I was disappointed with the news of a Conservative majority this morning, but I wasn't surprised. What I was however surprised at was some of the seats the Tories have managed to take from Labour particularly in the North East - Blyth Valley, Redcar, North West Durham and Sedgefield all being very much traditional Labour areas.
Labour have forced this upon themselves, voting for this election in the first place when they weren't in a position where they had enough support to win it. Jeremy Corbyn is too left wing for many people, Labour's policy on Brexit was way too vague for this election where it's currently the biggest issue facing this country, and with that Labour had no chance of winning a majority. Many people (myself included) felt that Labour no longer represented them and took their vote elsewhere (in my case to the Liberal Democrats but in many cases to the Tories). Labour seriously need to be looking at their policies, their leadership, and regaining pubic support if they ever want to get anywhere near the keys to Downing Street again.
The Lib Dems have also made a good number of mistakes, firstly by starting off the campaign suggesting that Jo Swinson was aiming to be Prime Minister as that will have no doubt given a large number of people the impression that they weren't being realistic (which they weren't), and they also in my opinion shouldn't have stood against Labour in seats like Cities of London and Westminster or Kensington where Labour would likely have won if it wasn't for the Lib Dems splitting the vote.
Meanwhile the Tories managed to appeal to large numbers of people with their promise to "get Brexit done" and with Boris Johnson generally appealing to a large variety of people. Whilst I don't personally agree with his decision, Boris not doing an interview with Andrew Neil probably did the Tories a favour in getting more votes, as Boris couldn't slip up in an interview he didn't do. The same goes for Boris choosing not to attend a number of the election debates. It's clear to me why they won this election.
Moving forward I think a period of stability is now needed, people from both sides of the political spectrum need to come together and unify. With the Conservatives having a fair size majority no doubt Brexit will happen on the 31st January, and as much as I'd happily see a second referendum one isn't likely, that needs to be accepted and things need to move on. Politics is way too toxic currently and the sooner that changes the better.
I'm surprised the Liberal Democrats did as badly as they did.
It was pretty obvious that labour had gone too far left,and that style of politics is a massive turn-off for the electorate.
However, with the tories almost just as equally being split into leave/remain factions,I think it's not entirely accurate to say they won because of brexit.
With the LD's being more centrist than labour, and were very clear on their "remain" stance, they should have picked up a lot of votes from labour, but didn't.
I think when it comes to the crunch, the tories looked like safer pair of hands (or the lesser of several evils depending on your viewpoint)on the matters that really matter at the moment.
1)fiscal prudence.... better than labour and history shows it
2) regulation( or reduction thereof) and business entrepeneurship..as per 1)
3) defence/ law and order/terrorism/immigration..tories win, epic fail for corbyn
the brexit debacle is really to do with do we want to live in a high tax/high regulation economy....or a low tax,low regulation one like the US.
I think in all honesty most people...even tories here, are not of the belief that we should go full on US style corporatism.
But equally don't like the rule by diktat and business version of "original sin" mandated by the heavy handedness of brussels legislation.
the country has decided there is too much bossiness already from their elected officials,and has decided to give them a bit of a slap to bring them down a peg or two....TWICE.
First with the original brexit vote.
of course the elite thought the peasants were thick.illiterate/mentally ill/racist/bigots
and now the electorate have given them an even harder slap.....ydidn't hear us the first time?....now you WILL listen and do as you're bloody well told.
for what it's worth,I don't think boris does have a clear mandate to just railroad any old crap through because he's got a majority...a lot of the votes he got came from the disaffected heartlands of labour/manufaturing base and he'll be expected to deliver.
He's only got those votes on temporary loan and he's going to have his feet held to the fire to do something radical to turn around their misfortunes.
He needs to get a lot more manufacturing done in house again, much like trump is trying to do for the US rust belt
if boris is going to make any kind of success of this his mantra should be innovation,not legislation.
