And the winner is ....

Last night at just after ten o' clock I switched on the television news. Except that it wasn't really the news; it was "Election 2015", all set to continue until around six in the morning. They were showing exit polls: 

       Conservatives: 316 
       Labour: 239 
       SNP: 58 
       Liberal Democrats: 10 
       UKIP: 2 
       Greens: 2 

Someone, possibly Paddy Ashdown, protested that exit polls are not realistic as they only interview 22000 people. But then someone else pointed out that other polls usually only interview 11000 people. So how does that give us an indication of what is going? Is it all smoke and mirrors? Is it done by a kind of magic? 

The first result came in from Houghton and Sunderland South. They were vying with Newcastle to be the first to get a result in, something they do every election time apparently. Sixth form students acted as runners, passing sealed ballot boxes from hand to hand along a chain and then rushing them to the tables to be counted. They had been practising all day to get it off to a fine art, a smooth operation. And they did win the race: a Labour win with 21000+. UKIP came second with 8000+, the Conservatives third with 7000 + and Liberal Democrats got only a measly 719. 

The first three results followed this pattern. Three nice wins for Labour and the Conservatives and UKIP each time in second or third place with an almost equal number of votes each. But this was the North East where you would expect Labour to win. What was worrying was the number of votes for UKIP. One of the BBC pundits pointed out that UKIP is building up a nice base, not for this time but for the next election. Then they might hope to be a strong second party in the country. Now, that is a worrying prospect! 

There were moments of silliness: Paddy Ashdown said that if the exit poll proved to be correct he would eat his hat. One hour later his hat had its own Twitter account with 600+ followers. This morning he has been presented with a hat to eat. Alistair Campbell went on to say he would eat his kilt. I suspect he did not want to be outdone in silly boasts by a Liberal Democrat. 

I went to bed before midnight, not wanting to turn into a pumpkin, but Phil stayed up until the small hours. At around five thirty I realised he was still watching depressing news coming in. I left him to it. 

Nigel Farage's constituency saw a large turnout, apparently to try to block him. And block him they did, a small moment of pleasure ... until you realise that it meant another Conservative in the House of Commons! 

Labour's Ed Balls also lost his seat. Quite a few important people, or at least cabinet or shadow cabinet position holders, seem to have done this overnight. A sudden career change!

The SNP made the predicted huge gains in Scotland, despite Nichola Sturgeon's modesty when the exit polls were first given. 

And the Liberal Democrats have been crushed across the board. You could almost feel sorry for them, were it not for the fact that you cannot feel sympathy for anyone who climbs into bed with the Tories. 

This morning, facing a Conservative 325 (the latest figure I have seen) seats in Parliament, both Nick Clegg and Ed Miliband have declared their intention to resign as leaders of their parties. 

We are faced with another five years of David Cameron and the opposition parties are leaderless. Headless chickens time seems to be here!