UKIP were robbed. They got twice the votes of the Lib Dems, and 7 less seats.

"One Nation Under God, has turned into One Nation Under the Influence of One Drug"
[Link]

That really is incredible. Purely for self-validation you have concluded that 4 parties - united under one major policy - have all experienced upsurges in votes for reasons totally exclusive to that policy.

Scramble these words Matt: In Elephant Room The.

And you're point about TUSC would make a lot more sense if most of the parties you listed weren't still active, and in the case of Left Unity, weren't also a new oerganisation!

If punk ever happened I'd be preaching the law, instead of listenin to Lydon lecture BBC4

ST, whilst I could continue this jousting all day, you need to accept a few things from the result.

The fact is that the numbers of people voting for far left parties has barely changed in the past twenty years.

The four parties aren't united under one policy - they hdifferent policies - and as you know and have no doubt experienced, the left is splintered and loves nothing more than slagging off those splintered in different directions. The 'anti austerity' message simply isn't carried across all leftie parties. I can tell you now, I know of people in the City earning six figure salaries who vote Green because of ecological issues and despise the communist overtones of its leadership. They, however, believe that the ecological reasons to vote Green outweigh the political differences they have on other policies. You simply cannot categorise all people voting for the same reasons.

The elephant in the room is that you believe what you want to believe and not the reality of the situation.

The left have had probably their worst day since 1979. It is the left wot lost it. Deal with this simple fact.

Edited by matt_himself (08 May 2015 3.35pm)

"That was fun and to round off the day, I am off to steal a charity collection box and then desecrate a place of worship.” - Smokey, The Selhurst Arms, 26/02/02

I am in no way arguing that the left has done anything more than miserably. Milliband's loss will almost certainly leave the door open for another Blarite (Umunna, for example) to take over and for Labour to sway to the right again. That means that the top 4 parties in England for the next 5 years will all be right wing, which is incredibly depressing as I believe that the left still has so much to offer to all forms of public debate in this country.

BUT

The point I'm making is that to totally dismiss the left would be an innacurate reading of what has happened. Since the Blair years I'd say there has been a divergence of much of the mainstream and far-left away from Labour membership and towards new grassroots organisations. In this election, I think we saw the results of that, with the Greens, the SNP and to an extent TUSC (still very much a minority party) all making significant gains in votes off the back of a rhetoric which has previously been sectioned off to activist politics.

There are huge differences between, say, TUSC and the Scot Nats, but the one major policy which unites them is their anti-austerity message. In contrast to the last election that message has gained a voice, not a huge one, but a significant one nonetheless considering well over 3 million people voted for anti-austerity parties. For the record, I didn't vote for any of them because my views are probably further to the left than any of them bar TUSC, who have some serious internal issues they need to sort out, and who I couldn't vote for. But I always remain optimistic, and for that reason I have an inkling of hope that writing off the left in this country is premature. A move to PR, coupled with a swathe of the labour left looking elsewhere, and who knows whatcould happen in 2020.

If punk ever happened I'd be preaching the law, instead of listenin to Lydon lecture BBC4

Dunno about worst day since 1979 but I'd agree worst day for the Labour Party since 1992.But,a fiasco overall in anyone's language.A few green (forgive the pun) shoots for the future.You're right about environmentalism being a big issue for many Green voters.But,intrinsically,that tends to mean adoption of many positions inimicable with a Tory agenda,not necessarily those of the present party which you castigate..And they have a young age profile so if we're talking long-term,not so sure what you might think of as "the left" has died a death.Rather,things might change in a major structural way down the line ,just like when the Liberal/Conservative monopoly started to shatter 100 years ago.

Labour wot lost it? Maybe.

Maybe Tories wot won it.Brilliant latter campaign strategy demonising Sturgeon and lumping Milliband in with it.

Scotland? I agree with you,not anti-austerity but reaction against immediate post referendum Tory//Labour stance re further devolution etc. Though Labour has been decaying from the inside up there for years.

PR? Hard to argue against some kind of change to what we have.

Milliband wot lost it? Maybe,in this age where we have presidential style elections and many may base their preference more on how well a party leader can eat a bacon sandwich than beliefs and intellectual ability.After all,Dave C is personally about as vapid in those two categories as they come. Thats perhaps more of an indictment of the collapse of western civilisation than facebook?

UKIP? Done far worse than they would have hoped a year ago. Farage gone (tho still an MEP)? Hard to see how they can feel too upbeat about the way forward. Carswell has all the PR charisma of a teapot.

Edited by legaleagle (08 May 2015 4.05pm)

Without the Lib Dems to temper them, we'll get to see what an off the leash Conservative party will bring us over the next five years. Don't worry though, Dave tells us "we're in this together".

Edited by imbored (08 May 2015 4.27pm)