A Conservative Wave - UK General Election 2015

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Conservative wave wipes out Miliband, Clegg and Farage | France24 |

Labour’s Ed Miliband, Liberal Democrat Nick Clegg, and UKIP’s Nigel Farage all resigned
as party leaders on Friday after the Tories won a stunning election victory in Britain.

Conservative Prime Minister David Cameron overturned poll predictions that the vote would be the closest in decades to sweep easily into office for another five years, with his Labour opponents in tatters.

Labour leader Ed Miliband admitted it had been “a very disappointing and difficult night” for his centre-left party, in which it lost about two dozen seats, including one held by finance spokesman Ed Balls.

At a press conference in London, a dejected-looking Miliband said he had called Cameron to congratulate him and would now step down to allow someone else to rebuild the party.

“Britain needs a strong Labour Party. It’s time for someone else to take leadership of this party,” Miliband told supporters in his resignation speech.

Stunning victory

The margin of victory was a surprise even to Cameron, who said he “never quite believed we’d get to the end of this campaign in the place we are now.” That means Cameron no longer needs the Liberal Democrats, with which he has governed since 2010.

The centre-left party, heir to one of the most storied liberal parties in Europe, was crushed, reduced to single digits after winning 57 seats five years ago. Its leader, Nick Clegg , held his own seat but resigned as party chief.

“It is simply heartbreaking,” he said of the losses. “Clearly the results have been immeasurably more crushing and unkind than I could ever have feared.”

Despite surging into third place in the overall vote tally, UKIP failed to yield a strong presence in parliament. The anti-immigration party racked up scores of second place finishes across the country but, in the end, it lost one of its two seats in the House of Commons. The party’s leader, Nigel Farage , announced his resignation after failing in his seventh attempt to be elected as an MP.

Political map redrawn

The nationalists’ historic landslide in Scotland is also likely to redraw the British political map and increase pressure for a fresh referendum on Scottish independence. The Scottish National Party (SNP) took 56 out of a possible 59 seats, while Labour was almost wiped out in Scotland.

How ‘shy Tories’ confounded the polls and gave David Cameron victory

UK election polls were wrong before

UK general election of 1992

3 Comments

Oui on May 8, 2015 at 3:34 pm

The Union Is Broken

First past the post is a joke. Hmm. I’m pretty sure we pointed during another recent campaign… #FairVotesNow

« click for more info Wales, like Scotland also resoundingly voted against the Tories, but still get David Cameron in No 10. Union broken

UK Election: 1,157,613 people voted Green yesterday

Negotiating the Coalition Agreement, electoral reform at Westminster was LibDem’s deal-breaker

Labour needs the Lib Dems to be strong in the south

Oui on May 8, 2015 at 3:57 pm

Tory peer criticises Cameron for “irritating” Scots from Westminster | The Guardian |

One final crumb of comfort for the Prime Minister and Lynton Crosby. I think the SNP threat may be cutting through to floating voters. There’s been scant little evidence for it in the polls, except for yesterday’s Evening Standard Ipsos MORI poll which put the Conservatives five points ahead.

However, anecdotally, I think it may be having an effect. Someone tweeted me the other day to say he’d overheard four guys discussing the SNP threat in the gym, and they all said they were voting Tory. I tested this out in the office and several people who had previously voted Labour all said they were worried by the SNP and would cast their vote accordingly. I wonder if we might see tactical voting, not just in Scotland but also in England, and this time to the benefit of the Conservatives.

None of the parties are telling the truth about Scotland. It’s driving me crazy

What a load of mendacious balls everybody talks about Scotland. It’s like a disease. It’s like, you know how they say Ebola probably started in some festering bat cave in Guinea? Well, the referendum campaign was that cave. We had secret oilfields and fantasies about the NHS and endless guff about austerity being done for evil Tory fun, and the VOW the VOW and, dear God, the relief when it ended. Only it didn’t end. Instead it spread. And it set the tone.

People talk now, for example, about an SNP/Labour coalition. As though this would make sense, when they must know it wouldn’t at all. As though Ed Miliband would even fit in Alex Salmond’s pocket, and Salmond (or Nicola Sturgeon, but only Scottish people talk about her) would want him there. As though these were two parties which somehow had aims in common. Only they don’t, do they? Sure, they both veer to the left, but in utterly different ways.

…
This is the party, remember, that the middle classes used to vote for in Scotland, in lieu of effective Tories, to keep Labour out. That whole `Ooh, we’re the proud cheerleaders of an avowedly socialist nation!’ routine seems impregnable now, but it only really started during the referendum campaign, and as a quite transparent ruse to woo Labour voters.

So why would they go into coalition with Labour? If home rule is the aim (and it is), and faux-leftism is the strategy to get there (and it also is, plainly, even if you’d dispute the `faux’ bit), why would you want to join a government that showed you could go left within the status quo? And likewise, why would Labour want to go into coalition with the SNP? It would be a frank admission of their own obsolescence in Scotland. Indeed, the more home rule they allowed, the more obsolete Labour would become.

At heart, this is where English Labour unionism comes from; a fear of being utterly up the spout without the Celtic fringe on hand to make up the numbers. I wish it were more than that, but I fear it is not. Find me a Labour unionist who would still be one if Scotland voted Tory, and I’ll find you a person in Scotland who still finds that Tories/pandas joke funny. That is to say, I won’t, and nor will you.

Which is a step up from English Conservative unionism, because that suddenly seems to be nothing at all. Yes, your English Tory will talk the unionist talk, but press him on it — I am belatedly realising — and you will discover that the only Union they’re really interested in is one that has no impact upon them whatsoever.

Remember all those decades when there was a Tory PM and almost no Scottish Tory MPs? Remember the way they’d shrug and explain that this was just how a Union works, and that the reverse could as easily be true? Call me a mug, but I actually thought they meant it. They don’t want a partner, these people, but a pet. Indeed, they don’t even want a pet but maybe a Tamagotchi. One you can turn off and leave in a drawer.

Which is why, secretly, the Tories are rooting for the SNP and the SNP are rooting for the Tories. Because, unlike with Labour, the SNP and the Conservatives really do have the same big aim: to bring about a time, as soon as possible, where Scotland and England leave each other the hell alone.

So this is where we are. We have Labour being called Tories in Scotland, and the SNP being called Labour in England.

Tories should vote Labour in Scotland to keep SNP out, Lord Tebbit suggests

Ahead of election say, David Cameron warns of threat SNP/Labour coalition …
○ Labour-SNP coalition would be calamitous, says David Cameron | The Guardian |
○ Election 2015: Cameron warns voters off a Labour/SNP ‘coalition of chaos’ | BBC News |
○ David Cameron: A Labour-SNP coalition would be ‘genuinely frightening’ | The Telegraph |

Marie2 on May 8, 2015 at 7:11 pm

It happened in 2010 not 2015.

Except by US standards a UK wave is more like a large ripple than a wave.

The Conservatives increased their vote share from 36.1% in 2010 to 36.9% in 2015. A whopping 0.8% improvement is being hailed as if it’s a landslide.

Labour also did better. From 29% in 2010 to 30.5% in 2015. And that was with the big hit they took Scotland (lots of seats but no more than 3% of the national vote share).

The CONs gained because UKIP is even less organized as a political party than the LibDems. The rise of UKIP (by voter share) can be viewed as a negative trend. OTOH, some of those votes did express legitimate personal frustrations.

What does Labour do now? Accept a position as the rump-Tory party or decide to stand for something that a majority of voters want?

Oui on May 8, 2015 at 3:34 pm
The Union Is Broken

First past the post is a joke. Hmm. I’m pretty sure we pointed during another recent campaign… #FairVotesNow

« click for more info Wales, like Scotland also resoundingly voted against the Tories, but still get David Cameron in No 10. Union broken

UK Election: 1,157,613 people voted Green yesterday
Oui on May 8, 2015 at 3:57 pm

Tory peer criticises Cameron for “irritating” Scots from Westminster | The Guardian |

One final crumb of comfort for the Prime Minister and Lynton Crosby. I think the SNP threat may be cutting through to floating voters. There’s been scant little evidence for it in the polls, except for yesterday’s Evening Standard Ipsos MORI poll which put the Conservatives five points ahead.

However, anecdotally, I think it may be having an effect. Someone tweeted me the other day to say he’d overheard four guys discussing the SNP threat in the gym, and they all said they were voting Tory. I tested this out in the office and several people who had previously voted Labour all said they were worried by the SNP and would cast their vote accordingly. I wonder if we might see tactical voting, not just in Scotland but also in England, and this time to the benefit of the Conservatives.

None of the parties are telling the truth about Scotland. It’s driving me crazy

What a load of mendacious balls everybody talks about Scotland. It’s like a disease. It’s like, you know how they say Ebola probably started in some festering bat cave in Guinea? Well, the referendum campaign was that cave. We had secret oilfields and fantasies about the NHS and endless guff about austerity being done for evil Tory fun, and the VOW the VOW and, dear God, the relief when it ended. Only it didn’t end. Instead it spread. And it set the tone.

People talk now, for example, about an SNP/Labour coalition. As though this would make sense, when they must know it wouldn’t at all. As though Ed Miliband would even fit in Alex Salmond’s pocket, and Salmond (or Nicola Sturgeon, but only Scottish people talk about her) would want him there. As though these were two parties which somehow had aims in common. Only they don’t, do they? Sure, they both veer to the left, but in utterly different ways.

…
This is the party, remember, that the middle classes used to vote for in Scotland, in lieu of effective Tories, to keep Labour out. That whole `Ooh, we’re the proud cheerleaders of an avowedly socialist nation!’ routine seems impregnable now, but it only really started during the referendum campaign, and as a quite transparent ruse to woo Labour voters.

So why would they go into coalition with Labour? If home rule is the aim (and it is), and faux-leftism is the strategy to get there (and it also is, plainly, even if you’d dispute the `faux’ bit), why would you want to join a government that showed you could go left within the status quo? And likewise, why would Labour want to go into coalition with the SNP? It would be a frank admission of their own obsolescence in Scotland. Indeed, the more home rule they allowed, the more obsolete Labour would become.

At heart, this is where English Labour unionism comes from; a fear of being utterly up the spout without the Celtic fringe on hand to make up the numbers. I wish it were more than that, but I fear it is not. Find me a Labour unionist who would still be one if Scotland voted Tory, and I’ll find you a person in Scotland who still finds that Tories/pandas joke funny. That is to say, I won’t, and nor will you.

Which is a step up from English Conservative unionism, because that suddenly seems to be nothing at all. Yes, your English Tory will talk the unionist talk, but press him on it — I am belatedly realising — and you will discover that the only Union they’re really interested in is one that has no impact upon them whatsoever.

Remember all those decades when there was a Tory PM and almost no Scottish Tory MPs? Remember the way they’d shrug and explain that this was just how a Union works, and that the reverse could as easily be true? Call me a mug, but I actually thought they meant it. They don’t want a partner, these people, but a pet. Indeed, they don’t even want a pet but maybe a Tamagotchi. One you can turn off and leave in a drawer.

Which is why, secretly, the Tories are rooting for the SNP and the SNP are rooting for the Tories. Because, unlike with Labour, the SNP and the Conservatives really do have the same big aim: to bring about a time, as soon as possible, where Scotland and England leave each other the hell alone.

So this is where we are. We have Labour being called Tories in Scotland, and the SNP being called Labour in England.

Tories should vote Labour in Scotland to keep SNP out, Lord Tebbit suggests

Ahead of election say, David Cameron warns of threat SNP/Labour coalition …
○ Labour-SNP coalition would be calamitous, says David Cameron | The Guardian |
○ Election 2015: Cameron warns voters off a Labour/SNP ‘coalition of chaos’ | BBC News |
○ David Cameron: A Labour-SNP coalition would be ‘genuinely frightening’ | The Telegraph |
Marie2 on May 8, 2015 at 7:11 pm

It happened in 2010 not 2015.

Except by US standards a UK wave is more like a large ripple than a wave.

The Conservatives increased their vote share from 36.1% in 2010 to 36.9% in 2015. A whopping 0.8% improvement is being hailed as if it’s a landslide.

Labour also did better. From 29% in 2010 to 30.5% in 2015. And that was with the big hit they took Scotland (lots of seats but no more than 3% of the national vote share).

The CONs gained because UKIP is even less organized as a political party than the LibDems. The rise of UKIP (by voter share) can be viewed as a negative trend. OTOH, some of those votes did express legitimate personal frustrations.

What does Labour do now? Accept a position as the rump-Tory party or decide to stand for something that a majority of voters want?

A Conservative Wave – UK General Election 2015

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