No, really, I don't understand why people aren't seeing this. The old Conservative–LibDem coalition had a powerful majority, 363 out of 650 seats; the new Conservative government is going to have a tenuous majority of 331 total, five by-elections away from an early death.
It's true that the opposition failed to win, pretty dramatically, but it didn't lose to the Tories. What happened was that the Labour Party lost to its own ally, the Scottish National Party (Labour down a net 26, SNP up 50) while the Conservatives ate their partner (up a net 24 while the Liberals are down 49). Labour plus SNP is up to 288 from 264 in the 2010 election. (The SNP seems to have won as a reward for losing the independence referendum last fall—Scottish voters went for them overwhelmingly because it's certain they won't carry out their platform. Whereas Conservatives and Labour might carry out their promises, and nobody really wants that.)
It's nowhere near as bad as Merkel's loss in Germany in October 2013, which forced her to assemble a Grand Coalition and abandon many conservative goals, more like Netanyahu's grim retraction this spring. It's going to be an extremely uncomfortable government, though, and I look forward to its collapse. While inevitably sad at how Labour appears to have lost its Balls.
As far as Nate Silver goes, just remember he's an aggregator of polls, not a poll taker himself, and there's only so much value he can add to what he has to work with: gigo.
It's true that the opposition failed to win, pretty dramatically, but it didn't lose to the Tories. What happened was that the Labour Party lost to its own ally, the Scottish National Party (Labour down a net 26, SNP up 50) while the Conservatives ate their partner (up a net 24 while the Liberals are down 49). Labour plus SNP is up to 288 from 264 in the 2010 election. (The SNP seems to have won as a reward for losing the independence referendum last fall—Scottish voters went for them overwhelmingly because it's certain they won't carry out their platform. Whereas Conservatives and Labour might carry out their promises, and nobody really wants that.)
It's nowhere near as bad as Merkel's loss in Germany in October 2013, which forced her to assemble a Grand Coalition and abandon many conservative goals, more like Netanyahu's grim retraction this spring. It's going to be an extremely uncomfortable government, though, and I look forward to its collapse. While inevitably sad at how Labour appears to have lost its Balls.
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| 1910 postcard. |
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