Liberal Landslide....

What the heck happened there then?! All that hype, all those hopes and expectations riding on Nick Clegg and the Lib Dems. What do we get in Tonbridge and Malling? An increased majority of over 18,000 which is 35.4%. The Liberals did take over the number 2 slot from Labour, who have been in that position since 1997. See the result here on the Telegraph site. So will Liz Simpson have gone home to her bed happy in the early hours of this morning? I doubt it because, like me and many others, I rather suspect that she was hoping for a major upset in this True Blue consituency. But it just wasn't to be, in fact the vast majority of people up and down the country vote the same at every single election throughout their whole lives. Even sadder it's usually what their parents voted before them; that's just the way things are and that's why it is so difficult to cause a massive upset. Clegg did his best and, let's face it, we all thought that he'd started a huge bandwagon. It still might prove true as his party does now hold the balance of power and he's now in a position to push for electoral reform as a condition of who he supports in the important Commons debates to come. Interesting times then but it could have been so much more so....