UK Election Night Discussion.

[afleitch]

Hi everyone.

Guess who got ill last night! It a like missing a very middling Christmas.

So...

F-ck.

SNP and Labour broadly in line with the polls but seat distribution worse than expected for the SNP. And not it seems, due to tactical voting either. Absolute hammering. Retreat to pre 2011 geographic patterns. Holyrood 2026 still salvageable but much more difficult than it looked before 10pm.

Labour on 34% GB wide with a 10 point lead over the Tories and a landslide is insane.

But.

Warning signs I expected in five years arrived today. It's not just a 'Gaza effect'; Labour are at risk from Greens, and from hyper local candidates.

This isn't a 10 year proof majority for the same reason the Tory majority wasn't. This might, and hopefully will, create a more ambitious government.

The plethora of polls and models are giving voters a choice and they are using it. That's helping the Lib Dems and the Greens in specific races.

Reform look to have elected 4 or 5 MPS, Tice, Lee and Farage are too 'big' to not fight over a comb. This is a better result than a chonkier number of seats because it maximises splits in the party.

Tories got hammered. Will they court the populist right? Damn right they will. There's little room for nuanced thinking.

Best Liberal result in a hundred years.

Highest number of constituency flips since the war.

Seats becoming hyper marginal.

This will take months to analyse and process.

[Oryxslayer]

Is it fair to say that Chingford & Woodford Green (obviously caused by the Labour split) and Keighley & Ilkley are the only real disappointments for Labour among the Con holds? There are obviously seats Labour might have hoped to take and didn't, but they were all much longer shots than those.

Everyone is going to have their own views of course, but I would add Fylde to the list. Yes a reach based on the 2019 majority, but Menzies really should have poisoned the Tory brand enough to make it a likelier flip, even with a new Conservative candidate.

[Torrain]

I know conditions are different, post-referendum. But I still can’t shake how wild it is that Wendy Chamberlain won North East Fife by 13k.

This constituency loved Ming Campbell - there’s not a local event he couldn’t be found at, a local festival he isn’t still a patron of. He’s still a household name among everyone of a certain age here.

And yet, despite the boundaries making this seat more working class and SNP-friendly than it’s ever been, she’s won a larger majority, and higher share of the vote than he *ever* achieved.

[Secretary of State Liberal Hack]

So what's the big Lib Dem push now that the party is out of the hospital and back in the limelight ?

[Farmlands]

A disaster for Labour. Keir Starmer is likely at home cursing all the Gods for delivering him fewer absolute votes than Corbyn in 2019, the mark any party should strive for to please Atlas luminaries. Let's see if he'll pass anything with his huge seat majority, as opposed to Corbyn's -81 minority.

[Hnv1]

There are three belts where one can walk from coast to coast without stepping in a Tory constituency: Central Scotland, Cumbria to the North East, and the Red Wall from Liverpool to Sc**nthorpe

[US Medieval Italy Crowned Republic Era]

There are three belts where one can walk from coast to coast without stepping in a Tory constituency: Central Scotland, Cumbria to the North East, and the Red Wall from Liverpool to Sc**nthorpe

Four. You can zigzag through a combination of Labour and Lib Dem constituencies from the Bristol Channel to the Thames Estuary—possibly to the coast of East Anglia as well via Waveney Valley.

[EastAnglianLefty]

Is it fair to say that Chingford & Woodford Green (obviously caused by the Labour split) and Keighley & Ilkley are the only real disappointments for Labour among the Con holds? There are obviously seats Labour might have hoped to take and didn't, but they were all much longer shots than those.

Those are probably the only major disappointments, but a few of the expected gains (Hendon, Peterborough) were exceedingly close.

I think the main consequence of this is that McSweeney's preferred strategy of hyper-concentration on a small number of seats and a message targeted at one particular type of voter is now dead. There are a lot of MPs with narrow majorities who need to gain/win back support from all groups of voters, including those who didn't bother turning out this time or voted for further left options. There are also a large number of MPs with drastically reduced majorities, who are not going to countenance another strategy that tries to stop them working in their own areas, especially when some of our lost seats seem to have caught us by surprise because we didn't work them effectively.

[Oryxslayer]

I tried to stay up for the Inverness recount, but it's time to get sleep where I'm at. Finish the job Scottish voters, keep the SNP under 10.

[YL]

Six Independents seems to be the most since 1945.

Birmingham Perry Barr
Blackburn
Dewsbury & Batley
Islington North
Leicester South
North Down (never change, never change)

[Punxsutawney Phil]

Is South West Norfolk (LOL), won by Labour with 26.7%, the constituency with the lowest winning share, or have I missed somewhere? Blackburn was slightly higher.

Here's a list of all constituencies with a winning vote share below 30%, as I can gather (might have missed some):
Con
Exmouth & Exeter East 28.7%

Lib Dem
Brecon, Radnor & Cwm Tawe 29.5%

Lab
Montgomeryshire & Glyndwr 29.4%
Sittingbourne & Sheppey 29.1%
South West Norfolk 26.5%

Independent
Blackburn 27.1%
North Antrim 28.3%

DUP
East Antrim 28.9%
East Londonderry 28.3%

[Filuwaúrdjan]

You'll notice that the final map just makes so much more sense for all its wildness than pre-election projections. Often the way, and this is the almost mystically fascinating part of election results.

[AustralianSwingVoter]

Mundell easily wins Dumfriesshire, delay was presumably due to long transit of ballot boxes (?)

[AustralianSwingVoter]

LABOUR GAINS POOLE BY 18 VOTES

[Punxsutawney Phil]

Mundell easily wins Dumfriesshire, delay was presumably due to long transit of ballot boxes (?)

Flyde is now no longer the only Tory constituency with a border on the Irish Sea. (Maybe Dumfries becomes a third?)

[Clarko95 📚💰📈]

Good morning GREAT BRITAIN 🇬🇧🙌 The Starmerreich is upon us

I see we are still bedwetting and desperately trying to spin this crushing victory as a loss, somehow.

[Wiswylfen]

A disaster for Labour. Keir Starmer is likely at home cursing all the Gods for delivering him fewer absolute votes than Corbyn in 2019, the mark any party should strive for to please Atlas luminaries. Let's see if he'll pass anything with his huge seat majority, as opposed to Corbyn's -81 minority.

Oh please. You don't have to like Jombly Crombly the Jam Man to think this is a terrible result.

Good morning GREAT BRITAIN 🇬🇧🙌 The Starmerreich is upon us

I see we are still bedwetting and desperately trying to spin this crushing victory as a loss, somehow.

You live in Germany. Retaining heartland seats with 40% of the vote is par for the course.

[jaichind]

The 2024 LAB-CON vote share gap will be smaller than the 2019 CON-LAB vote share gap

[afleitch]

You'll notice that the final map just makes so much more sense for all its wildness than pre-election projections. Often the way, and this is the almost mystically fascinating part of election results.

Send that map back to someone in 2005 and it would look familiar. Though they'd think Labour were polling in the mid 40's again, the Lib Dems in the mid to high 20's and that there was some 'we have always been at war with Eastasia' thing in the Middle East. Even Scotland looks familiar. Keighley being Keighley.

It's the map of a fragmented opposition. It's what FPTP does.

There's some 1997 patterns, a very 1966 pattern across Bucks and Herts etc.

[YL]

Inverness, Skye & West Ross-shire recount will be tomorrow. Lib Dems think they've won, though.

Assuming they have, that South Basildon & East Thurrock is Reform and Dumfries & Galloway is Tory, the final result will be

Lab 411 (+211)
Con 121 (-249)
Lib Dem 72 (+63)
SNP 9 (-38)
SF 7 (nc)
DUP 5 (-3)
Reform 5 (+5)
Green 4 (+3)
Plaid 4 (+2)
SDLP 2 (nc)
Alliance 1 (nc)
UUP 1 (+1)
TUV 1 (+1)
Speaker 1 (nc)
Ind 6 (+6)

(changes on 2019 notionals)

[Hnv1]

Tories are fifth in Liverpool West Derby and they lost their deposit. ouch

[afleitch]

Some satisfaction that a certain seat in the Lothians saw the biggest SNP drop in support in that region and a certain seat in Kent saw the only (bar one tactical drop) drop in Labour support in Kent.

[TiltsAreUnderrated]

Wokingham has gone woke flipped. Woking expected to do the same.

Woking did, in the end, go woke.

St Ives also flipped, and by more than I would have guessed based on canvass returns. I would have stayed up for it, but I thought it wouldn’t declare until this afternoon! The result has been delayed in recent years by the delivery of ballot boxes from the Scilly Isles to the mainland for counting, but it seems they arrive significantly earlier whenever Andrew George wins.

[Chaos with Keir Starmer]

Wokingham has gone woke flipped. Woking expected to do the same.

Woking did, in the end, go woke.

St Ives also flipped, and by more than I would have guessed based on canvass returns. I would have stayed up for it, but I thought it wouldn’t declare until this afternoon! The result has been delayed in recent years by the delivery of ballot boxes from the Scilly Isles to the mainland for counting, but it seems they arrive significantly earlier whenever Andrew George wins.

Yeah, I was kind of surprised that St Ives came in so early.

[YL]

English ceremonial counties with no Tory MPs


Bristol
City of London
Cornwall
Cumbria
Derbyshire
Greater Manchester
Merseyside
Northumberland
Oxfordshire
South Yorkshire
Tyne & Wear