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This is hardly a victory for the Conservatives.

They faced an enormously unpopular Prime Minister.

Twenty or thirty seats more than the last Parliament is hardly an improvement.

Considering how poorly the Tories did in 1997 and 2001.

Plus, the Tories did very poorly in their races against Lib Dems and did not get very far in their marginals against Labour.

Remember, Blair's majority is still a pretty strong majority, a majority that most Prime Ministers would kill for.

It's also even bigger considering that this is their third victory.

Most governments who've won three victories have had nothing like Blair's new, if reduced, majority.

The Conservatives are losers.

And deserve to be.

1) They committed political suicide with their matricide of Lady Thatcher.
2) They were rather squishy on the War in Iraq.
3) Several top tories openly campaigned for Kerry, thus ensuring little to no help from the GOP-- the most successful conservative party in the world, not to mention the best organized.
4) They failed to offer any substantial differences between them and Labour. Their feeble tax cut promise of four billion excited no one.

I think they were squishy and ran a truly amateur campaign, but given that, I think their gains can only be attributed to other domestic issues--i.e. crime and immigration,the NHS and transport failings-- and if they don't follow through on those issues, they deserve to die.

Conservatives the world over need to understand that the winning strategy is to win people over to Conservative ideas, not parade themselves as "not as Socialist as the Socialists". There is nothing wrong with Conservative ideas, and Conservatives the world over need to stop apologizing for being Conservative. The winning strategy is to bring their message to the people and get them to understand why Conservative ideas are superior. The reason the leftists in the US are reduced to throwing food and other sundry items is specifically because Conservatives have won the war of ideas. People here understand Conservatism and they support it.

All I know is that it took Labour 18 years to claw back into power after Thatcher booted them out. Last election should have been a time for rebounding, but as we all know, nothing happened and 2001 was virtually a copy of 1997. This is the first time the Tories have shown any signs of life in about a decade, so while it's not a romp back into power, it is something.

There is no question, however, that I am not a fan of a good number of Conservative MPs. I remember some of them actively supporting Kerry and I found that to be rather disturbing. The Ken Clarkes of the Conservative Party are nothing nearly conservative, and I think the squishiness of that element of the party has damaged their credibility on the whole. It is unreasonable to say, however, that the Tories have not taken some kind of step forward tonight. Anything's better than what they had before, and they made up some ground, especially in London.

Undoubtedly, there's a lot of dim bulbs in the voting booth. Here in the US, too. Heck, in some places, a Democrat could rob a bank on national television, say "it's for the children", and get 75% of the vote in his or her next election. I saw many tonight on the BBC saying things basically to the effect of "I voted Labour because I just did". I think in some ways, it says more about the electorate than the Conservative Party. Yes, the Conservatives have trouble finding a message and YES they should get back to their old ways, but we cannot avoid at least some blame on the electorate that refused to turf their unpopular PM.