Before the United Kingdom elections of 7 May, both British and international media were expecting a highly uncertain outcome. The victory of David Cameron’s Conservative Party, albeit narrow, therefore came as a surprise to many. This influenced the nature of the response, with much talk of a Conservative triumph, Cameron’s own moment of glory, and more celebratory statements of this kind. But have the Tories really won? And if yes, to what degree? Moreover, what do these elections suggest about the state of democracy in the UK and the west in general?
The most basic fact is that the Conservatives obtained 331 seats out of 650, ninety-nine more than Labour, the second largest party and their chief rivals in forming a government. The Tories' percentage of votes was 36.9 vis-à-vis Labour’s 30.4. This is a remarkable feat after five years when the Conservatives had been in government (in a coalition with the Liberal Democrats). But some simple observations on quantitative aspects add more insight into this apparently sweeping victory. Three aspects deserve specific attention.
First, the Liberal Democrats have almost disappeared as a parliamentary force - and in a sense been "swallowed" by their bigger coalition partner. They kept only eight of their fifty-six seats, with twenty-six of the forty-eight going to Conservative candidates. It's true that polls had forecast a Lib-Dem defeat, but Nick Clegg’s party was still expected to obtain about twenty-thirty seats; reality turned out to be much harder, as overnight the party moved from having six cabinet members to just eight MPs. It is likely that some former Lib-Dem voters perceived their policies to be close to the Conservative platform, and therefore swung to Cameron’s party, while others were alienated for the same reason. Certainly, Clegg’s failure to keep promises on university tuition fees and pro-European policies did not go unnoticed, and his party was squeezed from both directions.
