* PM Cameron wins second term * Labour leader resigns * Scots back nationalist party
By Jonathan Eyal, Europe Correspondent In London, The Straits Times, 9 May 2015
By Jonathan Eyal, Europe Correspondent In London, The Straits Times, 9 May 2015
BRITISH Prime Minister David Cameron moved quickly to consolidate his government after his ruling Conservatives swept back to office for another five-year term, defying pre-election predictions of a close contest.
In a series of dramatic upsets last night, the Tories won enough seats to gain a majority in Parliament. The leaders of three major political parties all quit after suffering major losses. But the Scottish National Party (SNP) won a decisive victory in Scotland, one which will haunt Mr Cameron and threaten the future stability of the United Kingdom.
Speaking outside his official residence in Downing Street after being entrusted by Queen Elizabeth II with the formation of the new government, Mr Cameron vowed to "strive and bring the country together" in the wake of the SNP's landslide victory in Scotland.
But he also reiterated his intention of holding a referendum on Britain's future membership in the European Union.
With most of the ballots counted, the Conservatives are on track to win 331 seats in the 650-seat chamber, giving them the majority needed to rule without a coalition partner.
Despite numerous opinion polls showing Labour, the chief opposition party, neck and neck with the Conservatives, Labour slumped to its worst result in three decades, winning 232 seats, 26 fewer than what it had before the elections. The Liberal Democrats, who were coalition partners with the Conservatives, were crushed, winning a mere eight compared with 57 previously.
The shock results saw Mr Ed Miliband quitting as leader of the Labour Party last night.
"I am truly sorry for failing to win the election," he said, urging the party to have an "open and honest debate" about its future.
Mr Nick Clegg also stood down as head of the Liberals.
The head of the UK Independence Party (Ukip), Mr Nigel Farage, also resigned after losing to a Conservative rival.
Ukip, which is devoted to pulling Britain out of the EU and restricting immigration, did well in attracting more than three million votes, but managed to get only one MP, another development that helped Mr Cameron's party.
How could all of Britain's pollsters have got their predictions so wrong? One explanation is that of the "shy" Conservative voter: Pollsters have known for decades that some people who vote Conservative do not like to admit it in public, because they consider it unfashionable.
Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong has written to Mr Cameron to congratulate him on his victory."Under your stewardship, the UK took difficult decisions and emerged from the financial crisis as the fastest growing economy in the G-7," said Mr Lee. "The clear mandate you have received enables you to bring your government's long-term economic plan to fruition, re-unite the country and fulfil the UK's global responsibilities."
Other foreign leaders, including United States President Barack Obama, also sent congratulatory messages.
Tellingly, European Council president Donald Tusk said he counted on Mr Cameron to make the case for Britain's continued membership in the EU and was ready to help him do so.
Rash of resignations follows parties' crushing defeats
Leaders of Labour Party, Ukip and Liberal Democrats throw in the towel
The Straits Times, 9 May 2015
Leaders of Labour Party, Ukip and Liberal Democrats throw in the towel
The Straits Times, 9 May 2015
LONDON - Mr Ed Miliband resigned as leader of the opposition Labour Party yesterday, as did the heads of the Liberal Democrats and the UK Independence Party (Ukip) after the Conservative Party won Thurs- day's unpredictable election.
Mr Miliband, 45, whom pollsters had until Thursday portrayed as neck and neck with Conservative Prime Minister David Cameron, saw his party suffer its worst defeat in almost three decades, including losing all but one lawmaker in Scotland. "I am truly sorry I did not succeed, I have done my best for five years," he told supporters in his resignation speech. "I take absolute and total responsibility for the result."
Written off as a political insider lacking charisma just a few months ago, he had won plaudits for his tough campaign style and some observers saw leadership material. But he could not overcome his gaffe-prone image, which was summed up in a photograph of him unattractively eating a bacon sandwich. Unveiling a giant slab of stone etched with his key pledges did not help either.
"Britain needs a strong Labour Party. It's time for someone else to take leadership of this party," said Mr Miliband. Labour has 232 seats, 26 fewer than in 2010. He said the party's deputy leader, Ms Harriet Harman, would take over until a new leader is elected.
Another high-profile casualty was Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg, 48, who stepped down after his Liberal Democrats were crushed in the election.
Mr Clegg, who in 2010 led his party to its first spell in government as junior partner to the Conservatives, retained his seat in Parliament but saw the vast majority of his colleagues lose theirs. His party lost all but eight seats from the 57 it won in 2010.
"Clearly the results have been immeasurably more crushing and unkind than I could ever have feared," an exhausted-looking Mr Clegg told a news conference.
The anti-European Union Ukip also lost its leader, Mr Nigel Farage, 51, who quit after he failed to win a parliamentary seat. But he did not rule out running for the leadership again.
The anti-European Union Ukip also lost its leader, Mr Nigel Farage, 51, who quit after he failed to win a parliamentary seat. But he did not rule out running for the leadership again.
"There will be a leadership election for the next leader of Ukip in September and I will consider over the course of this summer whether to put my name forward to do that job again," he said.
Plain-speaking and populist, Mr Farage turned his party into a national force and helped it win millions of votes, but his anti-EU drive came to a halt yesterday. Ukip managed to secure only one House of Commons spot.
"I feel an enormous weight has been lifted from my shoulders," he said yesterday.
Mr Farage played a major part in prompting Mr Cameron to promise a referendum on whether Britain should leave the EU, which would take place by the end of 2017.
REUTERS, AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE
REUTERS, AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE
Pollsters left red-faced for being so wrong
The Straits Times, 9 May 2015
The Straits Times, 9 May 2015
LONDON - A dead heat? The pollsters were just dead wrong, as the results of Thursday's British general election showed.
Only on Wednesday, YouGov, ICM and Survation called it a tie, and three other polls published by TNS, Opinium and ComRes gave the Conservatives the narrowest of leads over Labour. Panelbase gave the Tories a two-point lead while all the newspapers said a hung Parliament was a certainty.
"The pollsters need to go off and interrogate themselves and poll each other to find who has been telling porkies (big lies) to whom," said Conservative London Mayor Boris Johnson. "It's extraordinary that 11 polls on the eve of the election should get it so wrong."
As the pollsters scratched their heads for answers, the same excuses as those used in 1992 were being floated: changing methods of polling, "shy Tories" who did not want to say whom they were voting for, and a very late swing of undecided voters, The Guardian reported.
YouGov chief executive Stephan Shakespeare apologised on Twitter yesterday morning: "A terrible night for us pollsters. I apologise for a poor performance. We need to find out why."
In 1992, "shy" Conservatives were credited with helping Mr John Major win the 1992 election even though opinion polls had indicated Labour was ahead.
"It will either have been a late surge or long-term 'shy answering' and it takes some time to work that out," said London School of Economics professor Tony Travers.
Mr Peter Kellner, president of YouGov, told The Daily Telegraph: "What seems to have gone wrong is that people have said one thing and did something else at the ballot box. We are not as far out as we were in 1992, not that that is a great commendation."
He blamed politicians for relying too heavily on polling data. He said they "should campaign on what they believe, they should not listen to people like me".
Following the 1992 debacle, the pollsters redeemed their reputations by correctly predicting the difficult 2010 result, which led to a Conservative/Liberal Democrat coalition. But it's back to square one after their latest slip-up.
AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE
AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE
Cameron faces uphill task in country united only in its divisions
New political map shows four distinct nations, each voting its own way
By Jonathan Eyal, Europe Correspondent In London, The Straits Times, 9 May 2015
New political map shows four distinct nations, each voting its own way
By Jonathan Eyal, Europe Correspondent In London, The Straits Times, 9 May 2015
IN THE end, it wasn't even close: As votes in Britain's general election were counted, it quickly became clear that the inconclusive cliffhanger result that all opinion pollsters had been predicting for months would not happen, and that the ruling Conservatives had won.
"There's only one opinion poll that counts, and that's the one on election day," a jubilant Prime Minister David Cameron, who will now remain in power until the end of the decade, told his Conservative party activists.
Although government won't change hands in London, the nature of the country did change at the polls in fundamental ways and may not even survive in its current shape.
Mr Cameron now faces the huge challenge of being the prime minister of an increasingly disunited United Kingdom.
As the UK's new political map now indicates, the country is already divided into four distinct nations, each voting its own different way.
England, which accounts for the bulk of the territory and population, has always been the Conservatives' electoral bastion, and has swung even more firmly towards them; apart from a few urban areas in the north-east, the entire map of England is now a Conservative blue.
Meanwhile, Scotland is now almost entirely yellow, the colour of the Scottish National Party (SNP), which advocates Scotland's independence from the UK. The party has obliterated Labour, which used to control the region, and has secured 56 of Scotland's 59 seats.
Labour still clings to Wales, which it historically claimed as its fiefdom. But neither Labour nor the Conservatives have much influence in Northern Ireland, which has its own parties, organised along the Protestant-Catholic religious divide. So, the UK is a country united in its divisions.
Mr Cameron was quick to acknowledge that his first task was to heal these electoral divides. "Above all, I want to bring our United Kingdom together," he said yesterday.
Mr George Osborne, who is expected to retain the job of Chancellor of the Exchequer in the new Cabinet, said: "We need to respect that result in Scotland in this general election and see what we can do to make the people of Scotland feel part of a strong United Kingdom."
But that's easier said than done. Scotland's new leaders were quick to point out that their demands may well go beyond just more autonomy: "There is going to be a lion roaring, a Scottish lion," said former SNP leader Alex Salmond, who will now act as Scotland's chief voice in the British Parliament.
Mr Cameron will quickly discover that the more powers he offers Scotland, the more the SNP will demand. The SNP's ultimate objective is to hold a new referendum on independence, notwithstanding the fact that the option was decisively rejected by voters last September. And the stronger the clashes between the government in London and politicians in Scotland, the easier it would be to bring about a re-run of that referendum: A confrontation is, therefore, inevitable.
And even running England may not prove to be smooth sailing for the new Cameron administration. The UK Independence Party (UKIP), which wants to pull Britain out of the European Union and restrict immigration, looks set to have only two MPs in the new Parliament.
Still, the party appears to have polled around 3.4 million votes nationwide, drawn largely from working-class Labour voters and middle-class Conservative supporters; it was only the vagaries of the British electoral system that prevented UKIP from winning its proportional share of parliamentary seats, which could have been as high as 70 MPs.
So, although Mr Cameron will publicly dismiss UKIP as a busted flush, the reality is that it is now the third-biggest force in British politics, a development politicians ignore at their peril. The pressures on the Cameron government to be tough on Europe and even tougher on immigration will, therefore, remain.
And these will be made worse by trends within the ruling Conservatives' ranks. An estimated third of the new intake of Tory MPs are new legislators who harbour deep suspicions about the EU.
Mr Cameron will have to satisfy them as well, by holding his promised referendum on Britain's continued membership in the EU. Opinion polls indicate that such a referendum can be won by those supporting the EU.
However, opinion pollsters are not exactly trusted at the moment, having failed to predict the latest electoral results, and referendums have a knack of being even more unpredictable than general elections.
But the longer he delays holding the EU referendum, the more Mr Cameron will open himself to blackmail from his own supporters: The government's parliamentary majority is wafer-thin, thereby increasing the backbenchers' powers.
In essence, the new government will have to navigate a course between being both pro- and anti-European, between satisfying the Scots and not annoying the English, and between restricting public expenditure and dishing out new cash to the various parts of the UK, in order to keep everyone happy.
Mr Cameron may discover that his ultimate fate will resemble that of Mr John Major, another Conservative prime minister who defied expectations and won the 1992 British general election, only to be destroyed thereafter by his inability to impose discipline on either his party or his country.
Mr Cameron may discover that his ultimate fate will resemble that of Mr John Major, another Conservative prime minister who defied expectations and won the 1992 British general election, only to be destroyed thereafter by his inability to impose discipline on either his party or his country.