SeldomSeen Election analysis

Now that the dust has settled, hats have been eaten and resignation speeches given, it is time to look back and ponder the results of one of the most anticipated and uncertain elections of recent memory, and of course get some cheap gags in whilst they’re still topical.

The only thing that anyone seemed sure about going into this election was that no one was quite sure what was going to happen. The polls all seemed to indicate a hung parliament and commentators were already speculating about possible coalition governments long before voting opened.

The excitement started at 10pm, when voting closed and the results of the exit polls were released, these had the Conservatives with the most seats but not enough for a majority government. Cue a parade of party spokespeople wagering the consumption of various items of clothing that the exit polls would be completely wrong and that their party would do better than predicted. The Tories alone came across as actually believing what they were saying, it is often hard to tell but they seemed just a little smugger than usual, perhaps knowing something that no one else did.

The election coverage was suitably chaotic, mirroring the event itself. Various journalists, political commentators and politicians had their sentences cut short by David Dimbleby introducing live feed of the outside of Ed Miliband’s house interspersed with aerial footage of David Cameron’s convoy winding its way through rural Oxfordshire, like a really rubbish episode of Police Interceptors. And then here was Fiona Bruce in Sunderland covering the race with Newcastle to count their votes first, like some sort of electoral Tyne-Wear derby. Predictably, Newcastle lost.

At times election coverage can feel like a weird remake of Tron such is the abundance and complexity of computer graphics. In the absence of Peter Snow’s legendary swingometer it was left to Jeremy Vine to do his best impression of Jeff Bridges, standing in a life-size digital projection of the House of Commons, complete with ghostly MPs.

In the end even the pollsters didn’t see the result coming, no matter how much they tried to claim otherwise, and no doubt much humble-pie was consumed at breakfast. Here’s how the results panned out for each party:

Conservatives 

Against all the odds, they somehow gained enough seats to be able to form a majority government. They seemed quietly confident the whole night and perhaps they alone sensed the effect of the Lib Dem collapse (see below). Their decision to run a largely negative campaign- playing on English fears of a Labour-SNP coalition and choosing to focus on Labour’s poor economic record rather than the economic recovery they have overseen since 2010- was a risky tactic which could have backfired but in the end paid off for them magnificently. They benefitted hugely from the Lib Dem implosion, taking the majority of their losses outside of Scotland. They even took seats they were never expected to get, such as Gower in South Wales, which had been a Labour constituency for over a century. Having been the senior party in an unpopular coaltion government which made massive cuts to public services and had promised further cuts some in the party must still think they are dreaming.

Labour

Pushing the Lib Dems for the biggest losers of the night, not only did they fail to win those all important marginal battlegrounds but in fact conceded a larger majority in many cases. Catastrophic is probably the best word to describe this election for Labour. The fact that the results were even worse than Gordon Brown in 2010, who presided over the worst economic collapse since the Second World War, says it all. With the trend generally for governing parties to lose seats, and with the Conservatives pushing for ever more austerity, Ed Miliband was presented with a political open goal, but put the ball into row Z.

Labour were ultimately caught out by attacks from both flanks. From the left by the SNP, who as predicted cleaned up in Scotland, winning 56 of 59 seats there, leaving Labour with just one MP. But less conspicuous and almost as worrying for Labour was the attack of UKIP from the right. Although they returned just one MP Nigel Farage’s party made big gains in the traditional Labour heartlands of the North East, and in some places finished in second. This splintering of the Labour vote nationwide had a detrimental effect on Labour’s ability to take and hold key marginal seats, and in Morley and Outwood, West Yorkhire, even allowed the Conservatives to sensationally oust Shadow Chancellor Ed Balls. Whereas the Conservatives were able to use the Lib Dems effectively as a human shield, Labour had no such protection from the UKIP/SNP surge and bore the full brunt of it.

Miliband retired to the bench before he was made to, he really had no choice but at least it was not difficult for him to look suitably sad and mournful at the VE Day service. Incidentally, I hope Ed Balls’ exit from the House of Commons does not mean the end of Ed Balls Day.

Liberal Democrats

If this election made Labour members want to quietly sob in the corner of the room for the next few days then they can at least be comforted by the fact that they are not Lib Dem. In the end the Lib Dems had a powerful influence on the outcome of the election, just not in the way they would have wanted. It was clear that the coalition had made Nick Clegg extremely unpopular and his party were never going to do as well as in 2010, the nature of their sudden collapse however was quite shocking, losing 49 of their 57 seats. The desertion of so many of their voters and Nick Clegg’s shift to the ‘centre ground’ of the political spectrum, gifted seats in England to the Conservatives and allowed them to come home with a majority. Many of the party’s big hitters were ousted from their seats, some losing large majorities. Including Chief Secretary to the Treasury Danny Alexander, Business Secretary Vince Cable and Deputy leader of the party Simon Hughes, who had held his seat since 1983.

You cannot give Nick Clegg a hard time about wanting to gain some sort of power for his party back in 2010 by making a deal with the devil, however, his promise to abolish tuition fees in the lead up to that election, at a time when the country was coming out of a recession and with his coalition partners talking about swingeing cuts, verged on political suicide and was a mistake him and his party never recovered from.

SNP

The other big winners of the night, like the Lib Dems their result was not necessarily surprising but the nature of it raised eyebrows. They provided the biggest and most dramatic numbers of the night, with swings as large as a scarcely believable 35% in some constituencies. No one in the party could have expected such an overwhelming victory even in their wildest dreams. A mention must be given to 20 year old student Mhairi Black, who became the youngest Member of Parliament since the 17th Century. I am sure she is very capable and may well have a bright future in politics, but it makes you wonder if the SNP could have put up a turnip dressed in a kilt as a candidate in some places and still have won, (a turnip dressed in a kilt would still have the same influence as the four Sinn Fein MPs, who still refuse to take their seats in Westminster).

UKIP

Gained a lot of new supporters, particularly amongst the traditional Labour vote in the north of England. UKIP are a bit like The Sex Pistols, because no one likes them but they don’t care. They knew exactly who their target voters have were and what to say to attract them. Like him or loathe him Nigel Farage has stuck to his guns and asked questions that the other leaders have been afraid to ask. His casting as a pantomime villain played into his hands and he cares very little what people in TV audiences think of him, all the booing and hissing just made him stronger.

Greens

Their promises of more rainbows and flying unicorns for all largely failed to convince anyone outside of Brighton Pavilion, where Caroline Lucas was returned as the party’s only Member of Parliament.