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Yes, I think it’s clear that *every single* conservative is a bigoted, racist misogynist.

Reading West is not the only exception… the results in Witham and Gillingham and Rainham were also notably good.

The result in Surrey East (whilst showing a fractional swing to the Lib Dems) wasn’t bad. It saw an increase in the Tory vote, and vote share – to almost 57%.

There are three results where the Tories had ethnic minority candidates which were disappointing:

1) Here in Maidstone – but as Pete points out that was apparently Labour voters switching to the Lib Dems.

2) Spelthorne. Again, there was an element of Labour voters switching Lib Dem… and Kwasi Kwarteng was selected quite late in the day so didn’t have much time to campaign, unlike Alok Sharma, Priti Patel and Rehman Chishti.

3) Bromsgrove. The worst of these results, showing a fall in the actual numerical vote. I expect, maybe wrongly, that this is the seat where race played the biggest part in the outcome. People here may look at Birmingham and frown a bit. Even so, there are other factors to consider here: The fallout from Julie Kirkbride’s well-publicised issues can only have harmed the party, and I think Sajid Javid was only selected a few weeks before the election (and the shortlist having been drawn up by CCHQ won’t have helped with perceptions – Kwasi Kwarteng didn’t have that baggage).

Not really. Swing is fairly meaningless. It isn’t very surprising that the Conservative share is down given the large personal vote that Ann Widdicombe enjoyed and which far outperformed the Conservatives performance in local elections.
Looking at the the change in vote share for each party
Con -2.5
Lab -13.0
LD +12.4

Which equates to pretty much a straight swing from Labour to LD (as in Canterbury) and is to an extent in line with Labour’s very poor performance in Kent generally, but if you wish to draw conclusions about the reluctance of a party’s supporters to vote for certain type of candidates, it would appear here that this applies to Labour supporters being unwilling to vote for an Asian candidate.
The Lib Dem candidate as a former RAF officer and a haulier who was involved in fuel protests is clearly not on the sandals and lentils wing of the Liberal democrats and would have been well placed to pick up votes from both Labour and Conservatives amongst the kind of demographic who might be lukewarm towards candidates from ethnic minority backgrounds. As I say, in as much as this was any kind of factor, it clearly impacted more on the Labour than the Tory vote even after factoring national swing.

This can be explained as the loss of personal votes for Anne Widdecombe and a reluctance of people in this constituency to vote for a female non-white candidate.

This seems to be a trend amongst an element of the Conservative supporters, which is reversed when the MP stands for a second term in office. ( Reading West being a notable exception)

I expect a large increase in the Conservative majority in this constituency if Helen Grant proves to be an effective MP.

I expect the majority will go up somewhat, particularly if Labour regains a bit of support from the LDs,
unless there is a very bad result for the government after just one term or less.

Comparing this result to 1983 offers some consolation (although I accept they were different boundaries). The majority is similar, though the Tory vote share a couple of percent lower, the Lib Dems a tiny bit lower, and Labour is also lower… so the ‘Others’ have taken from all three main parties, to varying degrees.

Clearly there was significant transfer of the ’05 Labour vote to the Lib Dems this time round, but I suspect Labour will improve (nationally) in vote share at the next election and that may be reflected here to some extent.

By the way, did the BNP not stand here because the National Front was standing?