Well, it appears that it all turned out sort-of-anticipated, but sort-of-not. Specifically, the Libs kicked ass north of Watford, but got their asses kicked south thereof. Shame: I was hoping that places like Guildford would become safe Lib seats in order to annoy the Stupid Party.
As it turns out, my Lib Dem vote share bet will probably make me money; my ‘amazingly low turnout’ bet probably won’t. So I’ll probably be neutral, but pissed off about the way that a gigantic increase in the Lib vote translated into a tiny increase or a decline in their number of seats.
If, in the morning, any of the above looks stupid, then I’ll feel free to change it…
Update, May 6, lunchtime: the Libs have done better than I thought in seat terms. Good. Michael Howard is resigning. Good. I suspect Tony (for obvious reasons) and Charlie (the Lib Dems have become a serious opposition party – and like Neil Kinnock, although he’s done his party a great deal of good, Charles Kennedy is not someone who could be imagined as Prime Minister) will follow suit well before the next election.
Who do you reckon the Tories will go for? David Davies strikes me as not very exciting at all, like a second IDS.
I’m not sure that CK should go. It’s not like a different LD leader is likely to make it to number 10 next time. He’s not too old, he’s popular, and he’s doing a good job. I don’t see why he shouldn’t lead a serious opposition party, I reckon he should stay.
I like Charles Kennedy & I don’t think he suffers from the Kinnock problem. I’m sure stats will emerge when the next British Election Survey is published, but the crux of the Kinnock problem is when the leader’s approval rating is significantly lower than that for the party as a whole, & I’m not convinced that’s true in Charles Kennedy’s case. Even if it were, one might ask whether the significant boost in party approval under is leadership is worth it. Besides which, the fact that they’re taking seats in university towns implies to me that there are some demographics for whom the ‘basically a nice bloke who likes a pint’ image plays rather well and, usefully, its the demographics who don’t usually bother to vote (ie. young people). So maybe the Lib Dem vote share & turnout are related? Just a thought.