Ding Dong

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Brown's Legacy

TB is snowed under in all sort of post election excitement and the blog is clearly suffering. So the miserable old sod is off, but what will his

legacy

 be?

Who was it that said the BBC was biased?

Ouch

ConHome

has the list of seats that UKIP votes denied a Tory win:

Bolton West: Labour 18,329; Conservative 18,235; UKIP 1,901
Derby North: Labour 14,896; Conservative 14,283; UKIP 829
Derbyshire NE: Labour 17,948: Conservative 15,503; UKIP 2,636
Dorset mid & Poole: Labour 21,100; Conservative 20,831; UKIP 2,109
Dudley North: Labour 14,923; Conservative 14,274; UKIP 3,267
Great Grimsby: Labour 10,777: Conservative 10,063: UKIP 2,043
Hampstead & Kilburn: Labour 17,332; Conservative 17,290; UKIP 408
Middlesbrough South: Labour 18,138; Conservative 16,461; UKIP 1,881
Morley (Ed Balls): Labour 18,365; Conservatives 17,264; UKIP 1,506
Newcastle-Under-Lyme: Labour 16,393; Conservatives 14,841; UKIP 3,491
Plymouth Moor View: Labour 15,433; Conservatives 13,845; UKIP 3,188
Solihull: Liberal 23,635; Conservatives 23,460; UKIP 1,200
Somerton & Frome: Liberal 28,793; Conservatives 26,976; UKIP 1,932
Southampton Itchen: Labour 16,326; Conservatives 16,134; UKIP 1,928
St Austell & Newquay: Liberal 20,189; Conservatives 18,877; UKIP 1,757
St Ives: Liberal 19,619; Conservatives 17,900; UKIP 2,560
Telford: Labour 15,977; Conservatives 14,996; UKIP 2,428
Walsall North: Labour 13,385; Conservatives 12,395; UKIP 1,737
Walsall South: Labour 16,211; Conservatives 14,456; UKIP 3,449
Wells: Liberal 24,560; Conservatives 23,760; UKIP 1,711
Wirral South: Labour 16,276; Conservatives 15,745; UKIP 1,274

Chihuahua

's in the Tory party - Conservative in the head, UKIP at heart - must find this wounding despite their obvious sympathy. The Balls result is particularly stinging.

TB Does a DC

Just managed to catch up with the last

Guy News

of the election campaign which you made of missed in the flurry of yesterday. Ladies and Gentlemen...The election coverage credits:



TB was sure he'd destroyed that last clip!

Meanwhile in 1992...

Via

Dale

this suddenly has a new resonence:



As does Hannan's poetic slamming last time the Tories bashed Labour at the polls:

The time has come, the time is now
just go go go I don't care how
you can go by foot, you can go by cow
Gordon Brown will you please go now

You can go on skates, you can go on Skis
You can go in a hat but please go please
I don't care, you can go by bike
you can go on a zike bike if you like

If you like you can go in an old blue shoe
Just go go go, please do do do
Gordon Brown I don't care how
Gordon Brown will you please go now!

Things Can Only Get Better

As TB drove down the Mall today in a cab, it wasn't exactly the dawn of the new age he quite wanted, but a new dawn none the less. Last night was a strange one, so many gains but some really painful loses. It's a real shame that the incoming government won't be served by Mark Clarke in Tooting, Shaun Bailey in Hammersmith, and Peter Lyburn in Perth and North Perthshire, TB is sure we have not heard the last of these guys. Those seats have been pounded hard for years by these excellent candidates and it was painful that they just missed out. Though it has to be said, there is no love lost that the demons finally got Phillipa Stroud. Overall, with one hundred gains it was a almost complete victory for Cameron. Funny that the left weren't spinning that 36% of the vote wasn't enough when Blair failed to even get that. 

So where do we go from here? Well it is right that the electoral system needs reforming. The only person to have a worse night than Gordon Brown was Nick Clegg. For all the hype, he managed to take his party backwards. Yet, he is on the brink of bring his party their first taste of power nearly a century. The Liberal Democrat activists would be churlish and plain stupid to reject this extremely generous offer to a minor party and the idea that some of them are still pushing that they could get into bed with Labour looks more and more like a joke every second. For Clegg to get the Home Office on his poor result last night would be a stunning achievement for him. Sorry Vince but it ain't gonna happen.

And so if it has to be coalition then so be it, but first on the agenda must be electoral reform - resizing of all constituencies - for fairness and a downsizing of Parliament - for fairness.  Civil liberties, education reform, tax cuts. Does it sound so dreadful!?

Clegg and Cameron finally ganged up to put the final nail into Gordon's coffin and with Cameron confirming that even if the yellow/blue talks he will be attempt a minority government. Gordon can cling on to the end of the weekend but what ever happened to a little dignity in his great office. He should just get in the car, get out the way and let what is going to happen on Monday happen today for the sake of the UK's financial security.

No doubt the post mortems will continue and TB has a lot to say on last night and will over the weekend and after a decent sleep. This could get very messy, but TB

concurs with Guido

. This is a rare change to destroy the Labour Party not only at the ballot box like last night, but forever. Let's get on it with it.

P.S. Just remembered like one of those awful drunken cold sweat flashbacks - damn we were close to getting Balls.Calvert 2010 might just have to wait until October.

Want to Get Drunk With TB Later?

A final message from the BIG Election Night Party:

It's the last chance to book for tonight's BIG Election Night Party at the Sports Cafe on Haymarket. Online bookings will close at 7PM and after that you will have to risk the door.

The only way to guarantee entry is to pre book at

www.bigelectionparty.co.uk

It looks set to be a great night. The kitchens will be open from 9am - 9pm as will the bar and the venue is set up into three zones - BBC, SKY NEWS HD and ITV News. There is loads of room for sitting down to eat, four bars, and lots of balloons...

Sky News, BBC, BBC London, a documentary team and even Danish TV will all be filming live from the event

Please bring your respective party paraphernalia and cheer on your team.

So don't miss out on what is set to be the biggest and best way to celebrate the end of the campaign.

Looking forward to seeing you all there

The BIG Election Team

www.bigelectionparty.co.uk

TB will be there all night and, if the results go the right way, he would recommend being near him at the bar at after the Tooting, Bournemouth and Perth results are declared...

Good Morning it's Polling Day

As the CCHQ countdown clock shows, finally it's all over. This campaign has been one of extremes - there was the farcical, with Gordon's disaster after disaster, the surreal with Nick Clegg actually taking seriously and of course the constant intense media speculation about, err, wives. Either way it's make your mind up time. TB predicts a small and he means very small Tory majority.

Lad

Ed Balls Attack Ad

He was only following orders!

Exclusive: 13 Years of Labour

Worst PM Eveeer

A busy TB is greatly enjoying the I Blame Sood mess. Another day, another destroyed news cycle for Gordon. This made TB laugh too:

Off to Tooting tonight to campaign against the evil Khan.

Final Tory Election Broadcast

Very simple, very slick.

Thursday Night

The Sports Cafe is looking like the place to be on Thursday, if only to charge your Blackberry and get a drink at 5am. Book tickets

HERE

. Lots of people heading there after the counts. TB will be blogging from there live all night.

The Trial of Gordon Brown

CCHQ are pushing this tonight:



Is this the first glimpse of that elusive cancelled cinema ad?

Exclusive: A Hung Parliament? Don't Risk it.

Well when you say it like that...

More

here

.

What Happened to Tony?

Is the guilt eating him away?

Why Kerry Must Face the Music

Red Rag

is on form explaining why, despite her best attempts to brush the issue under the carpet, her deliberate breach of electoral law must be punished:

"A statement from Miss McCarthy was later issued by the Labour Party. “On hearing the results of a random and unscientific sample of postal votes, I posted them on Twitter. It was a thoughtless thing to do, and I very quickly realised that it was not appropriate to put such information in the public domain.”

This could be considered a storm in a teacup, a minor mistake made by a naive young MP. The facts though are somewhat different, Kerry McCarthy was a solicitor and has been charged with rallying the troops on Twitter. The 'sample' she posted showed Labour with a strong lead and were specifically intended to motivate her supporters and thus effect the outcome of the election.

If ever the maximum penalty was called for it should be for somebody who was deliberately trying to influence the outcome. There is no doubt that this was Kerry McCarthy's intention."

Damn straight.