Militant Moderate: Election Night: Exit Polls

Thursday, May 05, 2005

Election Night: Exit Polls

The BBC are predicting a Labour majority of 66, with the Tories gaining 44 and the Lib Dems gaining 2. I must say this surprises me somewhat, because firstly it would mean I was more right at the start of the campaign than I was yesterday, and secondly because I just can't see the Lib Dems not winning more seats, purely because of their tactical nouse. The BBC 3-way battleground was also strange, because whilst it suggested the Tories could make considerable gains both ways, it suggested the majority of LD gains were to be at the expense of the Labour party. Knowing where the LD target seats are, I find that hard to believe. It may, of course, just be bad graphics. My suspicion is that if the polls are wrong, they have overestimated the Tory gains and underestimated Lib Dems, but are about right on the majority. We shall see.

Sunderland South has also reported - as expected, huge Labour majority, but with a 4% swing to the Tories. That's not good news for Labour - if the Tories are getting a swing in the last bastion of socialism that is the North-East (and specifically in places like Sunderland), then I can't see how that will benefit them elsewhere. If, as the results in Sunderland South suggest, the split is roughly even between the Tories and Lib Dems, then Lib Dem gains won't be as much as they'd hoped or I'd expected. That is, because I believed anti-Labour voting would give the Tories an inadvertant kicking. But only if the votes shift Lib Dem-wards, and they may well not be doing that.