so, did anybody actually VOTE LibDem then?

[nearlytoolate]

Or was it just a brief flirtation before going 'back to base' as it were?

Sorry if this has been discussed ad nauseam on the other threads, haven't checked in on those yet, but I have to say I'm gutted that there wasn't more of a breakthrough for LibDems.
Myself, I'm in a Lab safe seat, LibDems in second place. I contemplated voting LibDem as really wanted electoral reform and GB out, but didn't in the end because:

1. Couldn't trust them not to do a deal with Tories
2. Nick Clegg was even going soft on electoral reform last week - the one abiding reason to vote for them
3. Not convinced they are strongly anti-poverty

Why did the rest of you not vote for them then?

I did, as did most of my local friends. Lib Dem won again here

We have an exceptional Lib Dem representative in my area. I toyed for ages with the idea of voting Tory because I want Gordon OUT OUT OUT but in the end voted on what I thought was best for the local area.

minthumbug, that's interesting. And I'm sure a big reason why they didn't break through.
Gah. Off to join the depressed lefties. This country will never vote for a truly liberal/social democratic regime. We can only get labour in under the cover of someone like Blair...

I would have done but a) totally safe Tory seat here so felt that voting labour was the only chance to oust them (didn't work) and b) the Lib Dem candidate for this area is a nice bloke (responded personally to an email I sent him within a couple of hours) but totally ineffectual.

Lib dem retained with a +10% here....

I did. I believe a lot of people who would like to have voted LD went back to their traditional choice of Labour or Conservative because the alternative of the other main party was worrying. Also think this was increased by media hype with people worrying about not getting a majority government.

In this area the vote was down over 9% for Labour, with Lib Dems second and Conservatives third, BNP gained less than 0.5%, UKIP gained over 2% (from 0 votes) but the biggest gain was over 5% for the Conservatives.

Lib Dems also gained over 2%, and together, Lib Dems and Conservatives exceed 50%, Labour under 37.5% and "others" (combined) exceeded 10%.

I do think that Labour were quite worried, despite it having previously been a "safe" seat, as they were the only ones driving round with loudspeakers on a little van, saying to "keep the Tories out".

I'm looking forward to the howls of distress from both Labour and Conservative voters here on MN and everywhere else.

With all options open, looks like we will have to use our patience !

I did, but the Tories won 45% of the vote

i did, and so did DF.
and 3 people we spoke to at royal mail this morning also did.

we're in the south east and it all went blue

it's unfair when you get constituencies like watford, where tories get in with 19000 and libdem got 17000 but they don't get anything for it.
it seems to be the same all the way round: I'm keeping an eye out (and going to do a proper bit of research into this). Libdem could come 2nd every time, and the other 2 share first place: it would mean libdem gets more votes overall but they wouldn't get any seats. (i'm not saying it's accurate for what's happened this time, i haven't looked yet, but it's a simplification of the idea)

electoral reform needs to come quickly in this country. it's shambolic.

22% of the electorate did.

a 5th of us.

including me.

our system is a fucking travesty.

I did and always do but safe tory seat.

I did

I did (Conservative constituency). Labour candidate had been suspended by the party because of dodgy online chat record, but still got over 4,000 votes!

sophable It's so messed up!

I did, My mum did, my nan did, my collegues did.

God knows

just checked the BBC website.

this is what the voting stats are (after 622 out of 650)

conservative
292 seats 10,245,567 votes 36.1% of votes +3.9% from last time
labour 251 seats 8,312,660 votes 29.3% of votes -6.3% from last time
libdem 52 seats 6,495,080 votes 22.9% of the vote +1.0% from last time.

how on earth can it be right that a party that gets 1/4 of the votes (and that's votes, not counting the idiots who didn't vote at all) get 8% of the seats?

tory got 44% of the seats from 36% of the votes
and labour got 41% of the seats for 29% of the votes.

So why did people desert at least 5 sitting LD MPs? The polls pre-election should have meant they not only sat firm but increased their majorities. LDs tend to blame tactical voting for their poor performance in other areas but what's the excuse where they are the majority?

Yup.

Tory gain by less than 200 votes.

and UKIP got 3% of the vote, but won no seats when green got 1% of the vote but got a seat.

the people didn't desert them:

have you looked at how much the tory campaign had to spend in seats it targetted compared to libdems...the figures are staggering!

We voted Lib Dem, know lots of others who did too but we are in an ultra-safe Tory seat.

Our system is a fucking travesty. Definitely.

622 seats have been announced. If you translated that directly as proportion of the public vote, the seats would be:

• Conservative -225;

-Labour - 180; and

• Lib Dem - 140

(others to smaller parties)

Tories have 67 more seats than they 'deserve', Labour 71. Lib Dems are a whopping 91 seats down.

The problem is that, to win a UK election, you don't need broad base support. You need your support to be concentrated in certain areas - like Labour is in cities and Tories are in the countryside (roughly).

Absolutley shocking.

this is worse:

in the East Midlands,

they got 21% of the vote and got no seats at all.
compared with 29% for 15 seats from labour
and 41.2% for 30 seats.
29.6% for 1/3 of the seats
41.2% for 2/3 of the seats

in the south east
libdem 26.5% of the votes and 4 seats
labour 16.4% of the vote gets them 4 seats
and tory 49.9% gets them 74 seats!
26.5% of the votes for 1.2% of the seats
16.4% of the votes for 1.2% of the seats
50% of the votes for 90% of the seats!

sorry, there were 83 seats in the south east so it's actually 4% of the seats

don't know what happened to my maths then....

(4.8% to be exact)

i won't do this for every region!

south west, though:

tory 35 seats (67% of seats) 42.9% of the votes
libdem 13 seats(25% of the seats) 31.4% of the votes
labour 4 seats(7.7% of the seats) 15.9% of the votes