There are 650 MPs elected to the UK government from seats across four countries. 533 in England, 59 in Scotland. 40 in Wales and 18 in Northern Ireland.
From today there are now 55 SNP MPs at present, with only one further result to be announced which is anticipated will go to SNP too. They will now be the third largest party at Westminster. These results accord with at least one poll in the last couple of weeks, and the BBC exit poll at the end of polling yesterday.
The leader of Scottish Labour, Jim Murphy, Danny Alexander, Charles Kennedy, Jo Swinson, Vince Cable and locally Sheila Gilmore, Mark Lazarowicz and Mike Crockart all lost their seats in an amazingly interesting election night. The cut throat nature of politics became clearer by the minute, especially when Mike Crockart appeared on the verge of tears in his speech made after the results were announced.
Here in Edinburgh we have four new MPs all representing the SNP. Only Deidre Brock the Deputy Lord Provost has any political experience, and of the others Joanna Cherry is an advocate and Tommy Sheppard and Michelle Thomson run businesses in the city.
In a fairly terse acceptance speech Ian Murray who got 19,293 votes cast for him with his nearest rival Neil Hay , who got 16,656 votes cast for him. In recent weeks there was a kind of
Murray acknowledged his office team who helped get him re-elected to Edinburgh South in a close run election battle. To boos and jeers from the SNP supporters in the hall he talked of his own family, where he and his brother were brought up by a widowed mother, and who had to fend for herself in the 1980s. He asserted that this is why the country needs a strong Labour party.
“We are entering a new era of constitutional politics – headed for a constitutional policy that never built a school, never staffed a hospital, never lifted a child out of poverty. We will always fight for Scotland and social justice and that fight begins now. Scottish Labour will not let you down.”
He left the stage to more jeering and booing to immediately go on air with one or two main broadcasters.
Former First Minister Alex Salmond will take his seat for Gordon in the new Parliament.
The Prime Minister is now heading for London and will probably form a government even though the Conservatives may not have an outright majority.
Who held the UK seats following the last election in 2010?
302 seats were held by the Conservatives
256 by Labour,
56 by Liberal Democrats
the balance by other parties across the UK
The SNP held 6 seats at Westminster in the last parliament out of 59 seats in the whole of Scotland, but we have to wait and see what they can do this time with many new MPs, and whether or not the SNP can hold the government to account.
Founding Editor of The Edinburgh Reporter.
Edinburgh-born multimedia journalist and iPhoneographer.
