To worry I'm going to get seriously depressed as the night goes on

[Seeingthebeautyineveryminute]

I have a sicky feeling in the pit of my stomach that we are going to be lumbered with 5 more years of Tory rule. Please let it not be so.

Ed needs to be resign. He has lost his right hand man Ed Balls. He got it all wrong. Everytime Labour has been in power they have mucked up, mass immigration, lots of benefits and state control. If he really believes that socialism will work - well North Korea would be willing to have a chat with him about that.

I dont think Ed can come back from this. I think he will be gone by the end of the day.

So basically if you are poor, ill or not a homeowner/landlord then you are fucked.

Pretty much ^^

The guardian says he's going. Just waiting the public announcement

Miliband will be gone by 11.00.

I am relieved, I employ 55 people who all work hard and have financial responsibilities of their own and their future would have been in peril under Labour and their tax regime. We simply would not have been able to retain them all.

Think of this replicated all over the country, small businesses employing people who in turn spend money and support local businesses and pay taxes.

I believe the poor and disabled should be supported and protected, I just don't agree with the way Labour propose to do it. I am sure many Tory voters feel the same it is not a question of being selfish or self-interested but a difference in ideology and economic theory.

Ed and labour did not convince the majority of the country that the economy would be safe in their hands. Ed just does not come across as trustworthy. I think the moment he lost the election was on question time when he refused to admit Labour had overspent previously and he lost people's confidence that it would be different this time.

Guardian has Miliband resigning this morning.

God alone knows who will replace him. The people being trailed are mostly either Brownite hangovers (Cooper, Burnham) who look like the past that the electorate have now rejected twice, or nonentities that only the wonkiest have heard of (Dan Jarvis? Liz Kendall? Have even their mothers heard of them?)

This is a 1992 moment. Labour have been hammered in an election they should have won, and have now lost two elections on the bounce. They need to think deeply about strategy and policy, not pretend that the electorate just need the same policies explained to the slower and louder. The electorate are never wrong, and the moment a party thinks otherwise they are completely doomed.

Labour need answers on immigration, housing, education and employment. At the moment, they just don't. Speaking as a Labour supporter and sometime member, they are just too easy to portray as the party whose interests lie in everyone apart from the working family. The Tories are only interested in the rich, but (they will counter) Labour are only interested in immigrants and the workshy. It's wildly untrue, offensive and hurtful, but Labour just make that too easy to pin on them.

I voted Tory (as did DH I believe).

I live in a Midlands village, near a market town. I'm disabled, been unable to work for 5 years. Have ongoing treatment from mental health teams (although not my primary disability).

DH is a manager at a local firm, mid-level salary. We have a mortgage, 2 DC, elderly relatives - regular people basically.

All 7 seats in our county have gone to the Tories, including a gain from Labour. You can't possibly say that every one of those people is selfish, not caring about society, privileged...

"I think the moment he lost the election was on question time when he refused to admit Labour had overspent previously and he lost people's confidence that it would be different this time."

^^this. Even my 10 yr old dd said that he was not willing to accept his party's mistakes, so how can he learn from it and not repeat it again.

Prole, so we have open borders?

If I lost my job I would lose my house eventually. I am not entilted to more bedrooms the more kids I have. There are older people blocking council houses refusing to move. I would up the age when this can be a possibility as we are all living longer and allow working families to live in these properties.

If you arrive in the Uk you will be required to have health insurance, you will not be able to turn up at Heathrow saying you are homeless. Most of the Big Issue sellers are now from Eastern Europe. I unerstand it allows them to get a NI number. What started as a blooming good idea to help the homeless has turned into big business for the Eastern Europe gangs.

So real Tory austerity beckons with nothing holding them back. Terrifying. I wonder what kind of benefits are for the cutting and by how much (I don't claim any benefits btw)?

I think Ed Milliband himself is a big reason why labour have failed. People dont like him and people just didn't vote. I am still worried for the Nhs and the most vulnerable in our society.

farfallarocks
"I believe the poor and disabled should be supported and protected, I just don't agree with the way Labour propose to do it."

So despite minute levels of fraud in the system, you prefer the IDS approach of penalizing millions of genuinely disabled people; humiliating them with inadequate "medical" assessments delivered by private companies and setting arbitrary targets for cutting the rates of disability benefits paid before the assessments are even carried out?

Also, I do hope your business doesn't rely on any kind of EU trade or the stability being in the EU and UK union brings. 2 years of oohing and ahhing about the EU can't be good for anyone.

Hillingdon - what parts of State Control do you think are worst? Did you regard the bank bail-out as appalling state intervention? I'm genuinely curious as to your view.

Most of the Big Issue sellers are now from Eastern Europe.

Indeed. The local pitch is a steady turnover of Romanian women who speak almost no English. I long since stopped buying it, and it's noticeable that even in what should be fertile guilty middle-class territory the pile left at the end of the day is much larger than it was a few years ago.

If you arrive in the Uk you will be required to have health insurance

That simply isn't enforceable, and anyone who claims they can implement such a policy without leaving the EU (and probably the EEA: isn't the EHIC an EEA thing?) is lying. Labour and Tories who spout stuff like that are doing UKIP's foul work for them. Opening the NHS up to EU immigrants is the price we pay for having an NHS and being in the EU, and we should be honest about it. We can't impose obligations for health insurance on EU migrants without imposing the same obligations on our own citizens.

I agree with you that it is a very small minority who claim fraudulently and that it is an issue that has been whipped up by the press, tax evasion is a much bigger problem and one I believe should be tackled.

My point is that I believe in the economic theory that you need and want strong business and a strong economy to increase tax receipts and employment so you have more money to spend on looking after the poor and vulnerable. We have 3 apprentices in our business (we pay them a lot more than the minimum recommendation) and I really believe we have changed the course of 3 young people's lives. They are empowered and enfranchised by employment and all come from families where one of both parents have not worked for years.

It was Labour that brought in ATOS by the way.
I don't agree with their tactics and targets but equally the old system replying on the local GP put them under huge pressure to sign people off who did not require it.

On the EU - our business is very UK centric or indeed US centric but I don't want to leave the EU and don't believe we will even with a referendum. Cameron has no desire to leave the EU.

"I think Ed Milliband himself is a big reason why labour have failed."

Actually, I think most people think Ed is alright, if a bit of lightweight, it is the tainted trio of Balls, Harman and Cooper who people feared being back in the driving seat. They should have been cleared out in 2010 along with the rest of the Blarites.

I'm not wishing dreadful fates on individual Conservative MPs but I must say I'm hoping for a few by-elections around the time the awful truth sinks in. It seems to me that the only hope for the vulnerable lies in the Conservatives worrying about uniting the opposition against them.

"The DWP estimates that £1.2b worth of benefit was fraudulently claimed in benefit last year. However that needs to be set against the £1.5b of unclImed benefit- That is, money that people are entitled to, but don't claim.

And that pales into insignificance compared to the £34b. "tax gap"- that is money lost by people not paying the taxes they should.

So. £1.2b in benefit fraud. £34b in tax fraud. Interesting which is the headline, isn't it?

namechange0dq8, it doesn't matter if they have a pile of Big Issue magazines left over because they don't sell the magazine to make money. Being "self employed" is a passport to a load of benefits, including working tax credits, housing benefit, child tax credits etc. I wonder if the Tories will actually do anything about this or just cut low hanging fruit like child benefit for the (working full time) middle classes even more?

I just hope Labour don't rush into another leadership context and chose another leader who will not appeal to the majority of the country. I'm thinking anyone from the Blair era - Andy Burnham, Cooper, Harman, etc.

We are living with the blue meanies again. A horrible prospect.

I just hope Labour don't rush into another leadership context and chose another leader who will not appeal to the majority of the country. I'm thinking anyone from the Blair era

That's the Blair era in which Labour won three general elections with substantial majorities, yes? As opposed to the post-Blair era, in which things have been so much better?

It's only in the heads of Labour insiders that Blair is a hated figure. Labour have only served out four complete parliaments since the war, and three of them were the result of Tony Blair winning elections. The Tory party threw a leader popular in the party but unpopular outside over the fence and brought in someone who won (Major in 1992); Labour threw a leader unpopular in the party but popular outside over the fence and brought in someone who not only lost, but salted the fields for a generation (Brown in 2010). Labour's sure nose for electoral success has resulted in two obvious losers being put in as leader. And then people complain about Blair. Until Labour understand why Blair won, they will continue to lose.

I just hope Labour don't rush into another leadership context and chose another leader who will not appeal to the majority of the country. I'm thinking anyone from the Blair era - Andy Burnham, Cooper, Harman, etc.

You mean the era when Labour won large majorities? For people like me (voted Labour until 2010 and then Conservative) this is the problem Labour has suffered from in this Parliament - a tendency to think that electoral failure means they need to move to the left. Demonstrably that isn't the case - people liked New Labour for the most part.

I can only speak for myself, but going back to New Labour (you know, minus the illegal wars and stuff) would probably bring me back as a voter.