A stunning victory

Hysteria

the long experiment of socialism is nearly done - and I reckon Blair saw this before the rest of them and tried to do something about it.

Mike, Brighton

Labour's worst case scenario looks like wipeout in England leaving a few Labour MPs in northern heartlands and collapse in Scotland. A fool makes predictions in such a volatile environment but... Labour may have 100 or less MPs after the next election and look decidedly more left wing than today?

Kenneth Allen

Fraser: Unfortunately the Conservatives did NOT increase their share of the vote. Today's results; Conservatives 1639 votes, 6.3%. 2005 election 2135 votes, 6.9 %. Predecessor seats (Bailleston and Shettleston) in the 2001 election; Bailleston 1580 votes, 6.8%; Shettleston 1105 votes,5.4%. Today's results show the Conservatives stuck at their 6 and a bit percent. How is this "quite result for Cameron" (sic)?

john miller

I wonder if all this hinges on house prices?

By 2010 house prices will be much, much lower. Ex-MPs will have to sell their taxpayer funded second homes. I wonder if they will cut their losses and look at selling this autumn. If they do the coup to remove Brownie will have to start very soon.

Brownie's successor would have to call an immediate election. Three Labour PMs in 15 months - two of them unelected, would be more than the country could take.

bob

Fraser,

I told you so.

That's a Tee shirt you owe me.

Fraser Nelson

Kenneth, I hadn't worked out voting shares when I blogged that (without the "a" - I must share a sub with Giles Coren). Also Tories had 6.9% in Glasgow East in 05, so Cameron did slightly worse there than Michael Howard. You're right: the Tories tread water here, and the LibDem vote collapsed.

Elizabeth

Well done the Scottish Nationalists.
About time we were allowed some English nationalism and an English Parliament.
If the Tories would offer it to us it would finish off Labour for a long long time if not for ever.
With The Scottish Nationalists holding sway in Scotland and a built in Tory dominance in England - Labour would have little chance.
However it seems to be a strategy outside the scope of the lib dems who now run the conservatives.

LS

Holding the vote share from fourth place in a high-profile by-election is an achievement - normally we'd expect there to be a big squeeze; it just didn't happen.

David Short

Can't see how 'Westminster will want to know what this means....'

Westminster is on holiday.

I'm sure the threat by the 'Mr Timely' Purnell to force the unemployed to pick up litter for their meagre dole will have lost a fair few votes!

Just think how much street-sweeping, graffiti-scrubbing and litter-gathering the Government could have got from the Northern Rock directors for their hand-out!

Council tax could have been forgiven for two years or more.

Max

If this is translated into a general election, all but 25 Labour MPs will be out of a job.

Who would employ them?

It will be interesting to see what happens to them all after 2010.

Book deals can only go so far...

Max

Tory Lion

I think the key point regarding the Tory position is that the majority of votes that the SNP gained were at the expense of Labour - I think Brown and his party are on their last legs... ahem, again

torylion.blogspot.com

DM

It's not a matter of the country 'would not stand for a change in Labour leader'. The country is clamouring for Labour to get out. It doesn't matter who leads it.

Labour are a lost cause.
The message from most of the electorate is - Get Out.

jim

Labour paying the price for flooding Glasgow with Muslim asylum seekers.

Tory Lion

Cameron has urged Brown to call a General Election.

Hear, hear - out with the old..

torylion.blogspot.com

Elizabeth

To read the gloating over a pitiful 6%+ of the votes is rather sad.
Margaret Thatcher did for the Tories in Scotland and Major finished off.
Get real. Unionism is over in Scotland. The Tories should stop fluffing around believing they count for anything.
The Tories have just been confirmed as a fringe party and who can blame the Scots having had a taste of a competent Scottish admin ruling with the interests of the Scots as number one priorty.
6%+ is a joke for a so-called UK party. You are never going to win anything other than an odd seat in the most affluent places.
Start worrying about the English and their lack of financial justice and ballot box equality as a nation.

David C

Conservative result is a third party squeeze. I note that the Lib/Dems did worse.
Looking at the differentials, I think that the Conservatives did remarkably well to hold onto the vote that they did. Is it down to the Candidate, the local party machine or the intervention of other Westminster Tories?

Ian C

The Tory share is not the story. They were never going to be part of it. The story is about Labour versus a rising SNP who are fortunate to have Brown in government. Will it continue to rise under a Tory govt at Westminster? Depends on how well they play the Midlothian question and how succcessful the SNP are in their awaited referendum.

Buckinghamshire Tory

oh dear oh dear oh dear, this is quite the nasty setback for Gordon and his mates in Scottland.

greencurmudgeon

It's now time to start talking about whether this is the end of the Labour Party as a political entity. Gordon Brown as Romulus Augustulus?

Victor, NW Kent

It is high time for those staunch Labour constituencies who have the poorest social conditions in the country to ask "What has Labour ever done for me - in reality".

Glasgow East appears to have asked that question and also to have found an answer.

So, all of those "safe" seats in Liverpool, Manchester, Newcastle, Birmingham and Bristol might not be secure at all.

Lifetime Labour voters are beginning to realise that you cannot eat promises nor bank spin.

David Cameron must now ensure that Conservatives can, and will, make a difference to those pockets of deprivation and despair.

salieri

greencurmudgeon:
A very nice analogy with the last and most insignificant of the many late and insignificant Western Roman emperors.

I wonder if the analogy can be extended? Augustulus enjoyed only the title (for about a year) while his father, Orestes, held all the puppet-strings. When the latter was killed at Pavia, Augustulus surrendered at once and was merely exiled by the barbarians being, in Gibbon's view, "of too little consequence to be put to death".

Which tends to suggest that today's Augustulus might rather be Alastair Darling than his insufferable superior?

David Short

Victor, the safe seats have been asking that since 97. All they can do in the end is not turn out, because they won't or can't vote anything else that they believe in, unlike the Scots.

All the safe seats in the North have had severely falling turnouts, but the Labour candidate still gets in, but has far reduced support.

The constituencies resent being foisted with cabinet ministers to ensure they maintain a seat.

My home town, South Shields, is the safest seat in the country. It is the only constituency that has NEVER had a Tory MP since the 1832 Reform Act.

Before Labour, it was Whig or Liberal, and they heartily dislike having David Miliband forced on them.

One day the worm will turn even in places like that, just as it has in the East End with Respect.

You can cynically abuse people for only so long.

And by the way, whoever wrote the headline wasn't thinking straight.

It was 'A Stunning Defeat'.