Election Night

Election Night, bit by bit. Liveblogged. More slowly than my usual pace though.

0625 – I have to sleep. Couple of hours scheduled. Back later. If anyone’s out there.

0611 – Clegg’s strategy has to be to focus on the amount of votes the LDs won, and the disastrous results of a terrible system that has resulted in a RISE in votes equalling a FALL in seats.

0605 – Scotland has saved the Labour Party. Look at the result. Remarkable. No change in seats at all. That has kept Labour clinging on.

0550 – at last, a really positive result. It only took 200,000 votes (and rising), but the Greens have an MP. Fuck First Past The Post.

0547 – in the context of a year ago, this is not the ringing endorsement that Cameron could and should have got. But it’ll do.

0533 – for the Lib Dems, this is 1983 all over again…

0525 – Let Cameron try to govern with a minority. See what happens. It would be an interesting process for politicians to work together for a change.

0520 – Look at the result in Hove and tell me electoral reform is not needed in this country.

0512 – Nick Clegg should go to the country tomorrow and tell them that Gordon Brown has no moral authority to govern. He must be put out of his misery immediately. Then let the Tories try to form a minority administration, if that is what is coming (which it seems to be).

0508 – tomorrow is going to be fascinating as the two major parties jostle for position. Lib Dems are going to be shut out from the media as a result of this terrible outcome.

0500 – LDs are failing on almost all their Labour targets. That is one of the biggest shocks of the night.

0453 – Ed Balls giving tonight’s “Fighter Not A Quitter” speech. Very poor show indeed. He’s going to regret that.

0444 – John Reid is on fire tonight. ITV have made the best call of the night to only have pundits who are not candidates in this election. They have all been extremely insightful.

0431 – ITV post-mortem in progress. Saying we all forgot about the ground war.

0426 – how can Labour be down 6% nationally, and yet win a seat like Chesterfield off the Lib Dems, who were holding a 2,500 majority? There’s been a big strategic blunder here.

0423 – Crackpot Gordon Brown will have to be dragged kicking and screaming out of Number 10. But he would only be delaying the inevitable.

0420 – my respect for John Reid has gone up incredibly tonight. I hated the man, but he’s being brutally honest tonight about the result.

0412 – I’m so impressed with the ITV operation tonight. They’ve been right on almost all their calls, BBC are having a total failure, and Sky are making telling errors.

0357 – say what you like about Jack Straw, and I really despise the man, but he is an utter political professional. I haven’t seen him all campaign. Why? Because he’s one of Labour’s best campaigners. Fighting for every single vote. The result: a 1.1% swing TO Labour. That’s how it’s done.

0354 – this has been a fascinating night, but not to my enjoyment.

0340 – make no mistake about it, the Tories can govern with 307 seats. It’s a poor excuse for a majority, but no one will dare to vote them down, because a new election would see them destroyed.

0323 – Labour holding up surprisingly well. Seems like they have held up their share of the vote in spite of major predictions of disaster. In some seats they seem to have squeezed the LD vote well. In seats where the LDs had Labour in their sights, Labour have had an extremely effectively get out the vote campaign and stopped the danger.

0313 – have to turn my attention from this disaster. Tories and Labour examinations to follow…

0312 – devastating blow for the Lib Dems again – failed to take Liverpool Wavertree and Swansea West. Can’t take this any more. What the hell has happened?

0258 – remember what I said about that exit poll? People dissed it at their peril. It’s looking spot on right now, except with a huge variety of bizarre results under the surface.

0245 – LDs losing seats they shouldn’t do, either though bad candidates or poor campaigning. It’s turning into a bad night for them.

0235 – is it just me or are more seats changing hands than the actual changes in share of the vote would suggest? That’s the tactical voting in operation…

0213 – incumbency is either a major boon or a serious drag in this election. There is no pattern.

0208 – the main story of the night to me seems to be that the claimed LD surge has totally evaporated. They all seem to have gone back to Labour.

0150 – Tory failure to get Tooting means they need to pick up other seats with much bigger swings. And they have done that in parts. Doesn’t mean the overall picture of the exit poll is wrong…

0146 – this is the most tactical votey election I’ve EVER seen. Look at the results. Third party squeeze all over the place. Doesn’t matter who is the third party, they got squeezed.

0136 – this is a very weird election. Swings all over the place. Wales resisting any Tory advance. Scotland too. North East England going quite strongly to the Tories, but no seats. If that’s repeated elsewhere, it will mean some surprising Con pickups. But they will need them if LDs resist their advances.

0124 – another side-story of the night, the Nationalists in both Wales and Scotland are having a very poor night indeed.

0116 – LDs hold Torbay with a swing away from the Tories. That bodes well for all LD-Con marginals in England.

0109 – Lab-Con marginals seem to be swinging heavily in the Tories favour, more than the predicted swing. It really is all over, people.

0105 – Brown rumoured to be trying the LDs for a coalition. That’s what’s going to happen if the LDs look vulnerable, as they certainly are if there aren’t some coming soon…

0050 – let’s just say my mood has improved slightly since  an hour ago, but that’s only because of time. We still need some numbers from a broader region of England. That’s where the bulk of this election is to be decided.

0037 – I’m hearing lots of interesting things, potentially good results in the background… but I need numbers dammit! I am the Doubting Thomas of the political blogosphere…

0032 – rioting in Maidstone! I guess they were disgusted when they realised Anne Widdecombe is no longer on the ballot paper…

0022 – ITV quite interesting, calling results before they have apparently been declared. Best coverage so far, I think. No flashy shit. Just analysis.

0007 – the growing number of problems regarding voting is extremely disturbing. I cannot believe that we cannot run an election properly in this country. An absolute scandal.

2356 – Some suggestion that the Lib Dem showing in Sunderland should be ignored because there is no activist base there. A fair point, but if we were wanting to be contesting strongly with Labour for second place, and if there was going to be a Lib Dem surge, it would occur without an activist base too.

2343 – slightly more interesting result from Sunderland Central. Three seats, one a top swing, one a middle one, and one a bottom. Which one is it going to be closest to elsewhere in the country?

2327 – I’m calling this now. Massive swing to the Tories, in Sunderland of all places = a Tory majority for certain. John Reid utterly mortified on ITV.

2324 – I don’t understand why the Labour Party is being so nice to the Lib Dems tonight, because based on the exit poll, they can’t form a coalition anyway.

2316 – why the hell have the BBC got their foremost political interviewer and forensic analyst, Andrew Neil, on a boat in the middle of the Thames interviewing C-list celebrities?

2308 – still waiting for some more info. But as Stephen Tall on Lib Dem Voice says, either the exit poll is wrong, or all those other pollsters in the past couple of days are wrong.

2255 – first result is very consistent with the exit poll. Nerves now reaching critical.

2238 – Alan Johnson extending the hand of friendship very far to the Lib Dems…

2236 – won’t be long now till we get an idea of what kind of level the Lab-LD and Lab-Con swing is. These early seats, despite being safe, are still quite interesting…

2224 – Has Mandelson just unequivocally backed electoral reform?

2217 – so the exit poll is making a seat projection, rather than share of the vote. That’s interesting, because it means we can’t really make a comparison against the final polls of the pollsters. But at the same time, they’re giving “UNS” style warnings, even though it appears to be a far more sophisticated poll. And if it’s sophisticated, it will avoid the failings of UNS. Which is what’s making me extremely worried.

2200 – Disastrous exit poll for the Lib Dems. Truly awful. If that is what’s going to happen, I’m extremely saddened.

Pollwatch: The End

CONSERVATIVES: 35% (+1%)

LIB DEMS: 28% (N/C)

LABOUR: 28% (N/C)

Changes based upon last time (Tuesday). Sample consists of all polls with mid-point fieldwork dates within the last 10 days, including today (n=29). Includes all British Polling Council registered pollsters. The results above are the median figure for each party.

Well, well, well. My final median calculation looks exactly like the final YouGov poll! I’m in esteemed company. I hope.

I’m going to stick my neck out and say that these will be very close to the result. That’s a bold prediction even if I do say so myself. It may be slightly underestimating the Conservatives, perhaps two points better to them and taken off the Lib Dems, but either way I’m hoping for something very close to victory.

And not just because I want something to show off about, but because I really wouldn’t mind the above result as it would produce a very interesting parliament.

But the big point to make is that these top-line figures are going to disguise an incredible degree of variation. From disproportional swings to the Tories in Lab-Con marginals, to unusual stories involving some of our favourite political characters, from the corrupt (expenses!) to the charismatic (Galloway?).

There are a few things I’d like to watch out for though, and that list will be coming up soon.

Until then… wish both me, and the pollsters, luck!

This Is It

I certainly won't be keeping Young

Years and years of waiting have finally come to an end.

Big elections, like this one, don’t come round often enough for political animals like me. Who cares about mere trifles like the local council results in the Vale of White Horse? They are as insignificant as Channel 4’s attempt to make the election funny tonight will be.

But this one seems to have taken particularly long. Maybe it was the rather absurd situation of a change in Prime Minister without the trouble of finding out what the voters wanted. Or maybe it was the fact that Labour have been electorally and politically dead for years now, which has made this wait seem to drag so much.

It’s the longest between elections, too, in my short memory. OK, I can remember 1992 and 1997, but my concept of time back then was so fuzzy that all the days just zoomed by. It really does feel like five years since the last election this time. Way too long, in my not so humble opinion. Time to reduce the limit to four years, like most other sensible democracies.

But in any case, this is it.

I completed my civic duty this morning, a futile attempt to elect a Liberal Democrat in a rock solid Tory seat. But just this time, just this once, it’s actually worth voting Liberal Democrat anyway for the simple reason that if the unthinkable can happen, and the Lib Dems finish higher than Labour in the popular vote, it will – hopefully – sound the death knell for a party that has let this country down so badly.

Of course, I may soon be eating those words, in the event a miracle in the shape of a hung parliament. My party may have to work with Labour to produce a rather interesting period in which we may finally see a large number of policies that could reshape Britain.

But I don’t think so. I think, in the final analysis, too many people will get to mark their ballot paper and will decide that they’ve had enough fun toying with the politicians, and give David Cameron his majority after all. It’s just one little cross. What harm can it do?

A lot.

I’ve never been more nervous about a British election than this one. Maybe it’s because there’s just a slim hope that my “team” are going to make some progress for a change.

Or maybe it’s because I know this truly is the defining moment for this country. Are we going into this decade with a new wave of Conservative economic dogma being applied to every aspect of society? Or are we heading for an uncertain period that will nevertheless bring a great deal of reform that can transform the way the British political settlement operates?

The latter is more difficult.

But it’ll be worth it.

Vote today.

Just make sure you vote.

If you don’t, you lose the right to complain about what lies ahead.

And never again will the decision be this important.