For anyone interested, the BBC and ITV are predicting a Labour majority of 66 (down from 160 I think) according to their exit polls.
If that’s correct, Howard will gain much credit - deserved or not.
And well done Chris Mullin, MP for Sunderland South!
Results can be found here for anyone interested (live update).
Current tally is Lab 301, Con 107, LD 38.
What’s considered a “workable” majority?
The incoming House of Commons shall have 646 seats, so 324 are needed for a majority.
It’s official. Labour’s won for the third time in a row.
Blair’s new majority will be workable, but only just. The Labour backbenches are full of MPs who aren’t afraid to vote against the party. Another party may find a smaller majority sufficient,
What’s the deal with the LDs doing so well in Celtic areas? They seem to own Scotland, and also did well in Wales and Cornwall. Hardly exist elsewhere.
Don’t forget that that map doesn’t take into account population density whereas constituencies do - that means that you have some geographically large constituencies in Scotland that can make it look more like a Liberal Paradise than it actually is.
Here’s the Scottish List.
Labour take the central urban areas and the SNP and Liberals split the more rural areas. Scotland’s odd as it has a viable three (or even four) party system and the Tories aren’t the natural opposition here.
Mehitabel asked what’s a ‘workable’ majority. Well, a majority of one is workable, but it’s a pain. Since you have to be physically in the commons to vote (and some MPs are bad at turning up) you want to have a bit of a majority to stop you being ambushed by the other parties.
During the last term Blair won votes by less than the amount of seats he’s just lost. Implying that he’d lose those same votes if they happened again – although backbenchers might be less likely to rebel if they think it’s actually going to swing the vote.
The basic upshot is that he’s less likely to be able to run roughshod over his own party and stands a real chance of being defeated if he tries to push through anything really outlandish.
But 66 is a perfectly workable majority, he’s done most of his unpopular changes already. I’d expect him to stand down mid-term and let Brown take over. Played right I could see them taking a fourth term. And I’d personally be much happier with Brown as PM, 'cos realistically it’s never going to be Charlie Kennedy.
SD
I think that’s spot on, apart from having done most of the ‘unpopular’ changes already. I think the ID card issue will be rewoken pretty shortly as well as the removal of the cap on tuition fees. Both would have struggled through the commons even before the election - now will have a really tough time.
Slightly scarily, I heard a comment on the radio this morning that Blair has said he intends to serve his whole term. I’m sure this can’t be right, as he knows he’d never be reelected again (although like you I’m glad the swing was to the Lib Dems more than the Tories) so he has to set the way for GB to take over.
Quite right - it just happens to be that the Lib Dem’s traditional strong areas are the west country (not just Cornwall, by any means) and north of the border. But they certainly don’t ‘hardly exist’ elsewhere - their most important results were in small constituencies in cities, and holding onto recent gains such as Norfolk North.
Cheers. I forgot about the ID cards, I haven’t seen them as much of an issue for the last four weeks so they might just be about to be quietly ditched. I confess I’ve ignored tution fees since we’ve got a different system in Scotland.
I can’t believe Blair would even attempt to carry on to another election. He really needs to stand down after a year, two tops. He can’t stop now as the electorate will regard it as a bit of ‘bait and switch’, but he can’t go much past two years otherwise they risk people not being ‘used’ to Brown as PM. I’d guess they might be going for a longer term than normal to allow the switch over.
I guess it’s just possible that he wants to appear to be holding on, and pushing through anything unpopular and then they plan to stage some sort of ‘coup’ so that Brown appears the hero and comes sweeping in with a bunch of popular policys.
We’ll have to see if he repeats his intentions at any point, I can’t find it on the BBC site. But I do see that Howard’s announced he’ll stand down … didn’t figure he’d do that so soon.
HERE it is.
I thought he’d have waited a few weeks first.
What a twit. Mr Howard should stay on for 6 months or a year: his possible successors need more experience at Shadow Cabinet level.
I can see Mr Blair resigning in 18 months.
Howard has said that one reason he is stepping down is to do with the ruling he made few few weeks ago. He said that he would dismiss anyone in his shadow government who did achieve the goals he set them . His own task was to win the election , he failed at this, so he has dismissed himself.
Interestingly, I’ve just read on samizdata.net in one of the comments that the UKIP and Veritas deprived the Tories of quite a few seats - had they not stood, Labour’s majority would have been cut to 30.
Hmmmm, this does seem to be the case - I can find fourteen seats in the top 100 Tory targets where the Ukip/Veritas vote outweighs the majority. However, it does rely on the assumption that every Ukip/Veritas vote is a lost Tory vote, which is perhaps simplistic. Five of that fourteen are really too close to call.