Saturday 9th May

Enoch Powell once said that every political career ends in failure.  True, but hardly could we have expected it in such a fashion.  Douglas Alexander, Jim Murphy and Ed Balls for Labour; Vince Cable, Danny Alexander and saddest of all Charles Kennedy and so many others for the Lib-Dems and (small comfort) Esther McVey for the Tories to mention but a few who lost their seats in a remarkable night of carnage.  Nigel Farage, Nick Clegg and Ed Milliband are all resigning as leaders of their parties.  Rarely has there been such a sad night for everyone except the Conservatives.  And yet, and yet.  There was hardly a roar of approval for the Tories either, many people voted out of fear; of the SNP, of immigrants and of financial uncertainty.  This does not feel anything like the sea-changes we saw with Thatcher and Blair.  All along it has been the case that Milliband was far less popular than his party and Cameron was far more liked than his.

And in the end maybe personality won and people judged that sticking with Dave was a safer bet than the risk of chaos with Labour and some sort of support from the SNP.

So what happens now?  Another suitcase in another hall….or three maybe.  I have no idea who will be the new leader of UKIP and feel it will make little difference as the party was so identified with likeable rogue Nigel.  The Lib-Dems will take years to rebuild the house that Charlie built, for we should never forget that he was the one who brought them to their best ever haul of 65 M.P.s in 2005.  Clegg has masterminded the spectacular demise of the Lib-Dems, hungry for power and ministerial positions he grasped the chance to be in the coalition despite the obvious anti-Tory sentiments of those who voted for him.  He remains un-forgiven by the electorate and maybe by his party too,

Ed Milliband, well what can you say.  Mistakes such as making Ed Balls his shadow chancellor and taking Scotland for granted and also, cruel I know, for not being photogenic enough and also for having a pretty uninspiring manifesto.  Too safe by far and no real reason to vote for them.  Cameron too ran an uninspired campaign but was the lesser of two evils; one feels it won’t be long before Boris takes over.  Rarely has one night resulted in so many political casualties.