Anomalous Opinions
According to the BBC, Charles Kennedy said:
The Tories were relegated to south east England, while the Lib Dems were a national party of the future.
The figures say that the Tories outpolled the Lib Dems in every region of Great Britain except Scotland and Northeast England. How can this possibly make them less of a “national party” than the Lib Dems?
About 2.5% of voters believed strongly enough that the UK should be independent that they voted UKIP. (I don’t have final figures yet).
That’s disappointing — I had hoped for something like twice that — but it’s still significant. Look at the seats that the Conservatives could have won with UKIP’s votes:
From Labour:
Battersea
Crawley
Dartford
Gillingham
Harlow
High Peak
Hove
Medway
Portsmouth North
Sittingbourne & Sheppey
Staffordshire Moorlands
Stourbridge
Stroud
Thanet South
Warwick & Leamington
Watford
From the Liberal Democrats:
Carshalton & Wallington
Eastleigh
Hereford
Romsey
Solihull
Somerton & Frome
Taunton
Torbay
Westmorland & Lonsdale
That wouldn’t have changed the overall outcome, but it would have left Tony Blair with a very slim majority, and the Liberal Democrats with practically no gains since 2001. These votes are there for the taking: when are the Conservatives (or Labour) going to pick them up?
Update: Harlow gets added to the list. A pro-independence Conservative party could probably have cut Labour’s majority to 34.