UK Election Night

Here are some ongoing notes on election night, 5th May 2005.

Some tools:

• Scoreboard is useful for you keeping you up-to-date with the results.
• Map – watch your constituency, or the overall picture.
• Blog – BBC blog content has traditionally been excellent
• Seat-by-seat results
• Streaming news player – watch headlines and election news online.

11:25 – Labour hold their second seat of the night. Very similar to their cousins (slightly) south, with a 5% conservative swing.

11:35 – Romsey is being called a close race between Lib and Con; with ballot boxes still arriving at the counting house.

22:45 – Sunderland South have recently been the first constituency to return results three (now, four) times in a row. They use bank tellers to perform the count; ensuring a fast (but, hopefully still accurate) count is returned.

Why don’t all constituencies do this? We could be over and done by midnight.

Their result just came in, not quite beating their personal best. Labour held it easily but with a slightly decreased majority (that’s -5% of share, or a 4% swing to conservative). Could this be a prediction for the rest of the country?

A much reduced Labour majority would be a very good thing

Everyone agrees, we would have done better with a different leader

10:00pm – It’s only an exit poll but the BBC and ITV clubbed together for this from NOP

If it’s accurate it would be a dissapointment for the Lib Dems.

Two-jags had this to say after the announcement of the poll:

There is going to be a Labour government, there’s no doubt about that.

11:32 – Another hold by Labour, but with a swing to Lib Dem of 7%

Boris has been released!

Its not a landslide for labour.

He’s not conceding defeat.

Its a wonderful thing for the British public.

Paxman: “This is the most pathetic argument I have ever heard”

Labour backbenchers are consumed with self-loathing over the war

Ian Hislop is on hand to poke fun.

I find your poll [the BBC/ITV one] very boring

Sore loser.

Predicts Lib may push Lab into 3rd in his constituency (Radcliffe)

A third labour term would be historic … more successful than Margaret Thatcher

brhe brewh brhe Labour brehw brhw Iraq brahw rehw War brahwb

00:40 – The early story so far is that, after a dozen seats (nearly all boring Labour holds), the Libs might actually do better than the exit poll suggested. Lots of swing away from Labour: to the Liberals in some areas, to the Conservatives in others. The first Tory gain is Putney, the first marginal of the night.

Here are the first 12 seats declared:

Could be an interesting race after all.

With just 40 out of 646 seats declared, here’s an overview of the results so far…

• 54% turnout, up very slightly from last year
• Votes for Lib Dem are up 5.4%
• Conservative are down -0.3
• Labour are down -5.8%
• However, Labour are down just one seat so far; Putney is a Conservative gain
• BNP have had more votes than UKIP (16,564 vs 15,293)

363 seats and 14 million votes in, most seats are, of course, held.

Labour are currently -17, Con +9, LD +6, SNP +2, Plaid Cymru -1.

Labour have lost 17 seats but not won any, while the LibDems are doing well against Labour but not at all well against the Conservatives – losing Newbury to a 5.5% swing.

Current BBC prediction: Lab majority of 72 (down from 167 in 2001).

The British people wanted a return of the Labor government, but with a reduced majority

Nearly all results have been announced now.

Big labour losses (lots of seats lost, not a single gain for them), but still leaving them a majority somewhere around 60 or 70. Remember, they’re coming down from a very great height here.

Lib Dems and Conservatives both improve their position, with the tories picking up three-quarters of the lost Labour seats.

If Blair was right, and we wanted him back but after taking a slight kicking, we should be pleased.

Hmmm. Interesting.

From the BBC:

Mr Howard said he would stay as leader until the party had had the opportunity to consider whether it wanted to change the rules for electing a successor.

Wow. Surely the party ran out of charismatic leaders some time ago.