ES1702
Well-known member
- Location
- Cambridge, England
- Pronouns
- He/Him
The 2015 United Kingdom general election was held on Thursday, 7 May 2015 to elect 650 members to the House of Commons. It was the first general election at the end of a fixed-term Parliament. Local elections took place in most areas on the same day.
Polls and commentators had predicted a close result and possibly a second consecutive hung parliament that would be similar to the 2010 election. On the whole opinion polls were proven to have slightly underestimated the Labour vote with the party winning 333 seats and 34.8% of the vote share, giving them a small overall majority of 16 seats. It is the lowest vote share any majority government has won in UK electoral history.
The Conservative Party, which had governed in coalition with the Liberal Democrats since 2010, suffered their lowest share of the vote since 1832 and returned 200 MPs which was their lowest seat tally since the 2005 election. Senior Conservative MPs, notably Wales Secretary Stephen Crabb, Employment Minister Esther McVey and Veterans Minister Anna Soubry, were defeated.
The Scottish National Party, enjoying a surge in support after the 2014 referendum on Scottish independence, recorded a number of large swings from Labour and increase it's number of seats to 43 to become the third-largest party in the Commons. The Liberal Democrats, led by outgoing Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg, had their worst result since their formation in 1988 and the worst vote share of the main centrist party in the UK since 1970. The party lost 38 of its 57 seats and it's vote fell to 7.7%.
UKIP came third in terms of votes with 15.4% but failed to win any seats, losing the two seats it had gained at by-elections in 2014. The Green Party won its highest-ever share of the vote with 4.9% and retained its only seat. In Northern Ireland, the Ulster Unionist Party returned to the Commons with two MPs after a five-year absence, while the Alliance Party lost its only seat despite increasing its share of the vote.
David Cameron resigned as Prime Minister on 8 May and Ed Balls was appointed by the Queen as his replacement. Cameron also announced his resignation as Leader of the Conservative Party, although he became acting leader while a successor was appointed. Nick Clegg resigned as Leader of the Liberal Democrats and was replaced by Norman Lamb after a leadership election.
The Conservative Party made 18 gains, 17 from the Liberal Democrats and 1 from Labour, while it suffered 91 losses, all of them to Labour. The Labour Party made 104 gains, including the 91 from the Conservatives, 1 from Plaid Cymru and 12 from the Liberal Democrats and suffered 29 losses with all but 1 being to the SNP.
This election was the last to be held where voters aged 16 and 17 years old could not participate, with the franchise being extended in 2016 as part of the Great Reform Acts of 2016 and 2017 that introduced widespread political reform across the United Kingdom. The 56th Parliament that was elected in the 2015 election was also the last to include the House of Lords following it's abolition in 2019 and replacement by the mostly elected Senate of the United Kingdom.
Ed Balls formed his first government on 8 and 9 May with notable appointments including Harriet Harman as Deputy Prime Minister, David Miliband as Chancellor of the Exchequer, Andy Burnham as Foreign Secretary, Ed Miliband as Home Secretary and Dan Jarvis as Defence Secretary.
It has just occurred to me that I never posted the three other boxes I did for this Ed Balls scenario...
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