If this swing was replicated nationwide at the next election, Labour would be down to 100 MPs

Frank

That would be 100 too many!

salieri

WERE

John R

It won't happen, but Labour down to about 120 to 130 MPs is possible and I think quite likely.

Aidan

I remember David Alton winning the Liverpool Edge Hill by-election for the Liberals (as they then were) by a landslide in the 70s. The swing was so massive that, if repeated at a general election, the Liberals would have won almost every seat in Great Britain, and the Ulster Unionists would have been the Opposition.

Nicholas

I long to see a parliament with no Labour MPs in it.

John

Err, yes, Aidan, but that's hardly comparing like with like. The Libs were not the second largest party, and they had not had a PM in several generations, and they had not just inflicting a catastrophic local election defeat on the government, and they had not just won the London mayoralty.

Tiberius

Simon Hughes aired that view quite convincingly on QT last night, Nicholas. Imagine a country with a 100 less hand-wringers on the back benches.

Edward Atkin

And how many of those left would represent English consituencies ?

Chingford Man

If the turn-out was 58pc, and the Tories won just under 50pc of that, by my poor maths that means that the Tories won the support of just 29pc of the electorate, after a high profile campaign and the spectacle of an imploding Labour Party. Am I the only person who thinks that the Tory result was not quite as fantastic as it is being painted?

PD Oxford

An excellent entry that sums up Labour's stupidity is here at labourhome. Well worth a read:

http://www.labourhome.org/comments/2008/5/23/12754/6149/23#23