The UK May 2015 General Election - Thank you Scotland for a new Conservative Government? (Published in Linked-in on the 9th May 2015)

So, the unexpected actually happened and the UK now has a majority government.

How did this happen?

It happened largely because the (Left-wing) Scottish Nationalist Party (SNP) were hugely successful in throwing out most (Left-wing) Labour MPs in Scotland, meaning the Labour party, as a whole, had no chance of competing with the Conservatives.

So I'm not sure how Nicola Sturgeon, the leader of the SNP, can actually reconcile the fact that their success has actually returned a majority Conservative government which, prior to the election, she said would be the worst possible result.  I'm sure she'll manage to say something about this, when pushed...

One good aspect is that the SNP will not be in any position to directly influence the next government; however as I mentioned in my Guide to Voting, ahead of the election; the newly elected SNP MPs will need to work much harder and demonstrate they can deliver all their promises on Scotland.  I'm not holding my breath on this.

Allied to the Left-wing parties falling out, two other issues contributed to the Conservative victory: the promise of a referendum on membership of the European Union and the possibility of Labour & the SNP joining forces in a coalition (even though both leaders denied they would do this).  These two Conservative Party strategies were masterful.

Sadly the normally sensible & pragmatic Liberal Democrat supporter appears to have disappeared, which is a real pity. Nick Clegg, the leader has resigned; as he should.  But you'd like to think the typical Lib-Dem supporter is a bit smarter than abandoning the party because of it needing to work in a coalition.

As for UKIP, the results are about right. Some people supported them but most did not.  They are fine for the European Parliament but not for Westminster.  Mr Farage did the decent thing and resigned.

On the topic of resigning, Ed Milliband also did the decent thing and resigned.  Labour has had a wasted 5 years and looks like another 5 years to come. At least some of the things Tony Blair said have some basis in fact; Labour needs to be in and capture the centre ground, not left of centre.

Lastly, there are a lot of MPs out of a job; some of whom have not had a proper job in their life.  Now's the time for these people to actually become one of those "hard-working British people" they've been referring to.

Personally I would have preferred a continuation of the Conservative Lib-Dem coalition; however the next least worst scenario is a Conservative majority government.

The United Kingdom's existence is still under threat; however the likelihood of another referendum on Scottish independence, is quite low.  But the botched elements of devolution already in existence plus the additional steps, in the pipeline; sadly means Nationalism will not be declining.  It will take 5-10 years for Scottish voters to realise the SNP is no better than Labour and hopefully that Nationalism is the wrong road to travel down.  I'm not holding my breath on this one, either.