First Impressions

After very little sleep and the excitement and agony of wall to wall electoral coverage, I want to give my first impressions.

1. No big overall surprise, the parties ended up more or less where the polls were predicting (Apart from a couple of outliers)
2. The Lib Dems were unsuccessful in most of their Tory targets with the exception of Tim's friend in Taunton. This is very important because it shows how difficult things are for the Lib Dems. By unmasking their left wing reality a bit, they made it more difficult to pick up Tory voters.
3. The Tories didn't really increase their vote over last time. This shows that despite gains in seats, the they need to rebuild the party at grassroots and improve the party image.
4. The people of Bethnal Green & Bow and complete idiots or supporters of Saddam Hussein. That a man who was best friends with a psycotic despot can claim to be a man of peace and get 15.000 people to believe him, shows why we should be aiming for lower turnout not higher.
5. The Tories seemed to pick up some of their old Thatcherite strong holds, something unlikely to have anything to doing with the war. Could the people be noticing their tax bills?
6. Gordon Brown looks happier than Tony Blair.
7. UKIP and Veritas, Who?
8. Maybe with an influx of new blood, and a slightly better balance house of commons, we can look forward to parliamentary bloodsport.
9. Labour has won a very large majority, so we should keep things in perspective.