The situation is good for Cameron but not perfect.
Positives;
Outright conservative majority - Gives him great legitimacy in the public's eye
Increased Share of vote and seats for a second termer is almost unheard of and makes him a hero in his party
Dispensing with the Lib Dems means he has ministerial posts to hand out to smooth over potential sticking points within his party.
He can push ahead with boundary reforms, which are both wholly legitimate and will favour the conservatives next election.
The opposition in England is in ruins, they will lack direction and a cohesive voice for some time.
Cons:
Despite all the backslapping in the old days this would have been regarded as a very slender majority indeed. As few as seven rebels could cause chaos. And the opposition benches are closely united against austerity.
Making the Right-to-buy pledge happen is going to get messy. Legally they are on uncertain ground at best, and the HA's will fight extremely fiercly and publicly. This could come back to haunt him, if the story catches fire it will throw the spotlight onto the whole issue of housing supply. The political balance for as long as anyone can remember has been held by home-owners and recent buyers - neither side want to tell people their houses will stop being cash cows. If the story takes off, a proper debate on the situation, and the widespread and worsening nature of the situation becomes part of public debate, it will (to a wholly unknown extent, admittedly) hurt the incumbent party.
Scotland is the most interesting issue. He now has to work with the greatest enemy he has, the SNP. The SNP have constantly said that this is not about devolution - they are now representing mass dissatisfaction with austerity, and a scandanavian style liberalism that is probably the prime enemy of modern conservativism. DC has already started to try and make it about keeping the UK together, knowing that this has considerable popular support in Scotland - but he risks riling the more moderate anti-devolution voters who are already infuriated, feeling they are not listened to. I can't for the life of me figure out where these conversations are going.
The next election for the LD's and Labour depends on them winning back parts of Scotland. So we'll end up with a situation where the Tories want the SNP to be able to say they have been a success, and Labour/the Lib Dems need the Scottish voters to feel that the SNP experiment has left them worse off.
I have to think it is a bit of a freak. The expectation upon the SNP will be sky high. But despite a better election performance than anyone dared dream, they didn't end up with the balance of power that would enable them to deliver over the next five years. They have it all to lose.
The LD's can't possibly do any worse. The coalition alienated core and marginal supporters alike. And the tories probably won't be able to play the LAb/SNP card again.
And what I've heard today about Labour reaching an existential crisis is largely journalistic drama.
Milliband started with zero respect and zero chance of winning the election. The recent polls and lessening of the negative perception of him made us forget that. It made me forget my shock at how leftist some of his campaigning was.
He addressed the economy as applied to working people in the wrong way. People with zero hours contracts must have thought, will I have a job at all? And people identify him as part of Brown's government. Most of this can be wiped away with nothing more than time, a fresh faced leader and front bench, a return to the centre. Maybe a message that starts with the economy, making their USP a demand that standards of living for ordinary working people are in line with economic growth.
