“There’s one point about the recent election that has not been discussed about.” [sic]

Really? I thought it had been discussed at great length.

Well, you say they came in the “wrong places”, and certainly for this election you would be correct. But there is a long term view here, one that Clegg and the LDs were going in to the elction with that probably had a slight change as the campaign went on, and that’s to make the Lib Dems a relevant option in more constituencies nationwide.

And the fact is that in the long term view, assuming that the LIb Dems at least don’t lose significant support through their coalition with the Tories (and that is an assumption that I am acknowledging is far too early to make), the Lib Dems had an astounding election moving them in to a place where at the very least they have a good platform to win seats from new second place rankings.

Of course there is the question of how the public will perceive the coalition, and how they would vote for conservatives versus lib dems if they believe the coalition is successful. It’s an uncertain time, but the vote gains in the “wrong places” will give the party confidence whatever the other conditions in 2015.

Of course, Clegg did keep banging on about “national share”. A possibility could have been that people who would have voted LD tactically as an anti-Tory action thought “I need to keep the Labour national vote vote up”.

I wonder how many of those younger Lib Dem voters were locked out at the close of polls? Any evidence to suggest that the lockouts had an effect?

Renard Sexton, OP: “Internet pollsters overstated the Liberal Democrat share by about 5 points, whereas telephone pollsters produced figures that put the Lib Dems about 3 points too high. This suggests that selection bias from internet polling related to younger voters may be worth around 2 percent.”

When street interviews are conducted — typically by middle class housewives — there is a lot of selection bias. Rough looking blokes are not approached, for example.

Unfortunately, you can’t entirely blame selection bias for errors in internet polls. Rough looking blokes are as equally likely to be invited as women in business suits. And there is no serious age bias; it is easy to find web users between the ages of 18 and 60; 60+ interviewees are more likely to be educated, but that doesn’t mean that we can assume that any party will be favoured.

Would people stop banging on about a Lib Dem “meltdown”? We got more votes than ever before. If that’s a meltdown, I’m Donald Duck.

“Oxford East, Islington South and Hampstead and Kilburn — representative of seats across the country”

eh???

I believe that the polls simply show there was more ‘tactical’ voting at this election than any other election yet. Everyone was so scared of the other guy getting in that they stuck with the big 2 parties. I think most of the people that would have changed to Lib Dem or other smaller parties were just too scared of the Tories getting in. I’m sure that if people would just vote with who they actually agree with most, things would be very different. The sooner we get electoral reform the more balanced things will be. Unfortunately, I can’t see it happening as long as we continue to vote out of fear, even with the coalition deal. I’ll be very surprised if anything approaching real reform actually gets through.

Lets get a few things straight, The LibDems got their best ever result in terms of votes, increasing their vote share for the 3rd Election in a row. Labour got their 2nd worst result in 92 years or, if you exclude the early years when their vote went up every time, their 2nd worst result ever.
In fact, in terms of vote shares, the closest result to 2010 would be 1923, theyear that Labour passed The Liberals to become the 2nd Party.
PS Have you all forgotten the slaughter in Iraq yet? Dont worry, you will.

Unfortunately I think the LibDems vote didn’t hold up because of their stance on immigration. I’d like to think it wasn’t but I’d be kidding myself.