East Results Election 2017

Their share of the vote was down, reflecting the swing

Hello and welcome to your special Look East election programme

with all the results from Essex, Suffolk and Norfolk on what has been

a disappointing night for the Conservatives which has left

many in the party shocked and stunned.

In contrast it's been a good night for Labour with some

Here in the studio, guests from the three main political

parties and our correspondent, Andrew Sinclair, to shed

You can send us an email or leave a comment on our Facebook page.

We'll be featuring some of them later.

The Conservatives have gained one, Clacton.

Labour made a significant gain in Ipswich, taking

the seat from Ben Gummer, a Conservative minister and a man

responsible for helping write the party's manifesto.

The Lib Dems held their one seat in North Norfolk, Ukip have none.

So this is how the map of the region looks now - still dominated

Ian Barmer has a roundup of the night where in some

The political map of the East might still be a sea of blue,

but this morning the party celebrating will be Labour.

than doubled his majority. For that, than doubled his majority. For that,

he thanked Theresa May. If you're going to say, I am the greatest,

Muhammad Ali style, you turn around and trip over your own feet on the

way to the ring and don't show up, the British public, if you are going

to say I am the big I am, strong and stable, the best leader, and you

don't show those qualities, you are in trouble. The best result for

Labour was in Ipswich, one of the authors of the Conservative

manifesto, Ben Gummer, was one of their biggest scalps. I leave not

just with a great deal of pride, but with an enormous sense of gratitude

to the people of the town of Ipswich. After the declaration, you

didn't stay around for interviews. The story for the Liberal Democrats

was Norman Lamb holding on in North Norfolk,

despite a concerted campaign by the Conservatives to take

the seat he's held since 2001. James Wild left without speaking to

journalists. Our cameraman was jostled out of the way.

You help people through personal crises in all sorts

In so many cases, they come back to you to say,

It's often years and years after the event.

But that personal loyalty that they have shown, I think,

This has been the biggest and most intense campaign we have ever fought

In Colchester, Lib Dem Sir Bob Russell failed

The story there was another Conservative hold.

For the Tories, that was the picture in seat after seat across the East.

The party held on, often comfortably, but often

Its one big success and only gain in the east was Clacton,

I had a sneaking feeling it was going to go my way.

But this huge majority I seem to have got today is just

I am going to work very hard for you.

Norfolk, Suffolk and Essex were strongly conservative before the

election. Overall, it stayed that way, but the story of the night was

a much better showing for Labour. Let's see what our guests have to

say about that. Therese Coffey, you held onto your seat, but it was a

gamble that did not pay off for the Conservatives? The prime Minister

set up the reasons why she wanted the election, the Brexit

negotiations that are due to start in the next two weeks. That is why

she made the choice she did. This is not the night you wanted or were

expecting? I won't pretend we wanted to lose seats across the country,

not at all. What we saw was a significant increase in our vote

nationally, but also regionally. It has been an extraordinary election.

Labour has moved up and the other parties have been squeezed out,

almost out of existence. But Norman did well to continue on in North

Norfolk. The Conservatives increased their share locally. But Labour did

even better, Sandy Martin? Congratulations, new Labour MP for

Ipswich. Again, it wasn't the night you were expecting? It wasn't the

night I was expecting when the campaign started, no. We were all

taken aback slightly by the Prime Minister's sudden announcement of an

early election. She said she wanted to produce a Government that was

strong and stable. Instead I think she has ended up looking weak and

wobbly. Over the course of six weeks, I think we found that more

and more people were looking at the issues, that Labour was discussing,

looking at what the Conservatives were promising in their manifesto

and they just didn't like it. So it was the issues, then? I think so,

yes. Norman Lamb, tough fight for you in North Norfolk. You held on,

but it was tough? Absolutely. It felt like an endurance test. They

threw everything at me. When you have thousands and thousands of

letters coming from the Prime Minister, seeking to persuade people

to desert me, it feels rather special that is all failed. People

have shown an enormous loyalty to me, which I appreciate enormously.

And it was a failure on behalf of the Conservatives, because you tried

very hard? Five Cabinet ministers, they have never shown so much

interest in North Norfolk. It is fair to say, as people may know,

James Wild is married to a member of the cavernous and don't be surprised

if some Cabinet ministers come to visit. -- to a member of the

Cabinet. James Ward a local lad, a candidate that only became candidate

very recently. The snap election, and I understand why people may say

the Conservatives were trying to use it for their advantage, you can see

what has happened across the East of England, the benefit of incumbency,

largely. Of course Sandy did do well in Ipswich. This will go down as an

historic miscalculation by the Prime Minister. I think it is that old

thing of taking people for granted, assuming that there was going to be

a significant majority. People chose differently. I think the big mistake

that Theresa May has made is to call the election to make the case at the

start, then not be willing to debate it. I want to bring in our political

correspondent, is that how you see it? Well, a lot of people are

scratching their heads, trying to work out what has happened. If you

look at the share of the vote in this region, the Conservatives are

up 6%, Labour up 11%. Both parties picked up new voters. Both parties,

you could say, have had a good election campaign. No change in the

Lib Dem share of the vote, the Ukip is down 14%, the Greens down 2%. We

are returning to 2-party politics. Two other things have played in this

election. The first is the Conservative manifesto, all of the

parties are telling me the minute it came out, the policies on social

care in this region, which has a large elderly population, really

played big and affected the Conservatives. We will talk more

about that in a minute. We think a large number of young people voted

yesterday for the first time, that probably benefited Labour. More from

all of you in a moment. I just wanted to turn to one of the Labour

success stories, Norwich South MP Clive Lewis, who has more than

double his majority, which now stands at more than 15,000.

I caught up with him shortly after the declaration

and he admitted it was a complete shock.

We thought that we were going to have a real fight on our hands

So when I was telling people, you know, this could go either way,

people were going, "Of course it's not, Norwich South isn't..."

And we know the Tories definitely thought it could.

Well, obviously a fantastic local team.

We had people, I've never seen as many people

So, people from across Norfolk, Labour activists coming out to help.

Not just on the day, but throughout the election.

I think it captured people's imagination on the doorstep.

A lot of people said, "We get it, we like this manifesto."

And then I think our super weapon was Theresa May.

You also paid tribute in your acceptance speech

to the Lib Dem voters and the Greens as well.

Lib Dem and Green voters played a massive part in this.

Look, I understand that many of the people that voted for me

So you benefited from an anti-Conservative vote,

There were people that were saying, given a choice

between Jeremy Corbyn and Clive Lewis, and the Labour

Party, their manifesto, and Theresa May and the Tory party,

their candidate, and the politics of despair, people had made a clear

choice between those two very different manifestos,

So is your very much increased majority because of Jeremy Corbyn,

I would say that the majority I have today is, in part,

because of Jeremy Corbyn and the manifesto that he and

Yet still, when you look at our region, when you look

at Norfolk, Suffolk and Essex, it is still a sea of blue.

You have a long way, Labour has a long way to go?

And I think we shouldn't get carried away with the result.

I think people understand that there has been a bit of a turning point.

This manifesto, this leader, was meant to bomb and be wiped out.

He's actually prospered and done better than anybody

And you, of course, have been a supporter from the start.

Does that mean now you are looking at another job

If I'm offered something, of course I'll look at it.

You know, it would be churlish not to.

At the moment, for me, I'm going to go and have a couple

of drinks now, I'm going to celebrate, I'm going to spend

time with my wife and then we'll see what happens on Monday

Clive Lewis, saying it was because of Jeremy Corbyn, not in spite of

him. For you, on the doorstep, it was policies, was it, that people

cared about, not personalities involved? It was policies, but first

of all because people are enthusiastic about the Labour Party

in a way that maybe they haven't been in the past. Secondly, because

the policies that they have been putting forward have been clear. We

haven't been hedging around. We said we would abolish tuition fees, we

didn't say we would reduce them or anything like that. That was playing

well with younger voters? Very much so. It wasn't just things for

younger voters, it was also the pledge to abolish the bedroom tax,

it was the pledge to raise the minimum wage, it was the pledge to

build 1 million new houses. What you're talking about is the

anti-austerity vote. Is that important? Absolutely vital. People

are fed up austerity. They can say it is not working, it is not

bringing the deficit down, it is not actually enabling our economy to

grow. They were very taken with the Labour manifesto. It was an Antaeus

-- and he vote? People were astonished by the magic money tree.

The idea of writing of student debt really boosted Labour, especially in

Norwich and university towns around the country. It played a massive

role in that, while a lot of my voters were saying we have got to

still continue to try to improve the economy and balance the books, and

the deficit is down from ?156 billion to close to ?50 billion, but

we still have a way to go. The other thing played a massive role was the

social care plan by the Conservatives. In our region, a lot

of older voters, quite frankly they didn't like it? I saw various

reactions. I think the timing of the postal votes coming out so quickly

after our manifesto launch, there was a clear reaction. I think our

policy, we should continue, and we did continue to try to explain what

it was, given that a lot of people had not realised the policies of

today, in terms of funding social care. I think there was that timing.

Nevertheless, as I say, across the region, our share of the vote

continued to rise. I'm not trying to say that there was one particular

thing here or there that particularly swung the election

either way in Ipswich or, indeed, Norwich South, to get the majority

we did. I do think student tuition fees were a big factor in many seats

around the country. Is this something you feel you will have to

respond to now? A lot of people worry about student tuition fees. Is

this something the Conservatives need to revisit? It is the Labour

Party that introduce them. And you kept them going? Vince Cable made

the decision for the Liberal Democrats, while in coalition, to go

together on that, and Vince was defending these decisions during the

election this time. You know, we now need to work today about what we're

doing about forming a government, with Theresa May still as Prime

Minister. But I suspect we will have to try to continue to do our bit

about still trying to work towards reducing the deficit, which we had

already set out our plans to do. I want to ask you about social care.

Was that something people were talking to you about? Did the

Conservative plan play into your hands a bit on the doorstep, do you

think? Was a massive mistake. The policy is and thought through. Where

people talking about it? Totally, it was shifting votes. I met a man

saying, I was intending to vote Conservative, I am not any longer.

That kept being repeated. The interesting thing was that it was

interplay between a policy issue, which is that, but then the U-turn,

unprecedented for a Prime Minister to disown her own manifesto. That

led to her priority leg authority being massively diminished. You can

see her ratings plummet. The challenge for you, you represent a

pro-Europe party. You also represent a constituency that returned a very

large Brexit vote. Where did that go? It is interesting, when we are

talking about the danger of making assumptions nationally, there was

also a danger locally. Many commentators assumed that block of

Ukip voters were transferred to the Conservatives. It is a lot more

complicated than that. Each person makes their own judgment about how

they want to exercise their democratic vote. We got a lot of

people who previously voted for Ukip. I have very pleased that I

managed to persuade us people to come to me. I think my perception

was that we went into the campaign convinced that Brexit would be a big

deal. I picked up on the doorstep that most voters would really

bothered about Brexit. That was last year's battle and they wanted to

talk about the other issues. The NHS and funding of schools, they all

came to the fore. Want to go live now

to our Chelmsford newsroom because we can talk Kemi Badenoch,

the newly elected Conservative One of the safest Tory

seats in the country, held for 40 years by Sir Alan

Haselhurst. So the result is not

a surprise for you? Well, that is what everybody says.

But I had no idea what was going to happen. On the doorstep, you hear

all sorts of things. It is not empirical, the canvassing data you

get back. But I am very pleased we have held our vote, increased our

vote share. I am delighted to have been elected. It was a good night

for you. Not so good in other places across the region. Your conservative

colleague in Norwich North has really only just held on. What do

you put that down to? I think that this time around our manifesto was

about tough decisions and tough choices that the country needed to

make. I think that is why this election was called, so that Mrs May

would have a mandate to carry out some difficult decisions. We have an

opponent that was offering lots of freebies and people decided to go

for that, unfortunately. Do you admire Theresa May? I do, I do. I

think she has got a lot of guts. I think she's very brave, very strong.

Many people would just have carried on as is and not taken the risk to

get their own personal mandate. She has been looking long term at the

problems that are coming down the line. Social care is something that

is talked about in every council up and down the country. No other party

have a solution to deal with it, but we did. People just did not want to

accept that it is a tough problem. I am interested, as far as Saffron

Walden is concerned, Sir Alan Hazelhurst held it for 40 years.

What will you be offering that is fresh and different? Well, Sir Alan

and I, the only key difference would be Brexit, I was Leave and he was

Remain. But we worked together closely on the campaign. I'm going

to be carrying on with a lot of the hard work he had been doing. As you

know, I am currently a member of a London assembly. I will be stepping

down shortly. I have been working on transport, which is a big issue in

the constituency. Commuters wanting more train capacity into London,

into Cambridge. You know, lots about Stansted airport. Airports are one

of the things that falls into my remit in London. We are going to be

doing a lot of work there. I do bring a lot of political experience

to the seat. Thank you for joining us and congratulations again.

Therese Coffey, we heard her priorities were, what are yours? I

always said I want to try to continue to make it an even better

place to live and work. That is about continuing our investment. We

are getting new trains coming through, which then and Chloe have

been instrumental in, in securing network. -- Ben and Chloe. We are

seeing more broadband, we are continuing to roll that out.

Focusing on continuing improving education skills. Hopefully we will

be getting Sizewell C. The party in general, should Theresa May stay on?

I think she should, she is the Prime Minister, she has increased his

share of the vote for the Conservatives nationally. She

absolutely has my support and I hope she will continue to finalise her

government. Norman Lamb, as we have been saying, you did hold on. It is

now down to this 2-party politics, isn't it? Things have changed and

things are not looking great for the Lib Dems? You are the only MP? We

have more seats than we started with, up to 12, compared to eight in

the last general election. That is an advanced nationally. You know, I

am not trying to claim this is a great success. This election is a

blip on the long-term trend. Over the long term, we have seen a fall

in the share of the vote going to the main parties. I think it is

dangerous to assume that is now what the situation will be for the

future, because I think the electorate is far more volatile.

Does the future of the Liberal Democrats include Tim Farron, or

would you like to have another go at leadership? I am just focusing on

North Norfolk, I am proud to represent... Tim Farron is the right

man to lead the party? Will wait to see what happens. You talk about

priorities. It is about going back to the case I have been making for

the last 18 months, for the parties to work together on the future of

the NHS and care, rather than coming up with daft ideas in the middle of

an election. Sandy Martin, after celebrating, what is your first

thing to do? Congestion is one of the main thing is holding back

economic growth in Ipswich. My first priority will be to try to persuade

the Department of Transport to transfer the money they have pledged

for the wet dock bridge to the North Ipswich bypass. I have looked up the

wet dock bridge, and a lot of my colleagues have done so as well,

including those that are fairly expert in transport. We cannot see

the point of it. A bridge that magnitude would cost an enormous

amount of money, we think about ?100 million. A Northern bypass is sorely

needed. You didn't back Jeremy Corbyn in the beginning. Have you

changed your mind? Is he the man to lead? He is the leader of the Labour

Party. We have a Democratic party. I don't know about the other parties,

but we have a Democratic party. We have proper leadership elections. We

choose the people we want to vote for for the leadership. But once the

leader is chosen, we back the leader. That is the situation. We

have been united. One of reasons the I wanted to stand in the election in

Ipswich was because I knew that I could get support from right across

the party. And I did. What do you make of it all? Lets not forget that

the Conservatives have done very well in this region again. They hold

30 out of 33 seats in the east. Some with enormous majorities, John

Whittingdale, 23,400. The supreme confidence that the Tories have had

throughout this campaign that they were going to make massive games and

not lose anything, that has gone this morning. This is a rather

shaken party. A quick word about Labour, they have done well. They

have still got four seats, but they have lots of second place is now. If

we have another election, when we have another election, that could

put them in good stead. Thank you all very much indeed. You can get a

detailed breakdown of the results where you live and more detail on

what Andrew was talking about by logging onto your local BBC website.

I can tell you that Suzy will be here at 1:30pm with an extended

lunchtime news and more analysis on that as well. I would like to thank

all of my guests, many of whom have had little or no sleep at all. And

thank you for getting in touch. Coming up, some of your comments,

together with the most memorable moments from what we can only call

MUSIC an election of surprises.

negotiations, I think duty calls and she will stay. Viewers are joining

us from around the