London, May 8 (IANS) British Prime Minister David Cameron’s Conservative Party secured simple majority in the 650-member House of Commons, winning 326 seats in the general elections held on Thursday, media reported on Friday.
Ed Miliband’s Labour Party has secured 228 seats, the Scottish National Party (SNP) 56, and the Democratic Unionist Party and the Liberal Democrats are tied at eight, BBC reported.
Cameron said the election result is “clearly a very strong result for the Conservative Party”, and added the party has had “a very positive response to a very positive campaign”.
He said the Conservatives published a manifesto squarely for working people, and he hopes to be able to implement it in full.
The SNP has made a near-clean sweep with 56 out of a total 59 seats — recording its most successful general elections victory ever. Its previous best was in October 1974, when it won 11 seats. The party won six seats in 2010.
Labour suffered its worst defeat since 1987, losing 40 of its 41 seats in Scotland. Miliband apologised to MPs on losing their seats in the general elections, saying that it had been a “very disappointing and difficult night”.
“This has clearly been a very disappointing and difficult night for the Labour Party, we haven’t made the gains we wanted in England and Wales, and in Scotland we have seen a surge of nationalism overwhelm our party,” he said after the results were declared in Morley and Outwood, where he lost to Conservative candidate Andrea Jenkyns by 422 votes.
The Liberal Democrats lost 46 of their 56 seats.