Well how was it for you?
May 6th, 2005With almost all of the results for Grerat Britian now in we can start drawing some conclusions.
From a site perspective a big winner appears to have been the BALANCE of MONEY predictions which will probably end up being closer to the actual seats results than other predictors. They were certainly a much better way or working out what seats from a given vote share would produce.
We were also pleased that the concept of”tactical unwind” happened and that the potential for the Lib Dems in university seats, first noted here last June, played a major part. Our suggestion yesterday that the potential for a disproportionatly poorer performance for Labour in its marginals also seems to have been the case.
The other spread markets seemed to have been good reflection of what actually happened.
The pollsters had a much better election than 2001 but the tendency to overstate Labour is still there - though admittedly by a much smaller margin.
Having been up all night I need some sleep. There’ll be time for much more detailed analysis later.
Mike Smithson
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Yes Mike - you were right about some of the “long shot” seats like Cambridge and Manchester Withington and I, happily, was wrong.
A very exciting night, but really most peculiar too. We arrived at an overall result which was immensely unspectacular, but via a highly tortuous route because of the variations between seats. Personally a profitable night, with the result in Bristol W and a big odds on bet on no Cabinet casualties. A good night for Labour (says this floating voter)
. Mike - yes you were right about some things but a bit far out on your Lib Dems seat buy ( obviously your `Deep Throat at` Lib Dem HQ was been somewhat optimistic!)
I’ll own up. Dreadful for me—short of labour seats @ 344,346,347 and 348. No good, though I lost less than I might have done.
Tried to get it back with a big buy of LD seats at 67. More in the away column.
Winning bets included long of LD % of vote at 20.5. Small win. Buy of seats changing hands @ 50 and 51. Reasonable win.
The particular reason my losses were so disappointing was that the result was not only predictable, but was ACTUALLY PREDICTED on this site.
Overall, this result is about what I expected, the only thing is I thought was perhaps the LibDems would win a few less seats, winning a similar amount from Labour but losing more to the Tories. The decapitation strategy unsuprisingly failed for the LibDems, I was supprised to see Westmorland go to the LibDems though.
This is about what the Tories needed in this election, they never had any chance of winning now although at least now they will have a chance of returning to government in 2009 rather than 2013.
A good result all round. Excellent news about Nick but a real shame that Rik couldn’t quite do it. An excellent night for the exit pollsters who got the majority on the nail. From a betting point of view all mine cancelled each other out but I’m very sorry that Oona lost particularly to that extremely ungracious Mr Galloway. My guess is that all three leaders wont be there in two years time. Tony has had an outstanding career but owing to Iraq he now should think about his future. Charlie has done well out of Labours problems but is now going to have to stop being everything to everyone and he hasn’t got the leadership for that. Michael Howard should be the first to throw in the towel. With a better campaign he would have moved forward.
I don’t bet, so any pleasure/embarassment for me is in the nature of my predictions.
On the plus side, I predicted a Labour lead in the vote of 3%, and a majority of 64. That vote share was correct, and (depending on the recounts) Labour’s majority will be 60-66.
I got St. Alban’s, Colne Valley and Inverness right. I got Ynys Mon wrong, and I never saw Cambridge coming. I detected that a big swing to the Conservatives in Greater London and Hertfordshire was in the offing. But I would never have predicted that we’d win Enfield Southgate and come within 100 votes in Battersea, yet fail in Enfield North.
I thought the Conservatives would take 205 seats or thereabouts. It looks as though the actual figure will be 198-201. But a tiny number of votes in marginal seats could have given a figure ranging from 190 to 220. I would not have expected a net gain from the Lib Dems in that calculation.
I’m sad that our result in Watford did not match the rest of our performances in Hertfordshire. It looks as though Watford is an almost certain Lib Dem gain next time around (but this election has proved nothing is certain next time around).
A mixed result in Scotland.
The Lib Dems did really well where they did not need to, and poorly in the crucial seats like Aberdeen South and Edinburgh South. Did strangely poorly in Inverclyde, one of their key targetted central belt seats.
The SNP targetted wonderfully, but our share of the vote will be down to 3rd spot - can’t find a vote share table anywhere - perhaps all waiting until Argyll & Bute declares later today. Western Isles - SNP Gain - was a very pleasant surprise. There was actually a swing from Con to SNP in Angus - amazing! Moray, like Banff & Buchan, now has a rock-solid SNP majority. Perth & N Perthshire was much closer than expected. Ochil was a big disappointment - Lab Hold.
The Labour vote was more resilient than expected - they held several key marginals - Ochil & S Perthshire, Aberdeen South, Dumfries & Galloway, Edinburgh South. They only lost 5 seats, but due to boundary changes, Westminster will only have 41 Scottish Labour MPs, compared to 56 last time.
The Scottish Tories had the worst result of the 4 main parties - the Shadow Scottish Secretary Peter Duncan lost Dumfries & Galloway by a huge margin. The Tory vote actually went down in Angus - their No.3 target seat. The Conservatives even lost a deposit (in Western Isles) - the only major party to lose a deposit this time, as far as I can see (LD’s lost two deposits in 2001).
But worst of all were the Scottish Socialist Party (vote halved - now negligible) and the Scottish Green Party - who, as far as I can see, only retained one deposit out of 20 candidates. Will we see the SSP exiting from the Scottish Parliament completely in 2007?
My commiserations to my Plaid Cymru colleagues, but well done to Mebyon Kernow!
Yes, well done with Cambridge, Mike. Happily, I was also wrong!
Overall a good betting election for me. Reasonable profit on LD vote share, seat wins on Richmond Park, Bristol W and Falmouth (where I only got filled on Betfair on Wednesday). Also some profitable arbing on Spreadfair, and I day traded the fall in Labour majority between about midnight and 1am, and got out at the right time.
Lost on Maidenhead and SW Surrey, and my hung parliament bet at a point in the campaign when things look different.
Won about 70% of what I thought at the weekend my realistic best case outcome would be.
Mike, I hope you are up on the night. Most of your tips have been spot on, but LD seats was always going to be a tough one to crack.
I’ve made a decent profit, my biggest bets being on GG getting 10,000+ votes (I never thought he would actually win it) and the LDs getting 3+ seats in Wales. 9 of my 11 contituency bets came in, the big money-spinner being Leeds NW.
From a political point of view, a good night for the liberal/progressive consensus. Blair’s wings clipped with most of the vote seepage going to the Liberal Democrats, the biggest swings demonstrating a clear anti-war message. The vagaries of FPTP mean the Tories can spin it otherwise, but they are still stuck in Graham’s famous 32-34% box.
Many thanks to you and Robert for providing this site to add interest and excitement to the election.
Watford was a very good result for us coming from 3rd place. Hopefully it’s falling into the Bristol W pattern and we’ll take it next time.
Some thoughts. Surrey is true blue again. The Tories finally have some luck in SW London. Good performances by Rik and Marcus. Nick shows that the drop in labour support was fairly widespread. As to lost Tory seats, suggestions in W&L that Collins spent too much time outside the seat campaigning. As for Solihull, laziness on the Conservatives part like Guildford in 2001. Taunton, just bad luck. Good calls from Max on DCT and Rik on Reading East. A general comment on trend. Strong Tory holds in Orpington, Maidenhead, Folkestone, Surrey SW and gain in Guildford and narrow miss in Romsey suggest that the Lib Dems may be drifting too far to the left for the taste of SE England and London. However in urban areas, Lib Dems are doing well.
I’m looking forward to hearing from Ben again - at least Leicester South should cheer him up….
Oh yes, I was wrong about Bethnal Green and Bow (though I had subsequently come to expect a GG victory).
It was a pretty good night from a betting perspective. Up on seats chanmging hands, up on my sell on Labour’s vote share, up on the LD share and only a smallish loss on LD seats. My hot tip yesterday afternoon was that the LDs were going to win Hornsey and Cambridge. From that I extrapolated other gains which were not forthcoming. I did get on Betfair with both
The bad weather to which I alluded yesterday didn’t cost Labour Staffs. Moorlands after all. A 4% swing to the Conservatives conceals the fact that the Tory share of the vote was up by a mere 0.2%, with the 8% drop in Labour’s support accounted for by a 2% rise in the LD vote and a 6% rise in support for UKIP (with their candidate saving his deposit easily, and winning almost 10% of the vote).
Mike Though I don’t bet seriously enough to have followed your tips to a great extent, I will certainly be giving weight to them in the future…unless it involves the LDs. In which case I might modestly suggest the advice would be better the other way around!
That shows Richard, that UKIP don’t take all their votes from the Conservatives. Although there are 20 odd seats where the UKIP vote exceeded the majority over the Conservatives, it would be wrong to assume that the Conservatives would have won all of them without UKIP.
BTW on the outstanding seats. No news on Crawley, Harlow is being recounted tommorrow. As for Wirral West, labour seem to have the edge as the Tories have called for a recount.
Mike, Test post.
Mike, I have been trying to post - not working!
A mixed result in Scotland.
The Lib Dems did really well where they did not need to, and poorly in the crucial seats like Aberdeen South and Edinburgh South. Did strangely poorly in Inverclyde, one of their key targetted central belt seats.
The SNP targetted wonderfully, but our share of the vote will be down to 3rd spot - can’t find a vote share table anywhere - perhaps all waiting until Argyll & Bute declares later today. Western Isles - SNP Gain - was a very pleasant surprise. There was actually a swing from Con to SNP in Angus - amazing! Moray, like Banff & Buchan, now has a rock-solid SNP majority. Perth & N Perthshire was much closer than expected. Ochil & SP was a disappointment - Lab Hold - perhaps those “notional” 2001 results were a bit wonky in some seats.
The Labour vote was more resilient than expected - they held several key marginals - Ochil & S Perthshire, Aberdeen South, Dumfries & Galloway, Edinburgh South. They only lost 5 seats, but due to boundary changes, Westminster will only have 41 Scottish Labour MPs, compared to 56 last time.
The Scottish Tories had the worst result of the 4 main parties - the Shadow Scottish Secretary Peter Duncan lost Dumfries & Galloway by a huge margin. The Tory vote actually went down in Angus - their No.3 target seat. The Conservatives even lost a deposit (in Western Isles) - the only major party to lose a deposit this time, as far as I can see (LD’s lost two deposits in 2001).
But worst of all were the Scottish Socialist Party (vote halved - now negligible) and the Scottish Green Party - who, as far as I can see, only retained one deposit out of 20 candidates. Will we see the SSP exiting from the Scottish Parliament completely in 2007?
My commiserations to my Plaid Cymru colleagues, but well done to Mebyon Kernow!
The remarkable aspect of the results is how accurately they were called on this site and generally by the pollsters, particularly I think the vote share!
All in all there should be comfort taken by all parties and lessons to be learned by them too.
The only real downer of the night was the odious Saddam apologist Galloway winning BG and B. Despite widespread disapproval of the war and the UK’s involvement in it, the last thing most people wanted IMHO was for this hideous, cynical oaf to be returned to the H. of C.
Great and informative site, thanks to both Mike and Robert for their magnificent efforts.
Heres to 2009!!
The Labour vote was more resilient than expected - they held several key marginals - Ochil & S Perthshire, Aberdeen South, Dumfries & Galloway, Edinburgh South. They only lost 5 seats, but due to boundary changes, Westminster will only have 41 Scottish Labour MPs, compared to 56 last time.
The Scottish Tories had the worst result of the 4 main parties - the Shadow Scottish Secretary Peter Duncan lost Dumfries & Galloway by a huge margin. The Tory vote actually went down in Angus - their No.3 target seat. The Conservatives even lost a deposit (in Western Isles) - the only major party to lose a deposit this time, as far as I can see (LD’s lost two deposits in 2001).
But worst of all were the SSP (vote halved - now negligible) and the Scottish Green Party - who, as far as I can see, only retained one deposit out of 20 candidates. Will we see the SSP exiting from the Scottish Parliament completely in 2007?
Mike, I have sussed it out. Your spam filter detests the word s-o-c-i-a-l-i-s-t! I have tried to post that word in relation to the SSP, and your filter stops it every time! Ah well, at least it was not the word “Scottish” that it was allergic to.
My commiserations to my Plaid Cymru colleagues, but well done to Mebyon Kernow!
When do we expect NI results to come?
re 22. Peter W.
“The only real downer of the night was the odious Saddam apologist Galloway winning BG and B. Despite widespread disapproval of the war and the UK’s involvement in it, the last thing most people wanted IMHO was for this hideous, cynical oaf to be returned to the H. of C.”
As a former constituent of “Gorgeous George” I cannot echo your sentiments strongly enough. The voters of London have made a very, very, very big mistake. I could use an awful lot of very colourful language about the idgit, but out of respect for Mike Smithson, I had better ask you to use your imagination.
Think of the most foully abusive insult that your brain can dream up. Now apply that word to George Galloway… that’s right… that is what I think of him, times ten.
22, 28 - completely agree, though I’ve not been unfortunate enough to be his constituent! That said(TM), I’d been thinking my next house move might be to that area, but it does materially put me off.
conservative share of the vote up in scotland….snp down 2.4 to just 17.7 for the party of scotland…..well the party of 1/6 of scotland now
Turnout in Solihull up 19.8% to 83.1%. This looks like the mother of all outliers. Can anyone with a long memory think of such a large change in turnout in a single seat in previous elections?
Good night for LD’s in general - especially in Lab seats but tempered personally by the loss of Ludlow. Our vote held up but the Tories came out to vote which they didn’t in 2001 - we’ve lost a first rate MP. I said earlier in the week that Leeds NW was a hell of a bet at 7/2. Did anyone get on?
As I said before I’m disapointed despite winning in my own seat. Thought we would sneek D&G but I didn’t think the SNP would lose so many votes to Labour. We were unlucky in Angus and put in a good performance in Perth and NP (allthough I wonder if the notional results were the wrong way round as in D&G and DC&T). Good result in Berwickshire etc which could pave the way for winning one of the borders seats in 2007.
Just over £2650 up by trading on the lab. maj - fortunately I had the good sense to close out the night before at 91 . Was then lucky by selling Labour at 79 which amazingly sat on Spreadfair for quite some time after the exit polls were given . Could not believe how the lab maj. collapsed as the first gains in the South-East came in as it allowed me to buy labour at 47 (£160 was available) , I suspect the layers had been paying far too much attention to the Studio debates on the BBC and had failed to notice seats in the north such as Crosby were staying Labour . By the time the penny had dropped I had snaffled the money.Got somehwat carried away however when I noticed Sky was predicted a lab. maj of 80 so bought rather more than I should have done in the mid-seventies but should still amke a small gain on this trade .
Over bought Lib Dem seats as well so sustained a loss there . But overall a very profitable evening ,
I’m nackered but very happy, national majority is not quite as good as i would have liked but for a few moments i have time to check back and see how the old pb.com gang are doing… Leicester is once again a solid red blog in the middle of the east midlands
and after months of hard work that’s all that matters…
The disappointment for the Tories is that, although London moved back to them in a big way, the rest of the country didn’t follow suit. Labour did remarkably well to hold on to many of its marginals outside London - great results in Milton Keynes SW, Stroud, Harrow, Hendon, Dover, Watford, Crosby, Wirral South, Selby, Elmet and especially Dorset South. The Tory candidate in Dorset South will surely be lucky to find another seat after turning a 153 Labour majority into a 1812 Labour majority, against the national trend!
Quite amusing that Bob Marshall-Andrews, after telling the BBC that he blamed Labour for his “defeat” in Medway, actually managed to hang on! One of several Kent seats where Labour squeaked home.
Even though the Tories have made up some ground, the next election may still be hard for them. Iraq won’t be a factor and Labour will have a new, more popular, leader by then.
And a final well done to Nick Palmer.
(P.S. - Who was that “Ian” guy who kept on posting during the night with wildly inaccurate claims of shock Labour losses based on “inside knowledge”?)
The results show how much more important it is to be politically astute, rather than your beliefs. I agree with RK-S’s views on Europe, but he is so poltically clumsy that he barely saved his deposit. GG, on the other hand, ————-(deleted by dk), and yet no-one can argue that he wins votes.
TB is a phenomenal vote winner. His beliefs? He’ll believe whatever you want….
re 30 Chris G
“… conservative share of the vote up in scotland… “
Are you absolutely sure about that? What is the source of that information?
I don’t think that can possibly be true, because the Con vote is down in nearly every Scottish seat I have looked at on the BBC website, eg North-east Scotland - Con vote fell in every seat - in a former Tory stronghold - and in central belt seats too.
Looks like Labour are aexpected to hold Wirral West and one of Harlow or Crawley, giving them a total of 355 seats and a majority of 64.
The Tories expected to end up with a total of 200 after the by-election next month.
Norman Lamb is the Ed Davey of 2005: a few hundred up to over 10000. I think his personal vote is huge.
I was in the Somerton and Frome/Yeovil count. My first count- very, very close, but great win. Seeing the party lost the council last year, had big fox hunting issues, a very well funded tory campaign etc I think we shouldnt, in theory, have won. We did. 812.
Laws did amazingly well too- doubled majority.
Scotland has turned amazingly Lib Dem- did they actually drop their share in any held seats?
Solihull was the most crazy result of the night. I guess that Yardley being next door must have helped.
My ante-post bets from a couple of months ago were best: a tip from Mike about turnout above 60% at 5/2 on Skybet came really good for me, plus Lib Dems under 66 seats also at generous Skybet odds against. Also sold UKIP many months ago @ 1.2 seats. Sadly half these winnings will be wiped out by my rush-of-blood-to-the-head buying of the Tory vote share at 33.75% a couple of days ago — def *not* a Mike tip and very contrary to all pb.com wisdom!
Tim - I think the only seat it fell in was in Berwickshire etc where their was a 5% swing to the Tories. Can’t see the LD’s performance continuing into 2007 though.
34 - I’d thought Hereford was more likely to fall than Ludlow. Funny old world.
Won some, lost some. Won on West Devon and Torridge - that was a case of local knowledge. Don’t know if anyone listened to my tip on that, but you should have!!!!! Won on a few other things, but lost on others - e.g. thought Conservatives might make 210 & thought turnout would be down. Some incredibly close results and actually the Tories only just missed out in quite a few seats. I think I’ve won on Labour seats though! So probably just broke even or slight profit.
Are there any odds available on when Tony Blair will resign ?
My guess is he will stay on until after the European constitution referendum.
If he wins, he bows out on a high.
If he loses, he would have to resign anyway.
Any ideas when the referendum would be held ?
Re 38 It’s worse than that for mad Matts of Dorset. A prominant blue on this site promised to do something quite nasty to him if he failed to win (let alone lose so apectacularly). Perhaps Mike/Robert can find the quote - it was after the second photo ‘blunder’.
re 42 Tim
“Scotland has turned amazingly Lib Dem- did they actually drop their share in any held seats?”
Yes. LD Hold Berwickshire, Roxburgh & Selkirk (Michael Moore MP) - LD vote down 5%
LD Hold Aberdeenshire West & Kincardine (Robert Smith MP) - LD vote only up 2%
LD Hold North East Fife (Menzies Campbell MP) - LD vote only up 3%
Key LD target Inverclyde - LD vote down 4%
John @ 38, Shipley and Folkestone also had turnouts of 80% or so.
London can be a trend-setter in elections. Labour enjoyed a much better than average performance in London in 1992, for example, which turned into a rout the next time round. Hendon was, in fact, a good result for the Conservatives, and Harrow West was encouraging. Like Southgate, both these seats may be reverting to type. I was also pleased to see Bob Blackman turn in a good performance in Brent North, although it remains safely Labour.
I think much is going to depend on how soon Tony Blair steps down. From Labour’s point of view, I think the sooner the better.
LD hold Berwick upon Tweed.
It would have been worth betting on Enfield Southgate. I actually thought Twigg would just hold on, but the bookies were offering 7-2 against the Conservatives. Did anyone follow my tip on St. Alban’s?
40.http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/shared/vote2005/html/region_7.stm
goto bbc site….its hard to believe but true conservatives have bottomed out and are slowly recovering in scotland despite tactical voting.
The Scottish shares (and all other regions) are on the BBC’s website:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/shared/vote2005/html/region_7.stm
1 seat to come in Scotland.
49 and 53. Yes, probably time to drop the spin Stuart. As far as I can see the only major party other than Labour to lose in the popular share of the vote in Scotland were the SNP - down 2.4%. Having said that I can’t see the actual Tory figure at the moment. But I can’t really see how the SNP can be pleased with their 6 seats.
Re 36 Thanks for confirming my view that you really knew what you were doing on these markets. I wonder whether any of my predictions (eg steady but gentle LD increase not ‘bounce’; Lab poll overstate of c2 pts; Tories standing still in vote share) were same as your own perspectives which you used so effectively?
By the way, did you really post something last night about ‘hung parliament territory’ - how to blow hard won credibility in one sentence!
Zzzz…I mean hello everyone! Yes, Broxtowe result fairly close to my final prediction (I said my 11.9% majority would probably halve, but it went down to 4.7%) though my optimistic tracker-based site contest entry was wildly off. The Tory vote only rose 0.5%, but I lost 6.7% to Greens, LibDems and a bit to the Europhobes (probably some swapping here, Lab-Co->UKIP) and a former Labour independent. The Paradox clearly had some effect - in the final days we heard of a good deal of ‘you’ll be all right, so I’m going to protest’. However, I’m pleased that it showed you can be a loyalist MP with unpopular positions (I doubt if I have many constituents who approve of BOTH the war AND a more liberal policy on asylum AND the hunting ban AND tuition fees…) and still get support from people who frankly disagree but accept that adults can take different views and still share the same outlook.
I think the overall result is objectively good enough for Labour: 60-odd is a comfortable working majority. But we’ve all got used to the huge majority so it’ll take hard work to move forward positively. The LibDems have made real progress and it’ll be interesting to see if they can now make the step change to bid for the ‘alternative government’ label which still slightly eludes them. And all that marginal targeting did help the Tories so let’s acknowledge the site posters who have been telling us thatfor months!
Some interesting ideas. Tories as usual tend to do better in the South than the North. It was not until 1983 that a lot of Yorkshire and Lancashire went with Maggie. Labour vote was more resilient the further north it was. Also GB when he takes over will have a very difficult task to win an election on his own. The number of labour seats where the majority has been slashed is huge. Also significant number of Lib Dem challenges to labour now. The aritihmetic for the Lib Dems is rapidly moving away from tory targets to labour targets, escp while labour is in government. However only problem for Tories is that by a quirk of fate, a lot of the most talented PPC’s incl Nicholas Boles, Iain Dale, Mark Mcgregor did not win, while many of the local councillors did. It was also good to see no racial backlash in Windsor or Cambridgeshire. The tory party and its voters are changing for the good.
Does anyone know whether the tories won the popular vote in England?
not a bad night for my pocket
- my turnout bet at 60%+ looks just about safe - especially if the irish seats maintain their usual style
- lowest winning margin 50 votes+ almost lost in Sittingbourne, but still looking possible
knife edge on my cons 190 - 200 seats bet
lost on the tory taking the kent seat I live in bet - but thats because I always back against my own party locally - it’s a superstition thing …
waiting for Foyle to declare and Upper Bann (SF and DUP to take)
Congratulations Nick.
Are you allowed to say how long you think Tony will carry on ?
57.mr loyalist….you must be telling the whips that it’s time for tony to go….surely?????
Must admit that the exit polls were surprisingly spot-on, the poll convergence always seemed right (I’d predicted 38-34-22) although all the seat calculators were well off by assuming uniform swing. Maybe they need Peter Snow’s three-way battleground next time. More importantly, proof that the great British public are capable of getting exactly what they want. But do feel Con optimism somewhat misplaced. Blair was a liability, and yet no real Con advance outside London (I now live in the new “cordon bleu” in SW). And must assume large number of Lab - Lib Dem switchers will go back to Brown for 2009. Three new leaders for next GE? Yeap. Brown, Davis, Taylor (? - can’t see Cable having popular appeal)
The three-way battleground was very good graphic design, I thought.
Well - for me the biggest surprise was that the Independent had the most accurate pollster again.
NOP: Con 33, Lab 36, LD 23; Lab lead 3%
Result: Con 33.1, Lab 36.3, LD 22.6; Lab lead 3.1%
Result to 2 sig figs (as is appropriate when comparing to polls):
Con 33, Lab 36, LD 23.
NOP were within 0.4% at their worst! Errors of 0.1, 0.3 and 0.4, with error on lead of 0.1% is, in polling terms, a direct hit.
Kudos to NOP.
58. Quite agree Andrew. Some interesting images of the night - black and Asian Tory MPs and a very youthful, and undoubtedly dishy, Putney MP. Unfortunately image does matter and if the Conservatives can hold steady now under MH for a bit they will be right in there with a chance. A top priority must be to get the vote share up in the local elections (2 yrs time?).
With the Staff result (if it returns a Tory and, being a by-election type it might not) could they be near to the pyschologically important 200 seat mark?
ENGLISH ONLY result
LABOUR 7,959,919 7,986,393 CONSERVATIVE
TORY WIN!
With 58 out of 59 seats declared (awaiting Argyll & Bute), the Scottish vote share is as follows:
1. Labour 40% (-5%)
2. Liberal Democrats 22% (+6%)
3. SNP 18% (-2%)
4. Conservatives 16% (no change)
5. Scottish Socialist Party 2% (-1%)
6. Scottish Green Party 1% (+1%)
(others 1% (no change))
Seat Distribution:
1. Labour 41 seats (-5 seats)
2. Liberal Democrats 10 (+1)
3. SNP 6 (+2)
4. Conservatives 1 (+1)
(others zero (no change))
Scottish Vote Share and Seats - 1% swing from Lab to SNP
67. Thanks Chris G, so it’s official we English no longer live in a democracy! Our Celtic cousins are imposing a labour government on us!
I’d also like to know what the result would’ve been if all constituency’s had the same electorate. Apparently on average you need 5,000 less votes to win in a labour seat than a tory one.
57. Nick i thought you predicted 7 losses to the tories?
What happened to the 8 people on your canvas who said they were switching from Labour to Tory??????? Obviously not givem the swing against you. Nothing personal but i’d make plans for alternative employment in 2010.
All the best
Probably my poorest showing in decades on political betting +£3.
Mainly due to calling seats too optimistically for LD and Tories.
Laid LibDems in Guildford all night, so my thanks to whomever was backing LibDems.
To be honest, I was surprised at the failure of the LDs to make serious progress.
That English vote is going to cause some rumblings over the next few years I think. Having said that, the idea of the Conservatives spreading north and west gradually does make some sense. It’s good we’ve got a toehold in Scotland and Wales still.
I think the Tories will be very close to 200. Harlow and Crawley both look incredibly close, but it’s the Tories asking for the recount in the former I think so that may go against them. If Skipton and Ripon as well as Staffs South next month go for them they have 198. Would have been really nice to get 200. I’ve got fingers crossed for the two recounts. The Tories have been quite unlucky with some of the tight marginals.
With a high number of marginal Labour holds, any small further swing at the next election will wipe out the majority. But the Conservatives will need to take over 120 seats to get a majority - a performance of Labour97 proportions. What odds on a hung parliament at the next election?
Andrew at 13 - I know we all one eyed but cannot let your Comment pass
“Good performances by Rik and Marcus”
Rik went from 38.0% share to 40.4% (and he was replacing a real weirdo in Lady Olga).
Marcus went from 36.4% to 36.6%
As we say one more heave!!
Apparently Crawley is down to 31 votes. Anyone know who has them?!
Re. 71 isn’t there going to be a boundary change though? I thought that will land them more seats without trying, as it were?
Re 74. yes true, the boundary changes are likely to favour Conservatives (the boundaries tend to lag behind population shifts out of Labour seats into Conservative ones). But I wouldn’t think effect would be huge - unless anyone knows different?
Anthony King is talking again……..please please someone send him a lib dem badge
RE 72: In Lib Dem seats, they were perfectly reasonable. No doubt Rik and maybe Marcus will get on the hunt for a non LD seat, in prepartion for the next election. Anyway look at what happened to Iain Dale in North Norfolk (I have to admit, if I was a Tory ppc, I would avoid a seat with a LD challenger/MP like the plague).
71 - There’s a heckuva lot of tight marginals for the next election whichever way the swing goes. Tories made a lot of narrow (i.e 1.5% majority or less) gains too.
Does anybody have a projected figure for the number of seats exchanging hands so I can dream of my IG winnings at £20 a point?
79. 53-55? (X Scotland and NI)
LD hold St Ives - that’s every seat in Cornwall orange.
Sigh. I predicted a Labour majority of 68 three hours before the exit polls, which makes me incredibly smart. And I didn’t bet on it, which makes me a nitwit. Blair will hang on until the Referendum and lose. Brown will take over, but be damaged by a faltering economy. Tories to sweep home next time. But likesay, I am a nitwit.
81 But much of Devon now looking blue.
ENGLISH ONLY update
8,014,418 conservative
7,978,582 labour
5,140,532 liberal
additionally tories 2nd in wales….the party of wales um.. plaid cymru in full retreat…
snp down in scotland….and liberals end up as a repository for protest voters…..they hvae broken the mould of british politics (again)
tories are back against a dour scot…..the future’s bright the future’s blue!
Won about £100 on Labour winning most seats (I’ve been drip feeding in a fair amount for the last 6 months from my salary, so got a decent amount saved up too!). Slightly offset with buying Labour seats at 364, and still hanging on as Layed Labours majority of 1-60 on Betfair at about midnight - think the majority is currently exactly 60 (anyone confirm??). Backed Oona King to win too - oh dear, and backed Kilroy to lose at 1.07 nicely and the Greens to gain no seat too. All pretty safe stuff but a tidy profit nonetheless
Wish I’d bet on my competition predictions. I had a majority of 69 with 63 seats for the LD’s, 41%ish for both Rik and Nick and not too far out on the overall shares. Got to be close here…….
Slightly confused about this Labour majority. I can’t quite see where the 66 comes from. At the moment it looks to me to be 58. Even if both Crawley and Harlow go their way (possible - they are 31 up in Crawley apparently) that makes it 62 doesn’t it? Wirral?
And does anyone know what’s happening in Wirral West? Why the delay? Could be close perhaps?
recount in wirral…with labour v.slight favourites…..double digit lead on last count
Harlow. According to Anthony Labour are up by 50, but 500 votes have gone missing during the count … blimey! Wonder what will happen?
I make it with 24 seats left (18 in N.Ireland?), Labour has 353 and the opposition 269 - currently majority 84. Less the 18 N.Ireland seats = 66, and less the 6 other seats. Currently majority = 60? I think. I only need 1 more. What other seats are left - Harlow, Crawley, Skipton?
So all 3 recounts are favouring Labour - just.
87 - Richard - if Labour win those 3 seats, that gives them 356 in total, 290 to the others - 66 majority.
As a Tory, am concerned at how progress was largely limited to London and certain Con/LD marginals. Doesn’t feel like a sufficient platform to launch a realistic bid for power in 2009.
One prediction - the theme of the next general election will be ‘quality of life’ issues, ie as we all get richer, are we happier? Issues such as high house prices (why is this a ‘good thing’?), work/life balance, petty crime, the encroachment of housing development into the countryside etc. These issues do not belong to any one party, and it will be interesting to see how well the new intake from each party can articulate them.
My perception is that the new Tory intake is largely right of centre within the party. If this is true, it concerns me. A shame that some good candidates narrowly lost - eg Nick Boles.
In Con/LD marginals there were encouraging signs that people were not willing to elect an ‘alternative’ that sits to the left of Labour on economic issues. Was 2001 a high water mark for the LDs in the south?
Some amazing individual performances. Is Romford now in the top 20 of safe Tory seats? Whatever you think of Rozzer, the guy can certainly run a good campaign. Neighbouring Hornchurch proved as close as I expected, and my parents (staunch Tories) are sorry to see the ‘excellent’ John Cryer go.
I’m really pleased about Preseli Pembs.
Clearly the Tories will be investigating what went wrong in Solihull; Labour likewise in Enfield Southgate and the LDs in Newbury and the decapitation targets - a strategy which appears to have backfired somewhat.
There appear to be more ultra-marginal Lab/Con than Con/Lab seats for next time, although Croydon Central is one notable exception!
93. Doesn’t Staffs South make it 64? That must be where my calculations are going astray. Skipton to be Tory. And there’s Argyll and Bute for the LibDems (probably).
And the winner is…..the pollsters - they finally got one right!
I didn’t bet - although its heresy on this , I must admit I never do but my pedictions held up pretty well - I thought the LDs would gain a dozen from Labour & (though not some of the seats that did change hands - I thought we’d take Dorset West & lost Hereford for instance. The percentages are exactly as expected - Labour between 35-38%, Tories 30-33% and LDs on 22-23%.
On a personal level, my private expection for my own vote in Vauxhall was 26-28% & I came in at 26.1% ( a 6% swing), I’m very satisfied with that, as we ran up against a very strong personal vote for Kate Hoey & I think against any other Labour candidate the swing would have been 9-10%.
After this election, almost everybody could be happy, but at the same time not fully satisfied.
Labour got a workable majority, but probably Blair would have hoped in a 100+ majority (like the Uniform Swing would have suggested).
Brown could be happy, becuase Blair could go sooner than later, but also for him a bigger majority would have been better to fight the next election. Now Labour has a lot of marginals and some safe seats become Lab/Libdems marginals (Chris Smith old seat; Glenda Jackson seat and Franck Dobson’s seat) and with Libdems in second place everything could happen (like they showed us this night).
The left of the party could probably be happy. Now they’ll have more power in their hands. Some of them (from the first comments) seem to out for a revenge on Blair. They already told that they’re organizing themself to stop an “unremittingly New Labour ” term
(btw why did Bob Marshall-Andrews concede defeat when at the end he survived? At one point I thought he would have tried to kill Blair if he had had the chance…)
Galloway and Peter Law’s win are a blow to New Labour.
I’m surprised by Twigg defeat (for a moment I thought he was going to cry).
The tories are gained seats, but not many votes. So not a meltdown predicted by some polls, but the road to the government is still long. The did very well in London, butr less well in other areas of the country. So and so in Scotland, well in Wales.
All the big names (except Collins, maybe the “less” bigger) survived well. Disappointed that Boles lost in Hove. I thought he would have performed better than average,but at the end he did worse than 2001.
The Libdems gained seats, but probably they expected better results in Libdems/Cons marginals. Their performance in Lab held seats where they were second was fantastic and made the night a lot of more interesting.
SNP should be happy of its result, while Plaid performed bad (maybe the next leader to go is PC’s one).
About the little parties, we can say goodbye to Kilory-Silk (probably wrong spelling).
Respect polled well in Westham too (almost 20%).
The Greens performed very well in Pavillion (and in the other Brighton and Hove seats too). Next time they could have a real chance to gain their first MP.
At the end an interesting election night (I officially broke my record of spelling and grammar mistakes, but I was half asleep and I couldn’t think well…).
Congratulations to Nick Palmer.
P.S: Sorry for the long post
Actually the number of Tories with 10k+ majorities is substantial. A lot of big majorities have been piled up all around the country. What MH would have given for each sitting Tory MP before last night, sacricing a thousand votes each for other candidates. 5 labour seats in Kent now have majorities of less than a 1000. In London there are similar majorities in Battersea, Finchley. In Wales, there is Cardiff North with a majority just over 1000. In Yorkshire there is Selby and in the Midlands Stourbridge, Warwick and Leamington and High Peak. As for the South there is Stroud, Thanet South, Hove, Sittingbourne and Sheppey, Portsmouth North (just over 1k), Medway, Gillingham and Dartford. And of course there are the potential recounts going on at the moment.
So altogether labour have 15 seats with majorities of 1k and under with any of the held recounts to add on. Labour also have a lot of seats between 1.5k and 2.5k as well.
re 97. Andrea
“SNP should be happy of its result… “
Thank you Andrea. We are very, very happy indeed.
On a personal note, I am absolutely over the moon with the amazing victory of my friend and colleague Angus Brendan MacNeil in Na he-Eileanan an Iar. He is a true Barra MacNeil - a very famous family in Scotland. A tall, fine-looking, young Gaelic gentleman, who is set to charm the voters of the mainland too, I predict.
The SNP has a star in the making. If you think that I am loquacious, you haven’t seen Angus Brendan in full flow!
Continuing the point of 1k or less majorities. Tories are chasing Lib Dems down in all the seats they lost last night (W&L, Solihull and Taunton) plus Somerton and Frome (3rd time majority under 1k), Carshalton and Wallington, Eastleigh, Romsey and Hereford.
re 85 good betting Matt. It’s 60 (353-323=30 * 2)…or 61 if the Staffs seats is out of the equation (anyone know how Betfair are treating this?). Like you, I am on loser if sticks at 60.
Just had the pleasure of drive to Hove. Given the Tory expenditure in the seat (and favourable reports here of candidate), the late Lab selection of new candidate, the last local election results, the poster count and the swing in the region, I just didn’t see that coming. The Tory team must feel wholly gutted - even by the usual standards of narrow defeats. Apart from economy/public services and strong Lab effort, I can only put it down social, cultural and demographic changes being greater than in other South east marginals.
97 & 99 SNP are down 1/6 of their share of the vote has gone!!!!! fighting a very unpopular labour government at westminster and edinburgh……if this makes you happy/is a good result roll on the next election!
Not the best of nights for the Plaid but not the end of the world. We made a tactical mistake in ignoring the Lib dems instead of campaigning on their record of government in Wales…eg health service problems etc. Its astonishing that they have escaped so lightly given the track record of the first assembly administration
Our reverses are mainly down to money and organisation issues which are slowly being sorted. The Lib Dems and Labour will face a very different campaign in 2007.We held our other three seats with increased majorities. To have won Ynys Mon would have been great but no incumbant has lost there in living memory.
My own vote went up by a spectacular 9 or 0.1%. We had a very good Independent candidate who may have picked up a few votes we would otherwise have gained but he mainly took from the Tories. Some of our supporters didnt bother to vote waiting for the 2007 election.
Good news for the SNP in Scotland. On the whole a good night for the Libs. If they divert resources away from “decapitation” and into fighting Labour seats they could do well next time. Equally this could well be a high water mark as the tensions in the party come to the surface over the next two years or so.
Blair to go within a year but I hope he hangs on past 2005.
News from Harlow. Labour currently 49 ahead but 550 votes gone ‘missing’. Apparently a ballot box from a strong Tory ward turned up at the count over an hour late. 3rd recount at 10am saturday. This one could drag on.
98. but some of this seats should have gone tories thsi time if they would have made the swing achieved in London in other seats too.
by
Andrea
May 6th, 2005 at 12:39 pm
If I recall well (and maybe not considering I’m half sleep), in many London seats tories vote went up, while in other areas Lab ma
What an interesting night. The Conservatives got as far as seat 114 on their target list, but got nowhere in targets 1,2 and 3. I think Dorset South might well have a new Conservative PPC.
I am surprised mostly that the polsters got it right.
I think I was right about which way swings were going, I.E. LD to Con, Lab to both. Personally could not tell how much. It is intersting is it not how far down the list the Consrvatives got, but leaving lots of blank spaces.
If labour have a majority of 66 (I think that is the most they can get?) then we are in for some fun. That means that Tony can be beaten by 33 rebels. If JM’s experiances are anything to go by, TB is going to have the heaby GB’s.
Also intersting to note that England is on vote share Conservative, and the Conservatives are making a comeback in Wales. That said I am surprised and how the map has changed on such a bad Conservative performance.
The target list for next time is going to be interesting.
From what I understand, there are only 100 Blair and Brownites combined in the parlimentry party. That could mean that their are in fact 250 ish Labour MP’s, which is going to make for an interesting leadership battle there. I hope the get a Scot, as that will be political suicide south of the border.
Unfortunatly the most obvious best Conservative leader is a balding Yourkshire man who has shot his bolt. (Hauge) I understand he probably makes more on his own than Cherri and Tony make, and he does that by public speaking mostly. That seems to make me think he is good at it. Someone with a brain in Central office should have realised he was a future leader not a current one.
Also, as an obersvation, next time i expect the LD’s (on their current course) to loose large number of voters to the Conervatives in the South but start to punish Labour, as real Labour voters realise that the LD’s are more Labour than labour is. (Also assumming the Labour party maintains it current course)
Very dissappointed in the campaigns, I mainly blame the media though.
Blimey - Howard has just said he’ll stand aside sooner rather than later.
If that’s true re. Harlow then the Tories might nip it back.
a slightly moer left wing labour leader in gordon brown will neutralise lib dems at next election….thye’ll be squeezed in a very tight contest….breaking the mould of british politics for 80 years…..the lib dems awwwwww
106.” That means that Tony can be beaten by 33 rebels”
We should start to make the list of possible rebels.
BTW I missed a 1k and lower labour majority in the City of Chester (some achievement seeing how badly the Tories lost it in 1997)
Arygll and Bute Lib Dem hold just confirmed. You can get 1.1 on 61-80 seats for Labour and 8.4 for 1-60 on Betfair. Just laid off the 61-80 just in case. Looks like a Labour majority of only 61 or 62 then?
108 - far from it. Brown will be an old-style Labour centralist, and the LDs will attack him for that without going to the other extreme of calling for public services to be cut to the bone.
110. and I missed half of my 105 post.
I’ll recheck all the results later, but in how many seats the tories cut LAb majority increasing their votes (and not thanks to labour defections to the libdems)?
Why did Skipton and Ripon declare so late? It wasn’t close, and the constituency’s not so big it takes hours to move the ballot boxes.
Any word on when the Wirral West result is due?
Re. 109. The Times printed a list of the top 50 Labour rebels from last time, including their voting records - it was about a month ago. Made fascinating reading. They were the most rebellious MPs in the history of modern party politics! But then they did have Tony Blair as their leader …!
Delighted with Galloway’s victory. Delighted with Bliar’s bloody nose. Delighted with Bob Marshall Andrews’ close win. Delighted that my Lib Dem MP won his seat with a bigger majority - my prediction was 18 votes out, and a swing from the Tories. Delighted to see the end of Dracula.Oh what a beautiful morning, oh what a beautiful day.
It is sad though that Milburn has retired from politics and that Ooona King is no longer an MP - she’ll be back at the next election. Similarly, many good Labour MPs have lost their seats (Roger Casale is one example).
However, we need to get things in perspective I think 60 is a workable majority - its a tribute to Blair that after eleven years as leader and three elections the Tories still haven’t got more than Labour did in 1983. Whatever people say no other Labour party politican (and yes that includes Brown) could have had his success for too long. He can justifiably claim to the most successful Labour leader of all time.
I also think that we shouldn’t read too much into B&BG and panick over Iraq. British troops need to say in for the next eighteen months to two years to prevent the collapse of the new democracy. We should remember that after the Korean war Truman’s popularity levels were 20% - people now view Truman as one of the greatest foreign policy presidents ever - (ditto the Attlee government and British Foriegn policy) history will judge Tony Blair in a similar way.
Sounds like big trouble in Harlow. See Anthony’s site for an update - various shenanigans and a recount tomorrow. I wonder if there’s any precedent for a re-vote?
I mean for so long - sorry.
118. You’re right Matthew. But … let’s just say that with a 60 majority Tony Blair wouldn’t have got away with the Iraq war.
Seeing as some people are already talking about ‘2009′, here’s my initial thoughts…
from May 1997 everyone knewthere was going to be a point at which the New labour bubble began to burst - this was widely expected to start in 2001, but in the end the pin hardly touched the balloon.
If in 1997 New Labour had been offered a third term in 2005 with a 60 odd majority, I think few would have scoffed at it. Considering that this election was dominated by an event that was unforseen in 2001 let alone 1997, an event that was deeply damaging to Labour, and which was exploited to the maximum by the other two parties, then the 60 odd majority can reasonably be said to be worse than may have been expected in hind site, had Iraq not happened.
in 2009 - unless there is another Iraq style event - the judgement will be on more normal political issues. The Labour leader is likely to be Gordon Brown, and will enjoy a honeymoon period that will only have started to ebb by the elction - presuming Blair stays a couple of years or so.
The bottom line - unless both the tories radically change their ways and the economy nose dives - there is every suggestion that Labour will increase their majority significantly again and the Lib Dems will be in serious retreat, as their main targets are now labour who will probably not be as weak politically as they have been this time, whilst the Tories may well make inroads on the liberal flanks, whilst losing to Labour candidates.
2009 - Labour majority c 100, Libs reduced to 45 - 50 and Tories c190
on a voting record of 40% v 32% v 21%
Re. 122 if a week is a long time in politics 4 or 5 years certainly is! Labour lead has gone down from over 160 to 60 - and that momentum isn’t going to please Labour backbenchers, especially as some 20 seats are held with under 1000 majorities.
But you’ve completely ignored the big point. Labour went into this election with a great economy (in theory). That is all set to change and this will have a massive effect on Labour. There’s trouble ahead economically, and Labour will take the rap for it.
Good night for me held of the LD’s here in Norwich South better than Labour managed in much of the country, although the Greens did help with that. Very pleased with the result in Great Yarmouth thought we might lose that.
In terms of betting won on majority of between 60 and 100, turnout, and bought Tory at 192. Individual constituencies were great for me got 2.3 on Betfair for the Ld’s to take Bristol West also won on North Norfolk and Eastleigh.
Well done to all the candidates on here, how did you get on Tabman?
123 “There’s trouble ahead economically, and Labour will take the rap for it. ”
No, they’ll still be blaming the Tories for mismanaging the economy in the 1990s - LOL
74 - I’m not sure this boundary review will help the Tories in the way they historically did. The drift of people from the inner-Cities has slowed dramatically and there are none of the stupidly small sub 50,000 or even sub 40,000 electorate seats you used to have a decade after a boundary review.
RichardHH - I know 4 years is a wee while in politics but odds might be made available soon so where does the money go?
I acknowledged that whjat i said depended on the economy not nose diving, etc, but the point I was making is that this election had everything going for the opposition parties and only the economy going for Labour. ASnd it is the economy that has seen them still returned with a good majority despite having so many handicaps.
Next time, with no Iraq and no Blair, as long as the economy holds up - and people have been predicting its demise for several years now - there is no reason to expect the ‘momentum’ you talk about continuing. The tories are still behind Labours performance in 1983, show no signs of making a real recovery, and if that’s what passes for momentum in this age, then perhaps we haven’t really passed the age of horse and cart
I seem to remember that about 50 labour MP’s who were running were openly against labour’s proposed third term legislation.
Surely only Brown can lead now.
Blair to go within 12 months.
indeed - even as I typed the first prices have gone up - 8/15 for a 4th Labour victory anyone?
Re. 127 - we’ll have to agree to disagree! All I’d say is that more economists are now sure of problems ahead than ever before.
The economy is always the most important issue in a General Election - that’s not to say other things aren’t, but it is really important and out-trumps every other card that the opposition held imo.
BNP were suprisingly strong in the north. May have cost the Tories one or two seats there
118: British troops need to say in for the next eighteen months to two years to prevent the collapse of the new democracy.
Equally likely is the scenario in which Iraq continues its gradual descent into civil war with British troops increasingly caught in the crossfire. Wonder how history will judge Tony Blair then?
106 - Benedict. Unfortunatly the most obvious best Conservative leader is a balding Yourkshire man who has shot his bolt. (Hauge) I understand he probably makes more on his own than Cherri and Tony make, and he does that by public speaking mostly. That seems to make me think he is good at it. Someone with a brain in Central office should have realised he was a future leader not a current one.
Someone did. Michael Howard
That was the entire basis of the ‘deal’ he offered him! One thing you can say about Howard he has always been far more motivated by what would be good for the Conservative Party than what would be good for him personally.
130. Debt has almost quadrupled under labour, 300 billion to 1.1 trillion today. That’s money that has to be paid back.
The consumer has been credited with keeping the UK out of recession and now with house prices stagnant (falling in many parts) that’s the end of the equity withdrawal which has been keeping the economy afloat.
Also i’m not sure people have quite got used to the fact that big debts in a low inflation environment do not erode quickly and they will be paying big chunks of their earnings to service borrowing for a lot longer.
Personally finding it unbelievable that so many Tories posting here seem to believe this is a decent result for them - I wonder whether you represent the opinion of the high-command. Despite deep and widespread discontent most people could not stomach the idea of a Tory government, and so if they voiced their opposition to this government they did so by voting Lib (London apart). This is unprecedented for the last 100 years in which the main opposition party have always been substantial beneficiaries of discontent. The landscape has changed in such a way as to suggest the possibility for huge Lib-dem gains in the event of further swings against the government. I think this is a turning-point.
I’m Conservative and I’m happy. It’s a platform, and we won the popular vote in England. Everything to play for now. I think if you have a go at our relative pleasure it just shows that you don’t realise what an utter hammering 1997 was. That election could have heralded the wipe out of the Tories. That is not going to happen now. One of the things I’m so happy about are the number of grassroot people coming back, and young too. I’m one of those - nothing to do with HQ and have never spoken to them. We have to build now, especially at the council level. But I’m confident again, and that’s the first time since late 1992.
I lost on George Galloway.
Made a bit on Plaid Cymru, Turnout, Lib Dem % share.
Looking for my buy on SDLP at 1.5 to save the day.
136. OK Richard - I’d never want to deny anyone a little pleasure - so please enjoy. Good luck!
Nick. Congratulations. You must be tired - you forget to put the MP back
Disappointed that the rumour in Perry Barr proved unfounded - probably Mr Mahmood’s religion saved him as the 20% swing against Clare Short next door was phenomenal.
Labour hold Wirral West.
118 Anthony’s site? Can you be more specific?
It shouldn’t be unbelievable, it’s simple John. Labour 41 Conservatives 27 - Times tracker poll on penultimate day before the election
I also think Labour supporters project their memories of the eighties on to what they feel the Conservatives should be feeling. There just isn’t the same hatred (by and large) of Blair as there was of Thatcher and so urgency to remove him - and therefore they are happy with small improvements, winning council seats etc etc.
118 - The Tories would have more seats if it wasn’t for your lots passive gerrymandering.
This was my first vote and the first time I have followed an election closely and stayed up all night to follow the results. It was fascinating! The Tories did far better than I expected (I thought a labour majority of about 120-140) but IMO could and should of done far better. I would say the same for the Lib Dems.
The Tories clearly went with a policy of firming up their core vote but as they only moved forward by about 1% it is obvious there are not many more votes to be gained that way. I strongly believe that it would be a mistake to stay to the right trying to squeeze UKIP, BNP etc. The more they do to pick these votes the more people who want to vote against labour will feel unable to. I could have voted Tory but every time they mentioned immigration I became a little more alarmed and so voted Lib Dem. I have also heard a lot of Conservative spokesmen and posters on this thread say that the economy is about to go belly up. This is only a hunch and they would be foolish to believe that it would automatically return them to power. Correct me if I’m wrong but there was a recession in 1990-91 (I was only 6) and yet John Major still won. My point is the opposition need to be electable rather than just rely on the government to mess up.
I have two policy ideas for the Tories to push over the course of the next parliament. I wonder why they did not campaign on them for the last 18 months so please feel free to shoot these ideas down.
1) Abolish the CAP. Rather than being a dog whistle issue different people can hear what they want to hear from it. Economic conservatives must abhor it because it is not a free market, social liberals must hate the damage it does to the developing world. Its waste and its vast cost is probably not widely known but billboards in the cities of a weedy field with a comment along the lines of “Your hard working family pays £xxxbn a year so that farmer’s do nothing” would surely go down well. It would then rise up peoples list of priorities and be fought on their terms. It allows an anti Europe message without talking endlessly about Europe. They will daily be able to come up with examples of waste that the government will find hard to defend. Furthermore it allows them to change their image from being a rural and landowning one to more urban friendly one. They will never win a majority if the do not win more city seats outside London and though farmers may not like it, they make up a very small percentage of the electorate and have few other options of who to vote for. Furthermore they can tie it into their immigration policy by saying it will help people in developing countries to help themselves. This gives them a retort to the nasty party tag (which IMO they currently are).
2) Go very strongly on environmental issues. Many on the right in America are starting to realise the harm we are doing to the environment and also tie it into their foreign policy towards the Middle East (John McCain is one. Last year I heard him speak far more eloquently than I ever could on why the right should be far more concerned about environmental issues. Again it is not an issue high on people’s agenda at the moment but it could be (ie immigration was not an issue in 2001 to most voters). However it is certainly a topic that there is space for the Tories to get a lead on (as opposed to say health where they will never lead in the opinion polls). Increase science funding into alternative energy forms. I’m a chemistry undergraduate and I know there is hope though it is a long way off yet that Carbon Nanotubes could be used far more efficiently for solar power than anything we have at the moment. There is also talk in America of 500mpg cars in the nearish future. The Tories should offer tax brakes such as no VAT or road tax for such fuel-efficient cars making it easier for car manufacturers to get their concepts off the ground. Further more no Tory politician or candidate should ever say it, but their “surrogates” on radio phone ins etc can say that it means we will never have to go to war for oil again.
I’m sorry for such a long post but hopefully some of the far wiser people than me on here have read this far and can explain why these ideas would never work in the real world. Thanks
Anyone know if there are any odds available for the delayed election where a candidate died - and will this count as a bye-election or what? I’m guessing not.
And how will the results last night affect it? Bit like voting in Alaska - everyone knows the final result yet people still turnout to vote…
Will people back the winning party, or will they want to shore up the opposition?
It’s a Lab / Con fight if i remember correctly
My 2 cents:
1) No UK government can “abolish the CAP”. The Common Agricultural Policy is just that - a common policy. A UK government could try to persuade the other governments to reform or scrap it, or else withdraw from the EU, but it couldn’t unilaterally abolish it.
2) Right wing policy is just not compatible with environmental protection. Most on the right regard environmental legislation as unnecessary burocracy which strangles businesses in red tape, etc.
141. Sorry I can’t cut n’ paste from Anthony’s site. It’s post 187. in this thread: http://pollingreport.co.uk/blog/index.php?p=388
Basically it looks as if a box is missing and another turned up late. Looks a bit dodgy.
122 Dream on Pimpernel.
Re:146. ‘Right-wing’ policy on STOPPING mass immigration is surely compatible with protecting what little green spaces we have left. After all, Britain is one of the most densly-populated islands in the world so we can’t afford to have much more of an increase in our population!
149: Which islands are you talking about? Japan has a much higher population density than the UK. Australia and Greenland have lower population densities because they are mostly uninhabitable.
146. A point I failed to make but was really my main arguement, (I’m new to this message board malaky), is that the Tories need some new policies to on. The forth coming leadership contest will be about “right wing” against modernisers. Personally I feel both will fail. There are just not enough votes to be gained going further to the right as I’m sure David Davies wants to do. On the otherhand the modernisers main arguement seems to be to do the same as the Labour party (ie matching their spending in the key public services) but say that they will do it better. Voters are just not going to believe this. I believe that on the key public services such as health and education the Tories will never be favoured over labour however great their policy. On 11 of the 12 areas most commonly cited as important by voters the tories were consistently behind in the polls. Thus my arguement would be that they need to find and push new areas into voter’s minds. This is what has happened with immigration since 2001. The arguements would then be on their terms and they would offer an alternative.
On the CAP you are of course completely right but I feel it could be seen as something that the Tories are right on compared to Labour if they approached it well and in a reasonable fashion and labour are forced to defend it. Is abolishing the CAP an any less realistic policy than finding an island to take all our immigrants until the applications have been processed?
On the second point do the Tories want to win the next election? My understanding is that the Conservatives throughout history have been very good at adapting to the prevailing political sentiments of the country and have thus been the natural party of government. However since 1997 many seem to have believed that people will come back to them and I just don’t see it happening without something radical. They need a Clause 4. Enviromental policy may or may not be the thing but surely increasing red tape in order to return to power is a trade off they would happily take
Japan is mostly mountains but has a huge amount of people crammed in like sardines within a 100 mile radius of Tokyo. I want to preserve our national parks and other protected areas.
Had a good night with every one of my bets winning including St Albans to Con at 2.2 to 1. Think I might do well in the competition too. It may have been easier as I do not have strong political allegiances.
General thoughts. The IG index and polls were doing well until the amateurs turned up with a few days left. The fixed odds by the bookies are based on a lot of guess work and not much local knowledge but overall I think they forecast the election spot on.
The result was very close. A further 1% swing from Lab to Con and we could be looking at a wafer thin majority for Lab. I wonder how all those terrified Lab MPs will impact the next parliament.
Things look very black for Lab in the South. They are losing seats, councils and support very fast. I do not see that the Gordon Brown government will do anything to stop this. We are heading for a stronger North / South divide than ever before. At my son’s SW London school mock election Lab was 4th behind the Greens with under 10% of vote. This is as poor as the lack of Con voters at the factory in Glasgow where I work. I fear the divide will make the country much harder to govern and may lead to more street protests.
The only solution is for proper devolution of power to all local communities and not just to those that will vote Lab. What is the betting that this will happen?
123. It’s about the economy, stupid!
The bottom line is that Gordon Brown is going to have to eat his words about “ending boom and bust”. Bankruptcy figures were announced today - up 27%. My guess (based on a number of factors) is that we’re just going to start seeing the decline in house prices and negative equity . I think it’s all going to start looking bad over 3 or 4 years from now.
This was a hard election to win because you couldn’t fight on the economy. It’s doing quite well. Public services are also a hard fight - a lot of voters see labour pumping billions more in and assume they are getting a lot better. I don’t even think they’ll listen to the tories over it. Once the economy slides, who knows?
I imagine there will be votes going back as Iraq unwinds, although I think there may be people who objected to things like the internment laws switching to the LDs.
I think the rejection of the EU Constitution, if not by France than by another country, will force the European debate off its 80s/90s federalist terms and back to the drawing board. My hopes for the debate within the UK are that liberals can articulate a message where internationalism is cast in terms of countries respecting one another’s autonomy inside a basic framework that allows for voluntary multilateral agreements within that framework. The proposed Constitution is almost comically begrudging in the language it uses to admit this possibility.
4. You lost on almost the same things that I did! I’m about £40 down, losing all my bets.
However I did get a 9% swing from Labour to Lib Dem personally, in Hackney South and Shoreditch (where the election officials insisted on calling me Hugh rather than Gavin!).
Has anyone done an analysis of average vote share of minor parties in seats where they stood? I’d be really interested to see that. Obviously it would favour say Respect with few candidates relative to potential support, over say the BNP.
Perhaps another good way to look at it would be average vote share in their top ten seats.
PS - i might have lost £40 but I got £50 for signing up with the bookie, so I’m up … kind of.
And I agree that Mike’s commentary is absolutely top notch, but with the same bias as all the rest of us in favour of our prefered party.
Well done to the punters for the balance of money predictions which were absolutely superb.
Not a bad night from a personal viewpoint - and we made big gains in the counties in my seat. Just another 2 seats from Labour would have made me another few k which is sad.
I also feel smug but sad to be proved correct that we would fare poorly against the Conservatives but pick up some wild Labour long shots.
Graham, you’re a man with a nerve!
42: It’s not about personal votes. I was tempted by a punt on Norman in Norfolk North, I know enough about the man to be confident of a big win. But I decided I’d lost enough already. It’s about local campaigning ability: getting in the media, ability to get local campaigners out delivering. Any Lib Dem who could do those two things would also have a massive majority, even if the views or personality were quite different.
Now, any calls on Labour over the next Parliament? I’d just assumed they’d lose more votes by next time, possibly a bit slower when Blair goes. Is there anything in Tony Banks’ prediction that Iraq will be ‘quarterised’ and Labour will recover by the next election?
I would just echo everything Icarus said in 72. Some of the postings over recent months by two of the Tory candidates on this site have been absurd, to say the least (although I acknowledge Rik called Reading East correctly). I can only hope that their postings on this site are a little more balanced in the future.
As for Iain Dale, I would like to thank him for all his efforts in turning North Norfolk into a safe seat Lib Dem seat!
I know we’re all a bit biased to our own parties, but the Tories on this site are all talking as if there’s been some kind of recovery for them. There’s been a recovery in seats, but not in votes, barely even in the ‘good’ regions like London. There have been a few Tories washed up in Parliament but only because the Labour tide has receded. It’s receded in favour of us Lib Dems not the Tories.
And you still need to gain 126-odd seats to form the government even next time. That’s only been done once since 1945 - although admittedly it wasn’t uncommon before then.
Does anyone know a website where I can find the actual votes cast in England? The BBC website will give percentage breakdowns by regions, but not absolute vote numbers. (And as usual in its Politically Correct Way, it doesn’t consider that England exists, even though Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland get their own vote/seat breakdowns).
I have a suspicion that the Conservatives may have just pipped the Labour Party in England in terms of total votes. If so, I guess that this could make one or two people in the Labour hierarchy pause for thought about crowning a rather dour Scot as Tony’s successor (impressive and talented though Gordon Brown undoubtedly is).
As the smoke clears, how did the bets do?
Many thanks again to Mike Smithson for prompting me to buy LD share at 20.5 and seat changes at 47 (though I also felt morally bound to back my initial Telegraph suggestion that there’d be a lot more than last time).
I also bought Labour at 338 and 347 some time ago, and sold LDs at 70.
However, one loss: I thought there might be more than 130 women MPs and it doesn’t look as if it’ll get there.
So … the ‘new’ Hyundai will have to be a year older …!
What a fascinating set of results.
On a couple of points above, the 83% turnout in Solihull is wrong - I thought it may be a massive vote count error (has been known to happen) but actually the BBC had the electorate wrong. Don’t believe the 90% in East Hampshire either, for the same reason.
It wasn’t just Matts in S Dorset - double incumbency, like Cheadle and N Norfolk (but not Guildford or Ludlow, but then there wasn’t much of a personal vote for the previous Tories, quite the reverse I’m told.
As a Tory activist, I can honestly say that knocking TB’s majority down to 60 makes me very happy. Anyone who seriously expected any result other than a Labour win cannot have really understood the electoral landscape.
The unprecedented bias in the boundaries meant that Laabour could still win an overall majority even if they came third in the vote! This bias has peaked and will probably never be repeated. The Boundary review due before the next GE will cut TB majority at a stroke without anybody changing their vote. (Not sure by how much yet.)
The correct strategy for the Tories was to
(1) rebuild their campaigning teams wiped out by 1997
(2) avoid picking any new “negatives” (i.e. try to look less “nasty”)
(3) bite into Labour’s marginals
(4) hold off the Libdems
(5) hold off UKIP
(6) wait for events. (The economy that Labour inherited from the Tories was very strong, but the US economy in dangerously unbalanced at the moment. When it reverses, it will drag ours down, no matter how well managed. The incumbent UK Government will then get the blame regardless of what the cause was.)
Although the Tories haven’t achieved all of the above, they have made a pretty good stab at it. Overall, the result was as good as could be reasonably expected, given what Michael Howard had to work with. Recruiting Lynton Crosby was clearly a masterstroke.
It was inevitable that MH would step down before the next GE. I would strongly suggest that he persuades Crosby to stay on. With 4 years to work with instead of just a few months, Crosby could work at fixing the “nasty” image.
161. There has been a recovery of 33 seats. Bare in mind that the conservatives have done nothing but lose seats since 1987, so you must excuse some of us for feeling upbeat.
Various responses:
Chris_g: Still trying to get Tony, eh? Give up! Labour wins a third term with a comfortable majority after virtually the entire media throws mud at Tony Blair for years, the Tories fail to gain votes, and you want loyalists to urge his early retirement? Silly. A sensible transition at some point in the Parliament and an election for a fresh mandate for the new leader sounds a pretty good strategy to me.
Counting English votes separately: this seems a concern only if, like Stuart, one thinks that the UK should be split up and England should have a separate government. Otherwise it’s no more relevant than the fact that Cornwall probably has a LibDem majority.
Norman Lamb: I was really pleased to see his re-election - we’ve worked together on the Treasury committee and he’s one of the nicest people I know. (So, incidentally, is Oliver Letwin - it was so satisfying to see him gently unhorsing Paxman.)
Revolts: the dynamics change with more normal majorities. On the one hand the proposals themselves take more account of possible reactions from MPs, and on the other hand MPs become more selective in what they revolt about. When you have a really small majority, like Wilson did, revolts virtually disappear.
As a matter of interest, I’ve been comparing County votes with Parliamentary in Broxtowe to measure tactical/personal voting (impossible to distinguish). Hard to get it exactly because of boundary and multi-candidate issues, but basically I got 5000 votes more than the Labour County total (20K vs 15K), the Tory candidate got 3000 more (18K vs 15K), the LibDem got 4500 less (8K vs 12K, rounded), and there were a few thousand more votes for minor parties in the County votes. Posters from other marginal seats with County elections might be interested to check if they had the same polarisation. A quarter of the Labour vote attributable to this is really quite a lot, though County votes also have personal/tactical voting so it ain’t really that simple.
Nick, - as I’m sure you know, the “consolation prize” is a common phenonomen of different elections on the same day. Voters who only turn out at Generals, faced with having to vote in a local and knowing or caring nothing about the local candidates, often give their second national preference to the the local of that ilk. The same thing happens sometimes to a lesser extent when Parishes poll on the same day as Counties/Districts and there are Party candidates in the Parish.
Nick -PS, yes glad to agree with you that Norman Lamb is a thoroughly decent cove who deserves his thumping majority, which is personal to a large extent, eg canvassing comment - “Oh no we baint no Liberals ere. I be voting for that Norman Lamb. My father voted for im an is father afore im” (in a Norfolk accent of course
).
I’ll refrain from commenting on previous posters on the site to the effect that Norman Lamb is “toast”.
For the first time at a national election, I bet £1 on each of the 40 Welsh Constituencies and guessed on party win. This is how I did:
Aberavon: Lab @ 1-100 = 1011p
Alyn and Deeside: Lab @ 1-50 = 102p
Blaenau Gwent: Ind @ 3-1 = 400p (tip off from the Lib Dems in the seat)
Brecon and Radnorshire: LD @ 1-2 = 105p
Bridgend: Lab @ 1-50 = 102p
Caernarfon: PC @ 1-8 = 112p
Caerphilly: Lab @ 1-100 = 101p
Cardiff Central: LD @ 1-7 = 114p
Cardiff North: Lab @ 1-3 = 133p
Cardiff South: Lab @ 1-100 = 101p
Cardiff West: Lab @ 1-100 = 101p
Carmarthen East: PC @ 2-7 = 129p
Carmarthen West: Con @ 11-4 = 0p (Wrong)
Ceredigion: LD @ 2-1 = 300p
Clwyd South: Lab @ 1-25 = 104p
Clwyd West: Con @ 5-4 = 225p
Conwy: Lab @ 1-25 = 104p
Cynon Valley: Lab @ 1-100 = 101p
Delyn: Lab @ 1-50 = 102p
Gower: Lab @ 1-25 = 104p
Islwyn: Lab @ 1-100 = 101p
Llanelli: Lab @ 1-8 = 112p
Meirionydd: PC @ 1-33 = 103p
Merthyr: Lab @ 1-100 = 101p
Monmouth: Con @ 1-7 = 114p
Montgomeryshire: LD @ 1-25 = 104p
Neath: Lab @ 1-100 = 101p
Newport East: Lab @ 1-33 = 103p
Newport West: Lab @ 1-66 = 102p
Ogmore: Lab @ 1-50 = 102p
Pontypridd: Lab @ 1-100 = 101p
Preseli, Pembroke: Con @ 5-4 = 225p
Rhondda: Lab @ 1-100 = 101p
Swansea East: Lab @ 1-100 = 101p
Swansea West: Lab @ 1-50 = 102p
Torfaen: Lab @ 1-100 = 101p
Vale of Clwyd: Con @ 9-2 = 0p (Wrong)
Vale of Glamorgan: Lab @ 1-2 = 150p
Wrexham: Lab @ 1-20 = 105p
Ynys Môn: PC @ Evens = 0p (Wrong)
Total: £8.70
Ceredigion: LD @ 2-1 = 0p
Clwyd South: Lab @ 1-25 = 4p
Clwyd West: Con @ 5-4 = £1.25
Conwy: Lab @ 1-25 = 4p
Cynon Valley: Lab @ 1-100 = 1p
Delyn: Lab @ 1-50 = 2p
Gower: Lab @ 1-25 = 4p
Islwyn: Lab @ 1-100 = 1p
Llanelli: Lab @ 1-8 = 12p
Meirionydd: PC @ 1-33 = 3p
Merthyr: Lab @ 1-100 = 1p
Monmouth: Con @ 1-7 = 14p
Montgomeryshire: LD @ 1-25 = 4p
Neath: Lab @ 1-100 = 1p
Newport East: Lab @ 1-33 = 3p
Newport West: Lab @ 1-66 = 2p
Ogmore: Lab @ 1-50 = 2p
Pontypridd: Lab @ 1-100 = 1p
Preseli, Pembroke: Con @ 5-4 = £1.25
Rhondda: Lab @ 1-100 = 1p
Swansea East: Lab @ 1-100 = 1p
Swansea West: Lab @ 1-50 = 2p
Torfaen: Lab @ 1-100 = 1p
Vale of Clwyd: Con @ 9-2 = 0p
Vale of Glamorgan: Lab @ 1-2 = 50p
Wrexham: Lab @ 1-20 = 5p
Ynys Môn: PC @ Evens = £1
Total: £8.70
RE: 144, The shame of it is that the Conservatives had a 7 page document on the enviroment, making pledges such as reducing tax on bio fuels, encouraging home owners to put in solar panels, and combined heat and power, bio mass, and also a range of initiatives on diversifying renewable energy. Its there, but did not get any news.
Shame.
Hi. Just got up after working on the Campaign in Manchester Withington. Fantastic result here. But it did make me overestimate the Lib Dem gains across the country against Labour. Is Withington the biggest Lib Dem swing?
173 - Charles, I think Brent East (where I myself made my only contribution to the campaign on the ground) was the biggest nominal swing, but that’s a bit artefactual given it’s measured from the last GE rather than the by-election. I think you are correct that Manchester Withington is the biggest swing apart from that.
Have to say that I did very badly in the betting stakes - overestimated the LDs nationally (, but compensated slightly with a bet on Torbay who the local bookies were certain was going Tory.
On a personal note - to al those (Tories especially) who were mocking of Marketing Means South West Poll - 2 weeks ago the South West Poll gave these regional figures Con 38, LD 33 Lab 26.5 Others 2. Where did we get it wrong - Lab / Others. Final scores in the SW Con 38.4 LD 22.6 LAb 22.5 Others 6 (the Lab voters in certain seats obviously switched at the last moment).
As the regions now seem so variable - I think our experiment in regional opinion polling has been a success. I can tell you that my bet on Torbay was based on the more accurate local info that our regional opinion poll gave. My failure nationally was based on the assumption I had of a wildly higher turnout than 2001 - I think that a higher turnout would have meant the LDs holding on to some of their marginal seats against the Tories (the Tories underlying figures were collapsing - wheras the LDs were rising - however the LDs failed in their Get Out The Vote effort).
So how was it for me - I am poorer, but wiser
28: You can’t post the word s-o-c-i-a-l-i-s-t, because it’s contains the word c-i-a-l-i-s in the middle, a well known spam filter hit.
Sorry LDs in South West should have read 32.6, not 22.6 (d’oh)!
Looking at the local election results I see that the electorate have decided to give Abingdon Neil more time to spend on his keyboard and devising “decapitation strategies”, rather than serving as a county councillor.
>Tim - I think the only seat it fell in was in Berwickshire etc where >their was a 5% swing to the Tories. Can’t see the LD’s performance >continuing into 2007 though.
Mainly because Michael Moore replaced Archie Kirkwood. I think the rest of the LD hold seats in Scotland were the same MP.
Dave
177 - How kind of you to notice! I’m glad to say that my betting performance was more successful than my re-election campaign where I missed out by 128 votes. On the betting I put reasonable bets on 70+ but covered the stake with smaller bets on 60+. In the ward I got hit by the same factor in my division that hit quite a lot of the LD/Con marginals across the south - a very effective Tory GOTV campaign where it mattered - and a load of Labour supporters who usually vote tactically but told us that they couldn’t this time because it would let the Tories in. (Although we knew in the last few`days that there was a small switch against us). However we did do very well in our targets against Labour where there were some very good value bets to be had on seats like Brent East, Hornsey and Cardiff Central. I am very pleased that I was right about North Norfolk, Sutton, Romsey and Eastliegh. Less happy about Guildford and Newbury. I am absolutely delighted about the stunning result in Oxfod East. I put a lot of my time into Ox East in the campaign and knew we were doing well, but I was expecting us to be 3-4,000 out, not 960!
175 - doh! In tribute to Tony Benn we shall all have to start writing “shoshalist”.
Almost all the pre-election polls, other than the final eve-of-poll
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