The State of Play

After 10 hours of LiveBlogging/Tweeting it is most definitely time to get a little shut eye, especially with the referendum count starting at 4pm this afternoon. So, after a night of mixed results for all parties, expect the Scottish Nationalists, I'll leave you will a little summary of how it has gone so far.

It has been a historic night in Scotland as the SNP look on course for an unprecedented overall majority. Just five weeks ago it was the working assumption that Labour would overtake them as the largest party but that seemed a distant memory as we watched the declaration at East Lothian. The Scottish Labour leader Iain Gray held his seat by just 151 votes it what turned out to be one of the better results for his party as the SNP gained Labour seats on huge swings all over the central belt.

With 72 seats declared (including 2 regional lists) the seat distribution is as follows:

	Constituency		Region		Total
	Total	+/-	Total	+/-
SNP	40	+26	5	-5	45
Labour	14	-18	6	+6	20
Conservatives	3	-3	2	-	5
Liberal Democrats	2	-5	0	-2	2
Greens	0	-	1	+1	1

In Wales things look better for Labour as they look set for an overall majority, despite failing to gain key target seats in Pembrokeshire. They made up for this in Cardiff where they sensationally won the Central and North constituencies on 15% and 10% swings respectively. Labour need 6 seats from North Wales and as they won five constituencies in 2007 they should be able to find the extra seat.

Here's how it looks with 43 seats declared (including three regional lists).

	Constituency		Region		Total
	Total	+/-	Total	+/-
Labour	23	+4	2	-	25
Conservatives	4	-	4	+1	8
Plaid Cymru	3	-1	4	-1	7
Liberal Democrats	1	-2	2	-	3
Others	0	-1	0	-	0

In the English local elections the Liberal Democrats have been hammered in the Northern Metropolitan areas, losing virtually every seat they were defending to Labour in some Councils. Elsewhere the picture is a little patchy. In CON/LD battles the Lib Dems have fared better, even gaining Councils in some instances. As the urban areas have been the quickest to declare I think its best to wait until we have all the results before drawing too many conclusions.

They are just starting to count in Northern Ireland and the AV referendum count will commence this afternoon.

I'm off to sneak a few hours kip but I'll be back for another LiveBlogging session later in the day. In the meantime I hope Chris will carry on last nights as results trickle through during the morning.

 

TH