The General Election 2015

As we now know the result of the General Election 2015 was a win for the Conservative Party placing David Cameron back into Number 10 for another five years. They won a 12 seat majority in the House of Commons. This was not the expected result as many forecasters predicted a slim Labour majority or a hung Parliament.



The Conservative Party gained 35 seats and lost 11 seats. They took the seats from the Liberal Democrats in the South West of the country. Many areas in the South of the country, excluding London, have become Conservative seats. Despite this strong showing, in Scotland they only managed to secure one seat. In total, the Conservatives have 331 seats in the House of Commons.



The Labour Party came second in the total number of seats in Parliament as they now have 232 seats; gaining 22 seats and losing 48 seats. In Scotland, usually there was a Labour strong hold however in this election, they gained 1 seat and lost 40 seats. Many traditional Labour voters switched their allegiance to the Scottish National Party (SNP). This was seen by many as the Scottish people believing the SNP a better protest against a Conservative Government. When viewed on a map, London in red (Labour) looks like an island isolated by a sea of blue Tory seats. Despite Ed Miliband kept his seat in Parliament, he resigned as leader of the Labour Party.



The recent General Election proved a disaster for the Liberal Democrat Party as they lost 49 seats; gaining nothing. In total, they have 56 seats in Parliament and in Scotland, they gained just 1 seat and lost 10 seats. The Liberal Democrats did not do very well because Nick Clegg had broken a promise he had made which concerned getting rid of the tuition fees in the 2010 election because he had to compromise in the coalition Government. As a result of his broken promise, the Lib Dems were crushed at the polls in the recent election. Nick Clegg resigned as leader the day after the 2015 General Election.



As previously stated, the SNP replaced Labour as the dominant Party in Scotland; gaining 50 seats. In the House of Commons, they have a total of 56 seats. Another Party of protest UKIP, failed to live up to expectation as they only have 1 seat. The leader of UKIP, Nigel Farage, resigned but he was told that they did not want him to resign. Currently, it is uncertain whether he is still leader of UKIP. The Green Party did not gain or lose seats in the House of Commons and its leader, Natalie Bennett remains leader. Plaid Cymru (the Welsh Party) did not gain any seats but lost a seat in the House of Commons. In Wales, the political map shows that all parties are represented. Sinn Fein (the Irish Republican Party) did not gain any seats and lost 1 seat. However, this is not significant as their MPs refuse to attend Parliament, thus preventing them from taking part and voting in debates. The Democratic Unionist Party gained 1 seat and lost 1 seat and have a total of 8 seats in Parliament. The Ulster Unionist Party gained their 2 seats in Parliament.



In May, the number of female MPs rose by 1/3: in the 2010 election, 23% of MPs were women but in the 2015 election there is now 29% of female MPs. The Labour Party have now got the most female MPs in Parliament (99 women).



As the Labour Party did worse than predicted, it can be seen as an indication, that the electorate was not prepared to vote for Ed Miliband as Prime Minster and much rather preferred David Cameron to stay as PM.