General election 2015: This is how Ed Miliband could still become Prime Minister
The exit poll did not make pleasant reading for Labour supporters – but that doesn't mean all is lost
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Your support makes all the difference.While the exit poll did not make for the most pleasant reading for Labour supporters, all may not be lost for those hoping to see Ed Miliband in Downing Street.
With the Conservatives predicted to win 316 seats, they would be just ten short of forming an overall majority.
According to the exit poll, Labour is on course to actually lose 19 seats from 2010, while the Lib Dems have been predicted to be left with just ten seats – with the SNP apparently on course to take all but one seat in Scotland.
As shadow chancellor Ed Balls has pointed out however, if the exit poll is wrong by just ten seats then it could make life pretty tricky for David Cameron.
He told the BBC: "Even if the exit poll is right, that means the Conservative/Liberal Democrat coalition majority has gone from 72 to zero - David Cameron's ability to hang on in Downing Street is on a knife-edge and he will have to reach out to get support from the Ulster unionists.
"If the exit poll is wrong just by 10 seats - and all the information is that there are very close fights between Labour and Conservatives in seats right across the country - then suddenly David Cameron won't be able to get a majority in the House of Commons and it will fall to Ed Miliband as leader of the Opposition to then put a Queen's Speech before Parliament."
Questions have also been raised about the validity of the exit poll's results.
Shadow home secretary Yvette Cooper told the BBC: "Our first thought, I'm afraid, is to be puzzled because it doesn't reflect many of the conversations, the response we've had, including the response that we've had today, which was Labour voters coming out to vote with great enthusiasm."
Elsewhere, as pointed out by i100, John Curtice, who analysed the poll for the BBC, Sky News and ITV, told Bloomberg earlier this week how the increased number of marginal seats and the rise of smaller parties may skew the results of the poll.
He said: "Unless the polls are wrong, this is the closest election in 40 years.
"Once upon a time, you could concentrate on Conservative-Labour marginals, throw in a few Lib Dem seats and basically get it right. Until now you could ignore Scotland. You can’t ignore it any more."
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