its final exit during Cameron's term? Does anyone see Scotland as part of the UK ten years' hence?  The England map looks more and more like the US map - the left party has lots of seats that you have trouble seeing on the map without a zooming in, and not too much outside it (except up in the far north of England).  Is that trend likely to continue?  I wonder if Labour will over time continue to hold its more rural northern constituencies.

Interesting observation re England and Labour. Have they mirrored the US Dems to be more an urban party than a labor party? Does the English north fit with that model (I'm thinking about rural New England/Upper Mississippi MN-WI-IA)?

[CatoMinor]

Does anyone have the full mapped result? I can't find anything other than the hexagon maps.

[Phony Moderate]

The British Polling Council has ordered an enquiry...something which presumably happened in 1970 and 1992 too...

[ChrisDR68]

Popular vote totals:

Conservative......... 11,334,920 (36.9%)
Labour..................... 9,344,328 (30.4%)
UKIP........................ 3,881,129 (12.6%)
Liberal Democrats.... 2,415,888 (7.9%)
SNP.......................... 1,454,436 (4.7%)
Greens..................... 1,154,562 (3.8%)
Others..................... 1,106,417 (3.7%)
--------------------------------------------------
Totals.................... 30,691,680 (100.0%)


Change from 2010:

Conservative.............. +631,266
Labour........................ +737,811
UKIP........................ +2,961,658
Liberal Democrats.... -4,420,360
SNP............................ +963,050
Greens....................... +889,319
Others........................ +758,668

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Nick Clegg is now officially the worst leader of any party this century.

[rob in cal]

   Upon looking over the results in some of the Con vs Lab marginals that the Conservatives held whats intriguing is that the UKIP vote actually held up pretty strong.  It was the LD's (the Lost Deposit Party) whose totals collapsed.  So, I wonder just how much UKIP tactical voting was going on.

[Bacon King]

It was the LD's (the Lost Deposit Party) whose totals collapsed

on that note, the final results for the Lib Dem Lost Deposit Tracker show the LD's losing their deposits in 340 constituencies, a majority of them, losing a total of £170,000 pounds. For reference, this is approximately the average cost of raising a child from birth to age seventeen.

[jaichind]

UK punters lost a lot of money on this election.  Toward the end, especially on election day, a wall of money came in to bet on CON as largest party and Cameron as PM.  Most punters, it seems, had an opposite opinion and even as they shortened the odds, took these bets.  As a result most of them took a bath on the result.

[jaichind]

Popular vote totals:

Conservative......... 11,334,920 (36.9%)
Labour..................... 9,344,328 (30.4%)
UKIP........................ 3,881,129 (12.6%)
Liberal Democrats.... 2,415,888 (7.9%)
SNP.......................... 1,454,436 (4.7%)
Greens..................... 1,154,562 (3.8%)
Others..................... 1,106,417 (3.7%)
--------------------------------------------------
Totals.................... 30,691,680 (100.0%)


Change from 2010:

Conservative.............. +631,266
Labour........................ +737,811
UKIP........................ +2,961,658
Liberal Democrats.... -4,420,360
SNP............................ +963,050
Greens....................... +889,319
Others........................ +758,668

CON total number of vote is the highest of any party since Blair's LAB vote of 1997.

[Famous Mortimer]

Did Labour or the Tories lose their deposit in any places?