As the dust begins to settle on what has been one of the biggest upsets in recent British political history, the question of how the Conservatives managed to gain a majority in the 2015 General Election remains a question still to be answered.
All the opinion polls leading up to Polling Day – IPSOS/MORI, Comres and YouGov amongst others – pointed to a hung parliament in which both Conservative and Labour were to hold roughly the same number of seats. The talk of new coalition agreements electrified the debates happening around kitchen tables, in students’ unions and in workplaces up and down the country. What actually happened was a landslide and a coup by the Conservatives.
Firstly, the Scottish National Party (SNP) was able to secure a near clean sweep of the Scottish seats, taking 56 of the available 59 spots – some previously safe Labour seats – out from underneath Labour. The largest swing seat recorded was in Glenrothes; a 34.9% swing from Labour to SNP. Elsewhere, in Paisley and Renfrewshire South, Douglas Alexander – one of the best known Labour MPs in Scotland – lost his seat to a the youngest candidate since the 1700’s; the 20-year-old, Mhairi Black, by a margin of over 6,000 votes no less. These huge losses coupled with Tory gains up and down the country, meant that Labour was paralysed as the counts were announced and the results began to flood in.
Then came the Liberal Democrats. Often scapegoated for their trade-offs of key election pledges in order to become the minority party of the Coalition government following a hung parliament in 2010, the party was effectively crushed – 57 MPs in 2010 down to 8 in 2015. Key Lib Dem figures including Vince Cable, long-standing MP Charles Kennedy and Simon Hughes were among those who lost their seats, with many gains going to Labour and the Conservatives equally.
Lastly, UKIP – Nigel Farage’s home constituency of Thanet South, one of the last constituencies to announce, was lost to the Tories by 2,812 votes. This, prompting the UKIP party leader to make good of an earlier promise to resign if he lost his seat, now means that the 3 main opposition parties – Labour, Lib Dems and UKIP – are currently without a leader.
Meanwhile, the Conservatives managed to secure a majority government of 331 seats, often at the expense of their previous coalition partners, the Liberal Democrats. The Tories played a very clever, but also at times, highly personal campaign strategy, allowing the party to manipulate public opinion of the Lib Dems; it is often publicly felt that the majority of the failings of the last coalition are of Lib Dem and not Tory doing. Coupled with a ruthlessly coordinated and well-supplied nationwide Tory campaign as well as a distinct loss of faith in the party’s leader, Nick Clegg, left the Lib Dems fighting for their very survival.
What this will mean for the UK over the next 5 years is difficult to determine. 3 party leadership positions are to be filled, an EU referendum within the next 2 years, as well as another Scottish referendum, are all to be decided by the British people.
The fate of the NHS as well as many, already crippled public services also lie squarely at feet of George Osborne – David Cameron has already announced that Osborne will remain the Chancellor of the Exchequer in the new government. The new Cabinet in full is not expected to be announced until Monday 11th May.
I for one, will be out on the streets, protesting with a torch and pitchfork, if the Tories move to further dismantle the NHS or strip back public services that are sacrosanct to so many Britons up and down the country.
I hope you will join me out in the crowds if that day ever comes.
Ben Hansen-Hicks is the Editor of Geo/Socio/Politico – a geopolitical, social and political analysis website, founded in January 2015.
Forward Thinking 