JASPER Carrott put his finger on it. During an interview with the Telegraph & Argus on the day of the General Election, the stand-up comic wondered if the pollsters’ forecast of a hung Parliament dominated by Labour and the SNP might turn out to be wrong.

“I get the feeling that people have told them one thing but will quietly go and vote for the Tories,” he said. In many places they did.

The SNP triumph in Scotland was achieved totally at the expense of Labour in spite of the party of Blair, Brown and Miliband enjoying years of dominance north of Berwick-on-Tweed.

Labour had more success in Bradford, taking Bradford East from Liberal Democrat David Ward and Bradford West from the Respect Party’s man in the hat George Galloway.

Gerry Sutcliffe, former Labour Minister for Sport, who ended his 21-year career as an MP before the election, said: “When things go badly for Labour nationally they go well locally, and when they go well locally they go bad nationally.

“I think Naz Shah’s victory in Bradford West represents the end of sectarian politics in the constituency.

"All sections of the community voted for her, not just Asians, in Clayton and Thornton and Heaton.

"I think the influence of clan politics – the biradari – is dead and buried,” he said.

“In Bradford East, David Ward was a strong constituency MP but we put up a strong campaign and his voters just ditched him.

“Nationally, Labour has to get back to basic campaigning, listening to what people want.

"Ed Miliband was always a problem on the doorstep, people didn’t like that he’d taken over from his brother. He was seen as very much a Westminster politician.

“If the Tories bring in boundary changes (they were prevented from doing so by their Liberal Democrat partners) it will be a long hard climb for Labour.”

Following his defeat David Ward ruefully reflected on the impossible position Liberal Democrats were in. “Two things I heard on the doorstep were: ‘Why don’t you politicians work together more?’ and then ‘Why did you betray your principles by working with the Tories?’” he said.

“In the five years we’ve had sharing power, there are 1,500 fewer unemployed in Bradford East, nearly £90m extra in funding for schools through the Pupil Premium with free school meals for nursery children and even sixth form pupils; the average person is £800 a year better off and pensioners have had five good years.

“All these were Liberal Democrat initiatives. Was it worth what happened to us on Thursday? Yes it was. With less than ten per cent of the members of the House of Commons we got 80 per cent of our manifesto promises through.”

With the exception of constitutional change in the form of Proportional Representation, and of course the party was blamed for Nick Clegg’s U-turn on student tuition fees, even though the policy had been introduced by Tony Blair’s Labour Government.

Professor Colin Mellors, former Pro-Vice Chancellor of Bradford University and York University, is not an election pundit; but he is an experienced psephologist, one who looks at voting trends, polls and results and makes deductions about voter behaviour and the consequences for political parties.

He said: “Constitutional change doesn’t excite the electors; but I am sure that PR will come back into the fore in the future. For example, Ukip can claim to have done rather well in the North, with 16 per cent of the vote, but with no MPs to show for it.

“We have a majority Government on a 65 per cent voter turnout with only a 37 per cent share of the vote. It does raise issues about political legitimacy.

“We have an electoral system of first-past-the post that suits single parties in a multi-party system. The commitment of voters is weaker than it was.

“In Sheffield Hallam there was a 20 per cent drop in the Tory vote to keep Nick Clegg in and keep the Labour Party out.”

The union with Scotland and Britain’s membership of the European Union will be two big issues in the next five years. David Cameron, who intimated early in the campaign that he would not seek a third term of office, has already promised an in-out referendum in 2017 on the European Union.

If some europhiles hoped that would work against his chances of being returned this time they were as spectacularly wrong as the pundits who forecast a hung parliament with the SNP holding the balance of power.

Shipley’s Conservative MP Philip Davies hopes the Prime Minister will be as good as his word.

He said: “The result will enable him to pursue more Conservative policies, pushing the EU referendum bill through Parliament. I would also like him to scrap the Human Rights Act.

“As far as the Bradford goes I am delighted there will be two Conservative MPs (Keighley’s Kris Hopkins is the other) to speak for the district to the Government.”