Posted on 05/12/2015 5:04:01 AM PDT by Kaslin
Big surprises in Thursday's British election. For weeks, the pre-election polls showed a statistical tie in popular votes between Prime Minister David Cameron's Conservative Party and the Labour opposition led by Ed Miliband. It was universally agreed that neither party could reach a 326-vote majority in the House of Commons. A prominent British political website projected that Conservatives would get 280 seats and Labour 274.
But the exit poll, released when voting ended at 10 p.m., projected Conservatives with 316 seats and Labour with only 239. It showed the Scottish Nationalist Party sweeping 58 of Scotland's 59 seats and the Liberal Democrats, the Conservatives' coalition partners for five years, reduced from the 57 seats they won in 2010 to 10 this time. That turned out to be pretty close to the mark. The main error was that even this underestimated the Conservative wave.
Both major parties were suffering because of choices they had made. As party leader since 2005, Cameron made the Conservatives more metropolitan -- and less traditional-oriented. The result was a strengthening of the anti-European Union, anti-immigration United Kingdom Independence Party, which was getting 13 percent in pre-election polls.
As Labour leader since 2010, Miliband abandoned Tony Blair's New Labour philosophy and turned left. But Blair's creation of a separate Scottish parliament whetted rather than slaked the desire of Scots for independence. Scotland voted against independence by only a 55 to 45 percent margin last September, after which the Scot Nats rallied to seriously contest parliamentary seats, 41 of them held by Labour.
So how did Conservatives come to win?
Scotland was a large part of it. In televised debates, SNP leader Nicola Sturgeon promised to support a minority Labour government to keep Cameron out of No. 10 Downing Street. But that raised fears that the SNP would force left-wing policies on the whole country -- and demand more subsidies for Scotland. "They would take money from the West Midlands," one Conservative candidate there said, "and send it to Scotland." So Labour failed to make the gains in England predicted by the pre-election polls.
Ukip nearly matched its pre-election poll showing in popular votes, but not necessarily at the expense of Conservatives. Britons are expert tactical voters: they know the political balance in their constituencies and cast votes to achieve national results. In closely contested English seats, Ukip-inclined voters switched to Conservatives. But the Ukip vote held up in safe Labour seats, often finishing in second place. Meanwhile, Cameron ruthlessly attacked his coalition partners, the Lib Dems, in the belt running southwest from London to Cornwall.
The pre-election polls were not as far off as in 1992, when they projected an even vote and Conservatives won the popular vote by 8 points. But as in recent local, European Parliament and UK parliamentary by-elections, they seem to have under-predicted the Conservative percentage and over-predicted Labour by 2 points each. So here. Whether that's because of "shy Tories" unwilling to tell interviewers their preference, or whether it is because of a late, undetected Conservative surge, is unclear.
In either case, there are policy implications. The Conservative-led coalition bragged of education and welfare reform and Britain's economic and job growth, the highest in Europe. Labour responded that wages still lagged behind pre-financial crisis numbers. They attacked "austerity" and called for economic redistribution -- a higher minimum wage, rent and energy price and rail price controls, a mansion tax on 2 million-pound homes.
That doesn't seem to have worked. The Conservative coalition cut nearly 1 million public sector jobs. To judge from the campaign dialogue, no one seems to have missed them.
Conservatives seem to have won an outright majority, but it will be much narrower than the one they had to share in coalition with the Lib Dems. They can probably rely on some support from the 8 members from Northern Ireland's Democratic Unionist party. But opposing leaders will be gone. Party leaders Miliband and Lib Dem leader Nick Clegg are through. Labour Shadow Chancellor Ed Balls lost to a Conservative and foreign policy and Defense Shadows Douglas Alexander and Jim Murphy were swept under by the SNP.
Tough issues remain. There will be an election for the Scottish Parliament next year, and a re-elected SNP majority there may seek another independence referendum. Cameron has promised a renegotiation of Britain's position in the European Union and a referendum by 2017 on whether Britain should remain in the EU, which could split his party.
Still, the Conservative victory shows that, once again, the appeal of economic redistribution and the opposition to "austerity" have been overestimated. Maybe that's a lesson for America, too.
Now to get rid of the Muslims.
A preview of next year for the USA?
People are tired of Obama and Marxism.
Pray America is waking
If 326 seats are needed for the majority and the conservatives won only 316, how do they control the Parliament?
I hope that fool’s call to ban “islamophobia” had something to do with the colossal loss.
You're kidding!?
Anyone who would even say that should be disqualified for almost any work, especially public "service".
Yes, Milliband, or whatever his name is, said that.
At the official UK Parliament web site
http://www.parliament.uk/mps-lords-and-offices/mps/current-state-of-the-parties/
It lists Conservatives with 330 members.
Without research, it’s not unusual for Parliamentary systems to award extra seats to the leading party.
Hopefully, a FReeper familiar with the details will explain.
The term “shy tory” originated in Britain.
Lots of people with conservative leanings just don’t want to be hassled or abused by the Liberal who is polling them.
“Hopefully, a FReeper familiar with the details will explain.”
The Torries have 330 seats. You can in a lot of cases add the 1 seat for UKIP plus a couple from the N Ireland UUP and DUP which are essentially Torries in Belfast. Lastly the Torries took most of the seats they won from the Liberal Democrats who now have a real incentive to separate from Labour
So, the working majority may in fact be close to 340-345 seats
When Labour lost Scotland they ceased to be a national party.
A weird by product of this is that if they do reduce the size of of the welfare state they may not need to change immigration laws that much because fewer loafers will want to move to the UK and some of the one there might decide to leave.
Just imagine what would happen to the US demonrats if they lost the black vote. Scotland was to Labour what Blacks are to Demonrats
Very insightful. Thank you.
Because, for the moment, the actual votes cast by the actual voters determine the outcome, rather than the exit polls.
The new Parliament has 331 Conservative MPs, and 10 Ulster Unionists who will vote with the majority almost always.
To jjotto -- "Without research, it’s not unusual for Parliamentary systems to award extra seats to the leading party." -- that only occurs in PR (Proportional representation) systems like in Germany and Poland and this PR is insane in my opinion -- you vote for a party, not a person so you don't know who is the MP for your area and if your chosen party has less than 5% of the national vote, then tough luck. in my opinion the Westminister system of first past the post (meaning the person who gets the highest % of votes) is the second-best solution out there -- so if person A got only 26% of the vote but that's the highest, he gets to be MP.
The best, in my humble opinion, is FPTP (first past the post) with second and third options and "I hate all the bas**rds" option -- meaning that you put in your choice 1 and choice 2, so that if Person A gets 51% of the vote, then he wins straight away, but if A gets 49% and B gets 40% and C gets 11%, but all of C's voters put B as second choice then B ends up (in the "second round") with 51% and wins the seat.
THAT, I believe is the best option
So, if you chose a person who got 80% of the vote in your area, but his party failed to get more than 5% of the vote, then he's out.
insane, right?
Bert — the Tories won 330, so got more than 50% of parliament. Meaning any law that the PM passes (and the PM is both executive and head of the legislature) to the house for vote will , most likely get it passed. hence he is much more powerful than the US President as the PM does not have the same checks and limits — his power, if he has a majority in parliament — is theoretically limitless.
>> So how did Conservatives come to win?
>> Scotland was a large part of it.
No surprise given its imperfect desire for liberty.
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