.....not to mention ending up being over 100 seats behind, and having their lowest share of the votes since 1918.

People need to remember - one of the primary drivers of so-called "devolution" is the corporate sector.

If there's one opponent trans-national capital fears it is big state government with strong legislative systems and deep pockets. Up until the "Reagan Revolution" and a succession of "business friendly" American administrations the major corporations could never achieve absolute ascendency. From the break-up of Standard Oil, the Howard Hughes empire etc. right up to today's EU rulings against Google & Microsoft - big business has repeatedly been given a mauling by well-funded, well-resourced governments or groups of governments.

But the election of Reagan (and the George H.W. Bush) saw a sea-change in the balance of power. It started with the codification of new laws which bumped major lawsuits against corporations down from the federal courts into those of the individual states. To enforce these changes "pro-business" lackeys of both administrations were elected to the US Supreme Court.

So whereas, say, a major patent violation was once prosecuted by the seemingly infinite resources of the US government, now it's the corporations who hold the whip hand going into trial against state attorneys who very often are working on a shoe-string budget. And since they are working at a lower court - any potential penalties are invariably that much lower too. For the individual it's even worse. Unless you can somehow band together to fight what is known as a "class action lawsuit" you're effectively on your own at the COUNTY court level.

It's no co-incidence this policy of devolution is being acted out not just in Britain but across the world.

This really has been a emphatic victory not only for the Tories but for David Cameron personally and without doubt his authority in the Conservative party will have dramatically increased which in turn will strengthen his position as he seeks to win those EU reforms.

Not only has he defeated the Labour party (with 99 more seats than Labour) but he has seen off his 3 main political opponents too. Bye bye to Labour leader Milli Ed, shadow chancellor Ed Ballsup and Nigel Farage (allbeit in his case until the autumn). The Lib-Dems were totally routed and it must have given him great satisfaction to have seen off their Leader (& disloyal Deputy PM) and totally out of touch "Big Fat Fib" Clegg and the grumpy Vince Cable too

The Tory tactics in their campaign proved to be successful including the PM's decision to avoid the waste of time TV debates, to concentrate on the economy and to point out the real risks of a Labour/SNP pact. They were right to concentrate their attack on Lib-Dem held seats and to trust that the English voters would reward them for their economic record in the end.

When I saw the exit poll (316), I thought that number of seats would be a good result for Cameron. The fact he has ended up with 331 is, firstly, amazing. Secondly, it is huge testament to just how much people did not want to see Milliband backed by the SNP.

That aside, the constituency boundaries need re-drawing for the purpose of fairness.

Regardless of which party you support, I am sure we can all agree that it is perverse UKIP can get roughly twice as many votes as the SNP, yet only 1 MP compared to their 55 (or so).

It is widely thought that 'fair' constituency boundaries will favour the Tories to the tune of 20 seats. So expect it to be one of the first things on Cameron's agenda. And I don't think anyone can realistically make a good argument against it.

This, combined with the Bo-Jo bounce (he will be Tory leader going into the next election,) will make it incredibly difficult for Labour. Assuming they do not make a complete and hash of the economy between now and then, I expect the Tories to be in Government for at least the next 10 years.

As others have said, for all the noise they will make, the SNP are largely irrelevant when faced with a well-disciplined majority government.

And finally, I am particularly interested in the fact that Cameron has pledged to raise the 40% tax bracket to £50,000. Which means someone earning £50,000 a year is probably going to be £180 a month better off, give or take a few quid. Real help for the 'squeezed middle', particularly in London, where £50,000 is about the minimum you need to achieve any reasonable quality of life.

I am very excited about the Human Rights Act being repealed! No more pandering to terrorists who cannot be deported because of tenuous links to the country.

So many other policies to be excited about - finally a say on the EU!

Ukip may only have one seat at Westminster but like it or not they are now the third largest party in the popular vote, so dismiss them at your peril.

Don't kid yourself that Labour saw this coming or that Ed Balls is happy about being thrown out. They have presided over a steady decline in influence north of the border for many years now and were complacent and failed to spot the dangers. Unless they swing back to the middle ground they will fall further behind the Tories in England too as Cameron & Osborne continue with their strong economic plans.

The SNP were comprehensively defeated in the independence referendum and I do not believe that their success in this election is due to a a change of heart regarding independence. IMO what has happened is that Labour has lost the plot with regard to policy and the swing to the SNP is due to so many people believing the SNP will better represent Scotland than Labour or the other "Westminster" parties on this occasion. Nicola Sturgeon fought a good campaign and in fairness made Milliband look an amateur in the debates and she offered a greater appeal than the bully boy Salmond. Now that the Tories have an overall majority the SNP influence has been neutralised and they will be made irrelevant at Westminster if the new government pass their promised bill making only English MPs able to vote on English matters.

Agree totally. I hate UKIP and I think anyone who votes for them are simplistic idiots who can't be bothered to actually think for longer than 10 seconds.

But they deserve representation in the same way as everyone else. However changing constituency boundaries won't do anything to alter that. The only thing that will is doing away with First Past The Post and introducing another system. The fairest being PR. In which case everybody's vote will count.

Neither of the two parties have got to grips with the changing demographics and nature of the country, although the Conservatives have done rather better. They have completely reinvented themselves over the years. Labour on the other hand has not coped with the loss of a mass blue collar working class. It tries to chase the middle of the road voter but cannot reconcile that in policy terms with its traditional voters (who are insufficient in number under the first past the post system to permit them a majority). Blair did succeed in his early days but drifted away from the traditional voters and the Iraq war buried him.

So, will they be able to reinvent themselves in an appealing way where they represent anyone? I think their best hope is PR. Their second best hope is if the Tories make the mistakes of their relatively recent past and become too arrogant and corrupt. I think with Osborne pulling the strings they will not fall into that trap for some time.

PR was rejected early in the last parliament.

I appreciate that but if we have a protracted period of no serious opposition to the Tories (entirely possible) the "establishment" may go that way in the interests of "democracy".

After running from any scrutiny during the election campaign, inluding dodging a hustings in his own constituency, it hasn't taken IDS to carry on where he left off.



My disappointment with the result has been somewhat tempered by the £420 I picked up after predicting that UKIP would only return Carswell to parliament and also the fact that Richard Desmond managed to spunk £1.3m against the wall and the total result was a halving of UKIP's parliamentary representation

Views like this won't help Labour recover from their shambolic performance.

UKIP have picked up working class support and it would be wise to actually discover the real reasons for this rather than just dismiss them all as 'simplistic idiots' whose votes can be written off.

A long time in opposition for Labour with views like this.

You mean the referendum? That was AV not PR.

It wasn't. The vote was on AV, which I think Nick Clegg himself (the main force behind the referendum) described as a 'ty little compromise'.

I fear the referendum on AV has killed off the prospect of electoral reform, bar a bit of tinkering with the boundaries, for a generation. And neither of the 2 main parties who have a majority government will ever agree to a referendum on PR, since if implemented they would never again form a majority.

The big thing to watch out for at the moment is the likes of Balls making a comeback via the Lords. Which is cronyism at its worst.

It just shows how thick the British public are that's all