After the election
Now that the election has come and gone the
result nobody expected came. Now here will be a new enquiry as to how the pollsters
got it so wrong, With polls showing the main parties neck and neck up to the
final days all predictions have gone awry and nobody expected the conservative
party to get an overall majority. For most opposition parties the results were
stark and disappointing apart from the Scottish national party that is. Calls
are starting again for there to be a proportional representation system as the
results particularly for smaller parties were considered unfair.
For the Scottish national party the
phenomenon was great. They managed to raise their total by a massive amount
from six seats at dissolution to Fifty six. This meant their winning all but
three constituencies in Scotland. This result will probably ensure that another
referendum on independence will happen before too long and probably could lead
eventually to the break up of the Union.
For the main opposition Labour party the
result was disappointing. In London they benefitted from a swing to them but
this was not replicated in the rest of the country. In Scotland they saw their
tally of MPs reduced from forty one to one. Scotland traditionally has been a
Labour stronghold and this loss was particularly keenly felt although nobody could
have predicted the SNP phenomenon when it arose.
The junior coalition partners of the
outgoing coalition government were decimated. Their tally of seats slumped to
single figures and several high profile members lost their seats. Generally the
Lib Dem brand was considered toxic. Traditionally they have been made up of
disaffected conservative voters who cannot bring themselves to vote Labour or
in some cases disaffected Labour voters. However they were left reeling as the
results came in and it became obvious how toxic their brand was.
A feature of this election has been the rose
of five party politics and this of course leads people to forget that in Wales
and Scotland they already have a four party system with the Nationalist parties
there. It is only new in England.
Two minor parties have now entered the
scene, the Green party and the United Kingdom Independence Party(UKIP). For the
Green Party they held on to the seat they currently hold but did not increase. Nationally
they won over 1 million votes so the cry of foul was still ringing out.
For UKIP the votes were starker they also
managed only one seat despite winning 3.8 Million votes. One of the mistakes
made was to assume that Britain would always return a three party system.
However it does look as if the five party system is here to stay despite the
squeeze on the votes of the minority parties from the major parties
