Matthew's Journal

Well, that was depressing, wasn't it? The opinion polls got things very wrong, and the exit poll (that seemed really unlikely at 10pm) was not far off. So all the early-evening talk about legitimacy and what parties might want what for coalitions was all moot.

Labour didn't lose because of the SNP (even if they'd beaten the SNP in every seat they contested, the Tories would still have a majority); they lost because they didn't make any impact on the Tories in England & Wales. The Libdems have been punished badly for the coalition; their votes have mostly gone to UKIP (!) although they were unable to turn those votes into seats, instead the Labour and Conservatives roughly split the LD casualties.

It's odd to paint this as a vote of confidence in the government (as some people have been doing) - while the Tories have gained, the previous government (Tory & LD) have lost heavily. Sadly, I suspect the SNP bloc will struggle to achieve much of note in the Commons - David Cameron seems more likely to move Right to keep his backbenchers happy rather than try and reach across the House for support.

I wonder if the SNP will consider another independence referendum if they do similarly well at the next Holyrood elections? If the new government pushes through "English votes for English laws" and appears to disenfranchise the SNP bloc even more, that might stir up the independence argument in Scotland. I would be sad to see Scotland go.

The other referendum is going to be on the EU. I'm really worried that we'll vote "out", which I think would be terrible. So I will be hoping to get involved in the pro-EU campaign in some form (I've heard some early noises in this direction already - get in touch if you want to hear about that). I wonder if an independent Scotland would try and retain the UK's EU membership if we voted "out" down South?

I'm also really worried about a lot of the Tories proposals around benefits, immigration, human rights, housing, etc. Hopefully the opposition can work together to try and ameliorate at least some of these. I hope that Labour will decide that they should move Left rather than trying to out-Tory the Tories, but only time will tell...