Brown Back In, But Ladyman Loses Seat

Yes - it's official! Well, official on this blog at any rate. Labour are back with an overall majority of 40 seats. But a swing to the Tories has left Thanet South MP Dr Steve Ladyman without his seat, which has been grabbed by lovely Tory Laura Sandys.

That's the result of my online election poll, which attracted an all time record turnout of 464 votes, mirroring reports of high voting figures across the country. Here are the numbers in full:

Question: Who will get your vote on 6 May?

Labour: 31% (146 votes)
Tory: 29% (137 votes)
Lib Dem: 15% (72 votes)
Small piece of cheese: 8% (39 votes)
UKIP: 6% (30 votes)
BNP: 5% (24 votes)
Green: 2% (10 votes)
Other: 1% (6 votes)

Pop that into the BBC's excellent election seat calculator and you get this:

Quite a surprise really. The Lib Dems have even lost 11 seats, but then we've had Second Comings from them before that have failed to materialise at the ballot box. It all seems rather reminiscent of the 1992 election which Kinnock was meant to win, but which re-elected John Major when all the undecideds actually made up their minds once the teeny-tiny pencils were in their hands.

Of course, if everyone who voted on my poll were locals, Ladychap may still have squeezed it. In fact, this could all be utter cobblers. Oh well, I can always re-write it in the morning to make myself look good. Do sleep well, and don't have nightmares!

Update: First pics of Thanet count under way at the Mike and Bernie Winter Gardens here and here (courtesy yourfannitinnit).