Friday 8th May

As you wake up (I have been up all night) this morning you will find a Conservative Government, maybe even a majority.  And it is all because of the Lib-Dems.  Their vote has absolutely collapsed, and most of it has gone to the Tories.  Well, of course we don’t know that for sure.  There may well have been a lot of churn.  Many Lib-Dems may have gone to Labour, or to UKIP but have been outweighed by Labour losing even more votes to UKIP or indeed directly to the Tories.  Whatever.  Labour have been wiped out in Scotland, replaced by the SNP.  The Lib-Dems slaughtered in the South and South-West and mostly to the benefit of the Tories.

So, what happened?  Actually overall the Labour vote and vote share looks to have increased slightly and the Tories vote gone down.  What I have seen over many many elections is an even greater polarisation in the country.  The Tories rule supreme in the South of the country, except for Inner London.  Labour (or the even more left wing SNP) are holding the North.  What this means long-term for the unity of the country is anyone’s guess.  The other factor is the rise of UKIP, and although they do not appear to have won many seats they are now actually in second place in quite a few seats.  I am not completely surprised, but disappointed.  It has actually been a long time since we had a single term Government (Edward Heath 1970- 1974 actually) and the public tends to give the Government the benefit of the doubt at least for one election.  I am fairly certain now that Ed will resign.  It will take a very competent Labour leader to win next time.  I am not sure who that might be.  Or we may find that people tire of permanent Austerity, maybe the economy will flag again, the long-promised referendum on Europe could be a disaster.  Whoever said politics was boring….