As the Conservatives took a surprising majority vote, winning 331 seats, today, various other party leaders have resigned.
The first and main leader to resign, having been defeated by David Cameron to make his home 10 Downing Street was Ed Miliband. You can read more on his resignation here. Scottish Labour in particular has suffered this Election, which does make us question the recent Scottish referendum turnout, the SNP are clearly popular.
UKIP leader Nigel Farage failed to win his seat in parliament and so resigned as a result, leaving the UKIP party, which is arguably fuelled by his outgoing personality. Who will replace him? AND more importantly for them, will they manage to keep up the tempo of the ever- increasing UKIP support? I think it’s fair to say that the issues raised by UKIP, although I fundamentally do not agree with most, have resulted in other parties altering their ideas, even tightening their own rules on immigration for instance, so as not to be outvoted by UKIP. I was surprised to hear about his resignation, however, not gaining any power himself is rather embarrassing seeing as he has received much media attention and should have absolutely pushed this to work to his advantage. We’ll see what happens to UKIP soon…
Liberal Democrats leader, Nick Clegg has also resigned from his role. Having been in coalition with the Conservatives for the last five years, the only way he was going to gain any power in this election was for a coalition to be needed to be formed again. 
The whole of the Lib Dems campaign has suffered, media attention has not been focussed on them and students are not ready to trust them again. I’m unsure as to whether we should actually just forgive them and move on, after all the Liberal Democrats used to be one of the biggest parties in the country not so long ago. Perhaps SNP media focus has reduced the attention given to Clegg, who I must say I pity slightly because he seems to lack the same kind of presence that the other leaders have portrayed.
Of course, today saw David and Samantha Cameron (in a very unusual dress which I’m sure style people will soon comment on…very Conservative with a hint of yellow- in case of another coalition with the Lib Dems..?) visiting the Queen to confirm his second term in power.
Why didn’t anyone see the Conservative win coming?
Throughout the whole of the campaign, polls have suggested that the results would result in some form of coalition, namely between Labour and the SNP. It is fair to say that a lot of people are in shock over the result. When on the Andrew Marr show a couple of weeks ago, Boris Johnson said that the Conservatives were aiming for, and wouldn’t expect anything other than a majority, I smirked. (Ed Miliband said something similar, which I also did not believe.) Boris was right! The majority is very close, no doubt about that, but the fact that no coalition deal needs to be made is a great victory for the Conservatives, as well as a huge disappointment for Labour and their ‘supporters’. Did they turn out as they should have? I feel that their social media presence was for the retweets that people could get. Very few people share their political opinions online, but the Labour “fans” seem to have been out in force. Maybe the Conservative supporters have just sat back and watched quietly, they know who they are and they knew they’d be safe. Who needs a teenage girl fanbase when you live at Number 10 anyway? …Clearly not Dave- sorry Ed.
You will be able to read more on the Loughborough Constituency and what Nicky Morgan’s plans are very soon!
(Photograph of Nicky Morgan courtesy of Dan Leedham)
