They've got 5 years for it to happen again. If they're smart, they'll wait until after the EU ref.
I disagree with this. Since Ed got voted as leader, this was the result I predicted since the Lib Dems were shagged no matter what happened and Ed was never the best choice. Labour haven't been able to convince the British people of too many merits due to a shit cabinet on top of the terrible leadership and they're paying the consequences.
It's a much better picture here than it is in the US. if the Tories cock it up as bad as some are saying, they will be held to account and you can see by some of the Tory responses in here that they feel they will do a better job this term. some are clearly one party voters and will vote Tory no matter what, but I am seeing some people who may vote for another party (or have done in the past) if a case can be made for them.
Other than 'one party for life' voters, and arguably those voters that will tend towards the left/right based on age (I would expect Neogaf to have more younger voters and therefore skew more towards the left naturally) - I think there are three things that happened:
1) Ed Milliband is a bad leader and didn't do nearly enough to get a groundswell of support. They didn't even have any decent policies until this year. They need a big shakeup. Wonder if big brother will come back now?
2) The SNP got a massive boost from the referendum. I hope they don't use this as some kind of mandate to push for another independence push. This also clearly fucked up labour/LD disproportionately compared to the Tories.
3) the economy is kind of ok, maybe. Still work to do. And simply put people will, and always have, trust the Tories with the economy more than the other parties. If things were stronger, people may have felt more comfortable voting Labour.
Also, lol at people paying quite so much attention to opinion polls leading up to the election. Was it 2005 that the polls got it so dramatically wrong? Can't remember but they've been entirely wrong before.
edit: was it 1992?