And:
- Brighton Pavilion – Caroline Lucas wins with 52% of votes. Very pleased.
- Bristol East – Kerry McCarthy wins with 61% of votes. Very pleased.
- Calder Valley – so close! Only c650 votes in it, but Josh Fenton-Glynn comes second to Craig Whittaker.
- Corby – Beth Miller ran Tom Pursglove close but my MP remains Conservative.
- High Peak – a famous win for Ruth George and defeat for Andrew Bingham!
- North Norfolk – Norman Lamb holds seat.
- Penistone and Stocksbridge – Angela Smith holds seat but Conservatives getting closer.
- Rushcliffe – Ken Clarke, of course, keeps his seat
- Sheffield Central – Natalie Bennett comes third and it’s a Labour hold.
- Sheffield Hallam – I’m a bit sad to lose Nick Clegg but it was a Labour win.
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Kris Hopkins (Cons) lost Keighley and was pro-“field sports” and IMHO a poor constituency MP. Let’s hope John Grogan (Lab)serves “the many not the few” in Parliament.
I don’t share your views on Nick Clegg, Mark, he could have entered a coilition with Labour instead of the Conservatives and we wouldn’t be in this mess now.
With respect Dave – that is total bollocks.
The Labour Party was torn with internal conflict and so disorganised that senior Labour Party negogiators could not commit to any clear position on major issues such as voting reform, taxation, education and how to address the deficit. A delusional and uncompromising Gordon Brown refused to give ground on any major issues until the deadline had passed. Nick Clegg and other senior Lib Dems such as Vince Cable went into the 2010 election in the belief that in the event of a hung parliament, a coalition with Labour was the preferred option. Labour should accept the lions share of responsibility for that not having happened.
The thing is Jo that our politicians are supposed to represent the people that vote for them! So the fact that so many people voted for the LIb Dems to stop the Tories is why there was (still is) so much anger against them. If you can switch from a Labour Government (the preferred option!) to a Tory Government because of one man’s inflexibility, that does not say much about your principles!
Not just one man, David Milliband refused to negotiate full stop.
Leadership is about doing what is right for the country, not just the narrow interests of your own party. A confidence and supply deal would most likely have broken down within months and another GE would have been called. Both the LD’s and Labour were heavily overdrawn, which would have enabled the Tories to buy a landslide. It’s easy to forget just how much the nations finances were in turmoil, a stable Govt was required to calm the markets and prevent the U.K from losing it’s credit rating which could have hiked up interest rates and placed a lot of lower-income families under enormous financial pressure.
Having seen how the Tory’s have governed since 2015, most rational observers can appreciate the moderating presence that the LD’s provided. And they were able to introduce some policies that made a big difference to many people’s lives including free school meals for infants, raising the tax threshold to £10k, same sex marriage and the pupil premium for disadvantaged school children. They also managed to stop the Tories from pursuing some of their more extreme agenda including the scrapping Natural England, preventing climate change teaching from being taught in schools, inheritance tax cuts, boundary change manipulation, weakening of the Equalities Act, scrapping green energy subsidies, doing away with the Human Rights Act etc.
History will be kind to Nick Clegg, yes he got some things wrong, but he was and is a man of principle. He will be missed in Westminster.