Harry Leslie Smith, activist
In the 70 years that I have been voting in elections I’ve learned that democracy, no matter how imperfect, does reflect the will of the people. The people spoke and with a decided voice: in England they called for a conservative approach to social policy and economics, while in Scotland, giving the SNP a landslide, the Scots have demanded a radically different and less austere road than the rest of Britain.
I have to admit that the exit polls surprised me but by the time I went to bed at 2.30am I knew that Labour, who ran a decent and honourable campaign, had been defeated by the forces of nationalism in Scotland and a Tory campaign that played an incredibly strong hand of fear, envy and economic self-interest to middle- and upper-class Britain.
In so many ways the results didn’t play out as the pollsters and the pundits predicted, or as many ordinary people who were looking for a break from austerity and a real chance for a decent life wished .
In the end I have to concede that Lynton Crosby and the young Republicans who came to help David Cameron’s campaign know more about what makes Britain tick than I do. Whether that is a good thing or a bad thing I will leave up to history.
Kirstie Allsopp, broadcaster
I was very surprised. I opted for 288 Conservative seats in a sweepstake, so I was badly wrong. As the results came in, initially I experienced an enormous sense of relief because I hadn’t realised how tense the idea of a Labour-SNP coalition had made me. Then I moved on to wide-eyed astonishment at what was going on Scotland. There is something extraordinarily perverse about millions of people who voted no in the Scottish referendum voting for the SNP.
I can’t feel sorry for Ed Miliband because I think it’s his fault he lost the Scottish. If somebody else had been leader of the Labour party they would have seen what was happening in Scotland and got a grip on it. I’m sure Miliband is a good man but he has a brother who would have been able to win this election and he shouldn’t have stood against him.
David Cameron is very lucky to have got this and has a lot to live up to. There were a lot of people who walked into that polling booth not knowing which way to go. His mandate comes from these shy Tories.
Val McDermid, author
Yesterday the Scots turned out in droves with a very clear idea of what we wanted: an end to austerity, a progressive politics based on lifting everyone up, and no more money poured down the turret of nuclear submarines. We skelped the Lib Dems for betraying us with the Tories, we skelped Labour for betraying us with the Tories, and we skelped the Tories just for being Tories. If you’d told us yesterday the SNP would take 56 out of 59 seats, we’d have been dancing unequivocally in the streets.
But we’re not. We’re looking over the border in dismay at what our fellow Brits have voted for. A party that looks out for the rich at the expense of the poor. A party that plans to visit £12bn in welfare cuts on us but holds the public in such contempt they won’t even tell us where, when or how. A party that wants to drive a wedge between us and our friends and neighbours in Europe. A party that will dismantle the NHS before our eyes. A party, frankly, I wouldn’t trust to hold the dog while I went for a pee.
To me this disunited kingdom feels splintered beyond repair.
Salma Yaqoob, psychotherapist
As the postmortem gets under way on a devastating night for the Labour party, one conclusion is that the result has, as commentator Paul Waugh put it, “tested to destruction the idea that Labour can win by shifting left”.
I am not convinced by this argument. Labour was defeated from the left in Scotland, where a party standing on a progressive anti-austerity platform swept the board.
The tragedy of Ed Miliband, a man I believe to be genuinely committed to making this country one that meets the aspirations of all, is that from the start he entered the battle against the Tories weakened, having tied one arm behind his back. In accepting the essence of the Tory framework on austerity, in signing up to Tory spending limits, he ceded the ground on economic credibility to revamped Thatcherism and was playing catch-up from that moment.
As the recent Guardian article by the economist Paul Krugman illustrated, austerity is the great lie of this age. There is a powerful, coherent critique of it and an alternative to it. Unfortunately, it’s an alternative that the majority of people in this country have not heard presented to them by a mainstream party. That failure poses the question to those who want to advance social democratic values of how best to do so.
The SNP result shows what can be achieved when an anti-austerity framework is unapologetically and confidently articulated. There is no question there is a large, broadly progressive, block in the UK that does not want a Tory government, but whose voice will be marginalised should it be formed.
Mike Read, broadcaster
The country would have benefited from having Nigel Farage in the Commons. He would have insisted on accountability and been the guy who walked behind the Roman emperor chanting: “Remember you are human, Caesar.” How can any party that has millions of votes be represented by one seat, and the SNP, a party that has fewer votes, have 56 seats? The battle cry for those interested in equality must be proportional representation (PR). Does one seat really represent 4 million votes, for Ukip, the Greens or whoever?
Mooted by US founding father John Adams back in 1776 during the American war of independence, this system is now in operation in 94 countries. Of the 35 countries with the most robust economies, only six solely use the first-past-the-post system. PR leads to higher economic growth, less inequality and a better environment.
Of course, it isn’t in the interests of major parties, but PR would mean that the smaller parties, in relation to the number of people supporting them, would have a real voice. That must surely be the vision for 2020.
Saleyha Ahsan, A&E doctor
One of the defining aspects of this election is that of the growth and victory of the SNP, led by the new queen of Scots, Nicola Sturgeon. And on the other side of that – Labour’s massive landslide loss and Scottish Labour has been decimated. Labour lost me during the Blair years and they lost me all over again when they brought him back to the podium during this campaign. The Conservatives are looking to emerge with a small majority and the wish to “finish the job”.
So what can we hope for with this result? Who knows. All I know is that I am putting on my scrubs heading back out to start my A&E shift. It’s going to be stretched and short-staffed, and we are going to be working hard with what we have to deliver good patient care against the odds. All parties promised resuscitating therapies for the NHS and it’s now up to David Cameron to deliver.
It’s time to be serious about saving the NHS and protecting it from the damaging creep of privatisation. This goes way beyond mere party politics. A massive all-party, national effort has to be made to save the NHS. This must be a priority. We cannot and must not lose it.
