For the ultra-hardcore political junkies whose electoral cravings can never be satisfied, we’re offering up this open thread on today’s elections in the United Kingdom. Polls close at 10pm local time, which is 5pm Eastern (ie, right about now). While most constituencies start counting votes right away, some won’t begin until tomorrow morning, meaning who controls Parliament might not be known tonight if the election is close.
Some sites where you can follow the results (if you have others, please suggest them in comments):
Politics.co.uk | BBC | The Economist | Economist Liveblog
And for your viewing pleasure:
Current exit poll results project:
C-307
L-255
LD-59
I think they’ll have a few more seats than what is shown, but I’m not sure who that will come at the expense of.
except that the Silly Party won.
This is mainly due to the number of votes cast.
Quite interesting and good analysis, first constituency (Sutherland) reports results at 10:43 (5:43 EST) http://www.guardian.co.uk/poli…
But why do the Conservatives traditionally get a larger share of seats than their percentage of the vote, and vice versa for the Liberal Dems? Are British constituencies not of equal size, or did the districting process simply favor the conservatives?
What I think the exit poll means is that the Tories can probably put together a government with a sprinkling of minor party support. I think that means they can look to the right.
But I defer to people who actually know about this stuff. . .
I lived in the UK during the 1992 and 2002 elections, and during the 1997 elections I lived elsewhere in Europe and got most of my news from the BBC World Service. I am feeling kind of sad not to be there today (also wish Mr. desmoinesdem could have cast his usual vote for the LibDems).
I hope that exit poll is wrong, because it suggests the LibDems could actually lose seats. I was hoping they would pick up at least 30-40.
Victory for Labour in a safe constituency (Houghton Sunderland). But Conservatives up 8.4% from 2005.
Now showing 305 for Conservatives, 255 for Labour, and 61 for the Liberal Democrats. These Labour politicians should just emphasize that the vote really shows a desire for center-left governance, whether Labour was rejected or not, in response to the Conservatives and moderators saying that Labour cannot possibly be the leader in the next government.
We’re heading for a Conservative Govt. The conservative are getting their swing in the right areas (England) and are expected to out preform national swing in marginal seats. At this stage, conservatives are likely to be governing on their own with regional support. Looking more likely that the conservatives could get an overall majority themselves. I’m pretty much calling it for the conservatives.
What’s remarkable is the practical implosion of the lib dems, they’ve improved a bit but are barely going to increase their seat share at all. Clegg bubble has well and throughly burst.
understated Tory support.
Who knows?
n/t
1) The BBC is suggesting the Greens may have won their first seat in Brighton Pavilion. Caroline Lucas, the party’s leader is on her way to becoming an MP, if the reports are accurate.
2) (A comment) Edinburgh South just got a lib dem seat?
FiveThirtyEight has a liveblog of the results.
http://www.fivethirtyeight.com…
Sinn Fein got their first seat.
Yay . . .
/sarcasm
Also one for the Democratic Unionists (who are these people?)
I find it endlessly entertaining how the debate was supposed to focus on domestic issues that mattered, and gay marriage, abortion and religion were not brought up at all.
When will the US advance to that point and stop putting such focus on such things that don’t really matter that much? Looking at this UK election in contrast with our own midterms, they are just much more advanced then us when it comes to civility, there are no crazy teabagger types who oppose the Labour party over there, except for maybe the BNP, which has no power whatsoever.
Le sigh.
.
Now who the hell are these guy who just took a seat, looks like, from Labour.
Also, head of DUP has lost. If I am correct, this is a good thing for lefties. Yes/no?
First Conservative gain (Kingswood) – with a swing of 9%. If repeated, even just through England, I’m pretty sure that would be more than enough for a Conservative majority.
Gosh, it’s going to go back and forth tonight.
Torbay swings 1.1% from Conservative to LD in a close seat.
I don’t know if this is our past or future.
On the one hand the fact that they don’t poll individual races is rediculas and extremely annoying. This swingometer seems like something the leaders of the Dems and Repubs might have done in the early 1900s.
On the other hand the show of announcing the results while all of the canidates are standing together on stage, and the crowds all jeer and cheer could make for good tv if anyone completely loses it.
There were some genuine concerns about them winning a seat or two if I remember right or taking some local governments. How is it looking now?
Their #1 target, Guildford, swung 7% to the Tories, and they’ve already lost one of their seats to them.
This election is extraordinary. The story is changing drastically from one minute to the next. Only constant is the lib dems have imploded. Wales is swinging wildly for the conservatives in some areas resulting in shock Tory gains. Then again con are losing weak labour seats where they should be winning.
I’m generally a LibDem guy, but I was wondering how SSP Nation broke down in terms of Labour-Tory-LibDem!
is getting slaughtered in the Conservative seats they were suppose to be contesting in an attempt to hold control of parliament. Example: Hemel Hempstead went for the Conservatives by 0.1% in 2005….it went for them by 27.1%
With their UK election post. http://www.redstate.com/streif…
The comments just show how much intelligence oozes onto that website, with things such as “The most Left of the three is still Right of Obama. Ain’t we lucky?” and “The misery of welfare states like Great Britain, Your only choices voting are the communist, the not so communist, and the not so not so communist.”
What intelligent commentary. /facepalm
I just looked at the likely results, and as I suspected, the Conservatives made major gains yet fell short of a majority. Brown has a chance to stay in power but the latest projections (on wikipedia no less!) is Labour with 251 seats, and the Liberal Democrats with 69 seats for a total of 320, 6 short of a majority. Which other of the minor parties would be willing to help a Labour-Liberal Democrat alliance get to 326? Would Labour and the Liberal Democrats get together at all?
In my opinion the most likely result is something very similar to Canada: a Cameron led Conservative minority government. That would really unsettle the European markets who are already unsettled by Greece’s near bankruptcy but I have a hard time seeing Brown getting a coalition together and I think the Tory’s are even less likely to get a stable majority.
On 538, his last tweet (from just after poll closing) suggested that the Conservatives would get to 340 seats (15 over min majority)
As of 4:02 AM UK time, he liveblogged:
first past-the post system? Liberal Dems are clearly the ones who get their asses kicked bc of the system, but shouldnt Labour, who I think shares a very similar constituency as Liberal Dems, ever try to electoral reform? Labour may not benefit in the short-run, but long-term, consolidating the liberal leaning vote into something like instant run-off voting would really benefit the left parties.
What am I missing here?
Aren’t supporting the conservatives. Even for purely patriotic reasons. Clegg is as close as you can can’t to European leftist anti-Americanism. He wants to abolish the special relationship and move closer to Europe. He’s been very critical of US foreign policy and out if Iraq and afghanistan immediately. Cameron is a committed atlanticist and overall would be a friend of the US.
Can’t anyone else figure out that a two-party system is the only thing that works? The British really, really need a runoff system. Then moderately similar parties can run candidates in a race and not risk axing each other. There are so many seats where L+LD=majority, and there are a pitifully small number of winners with numerical majorities.
The Greens picked up a seat in Brighton Pavillion (in SE England) from Labour. Have they ever had a seat in this parliament before?
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/shared…
per http://www.economist.com/blogs…
per http://www.economist.com/blogs…
A Conservative won Oxford west & Abingdon 23,906 – 23,730, picking up a Lib Dem seat. I wonder if theres other results this close and if there will be recalls. Also, is this a ‘university district’? If so, it seems a little odd a conservative would get over 42% but i cant claim to know an extreme amount about UK politics.
Sinn féin is beating a unionist by 2 votes in Nortern Ireland.
In that absolutely no is happy:
Conservatives – not good enough to have majority rule or even minority rule
Labour- Worst result since 1930s
Lib Dems- devestating results, expecting as good as labour or better, got 1/5 as many seats
DUP (NI)- their leader, and current leader of Northern Ireland loses seat.
UUP (NI)- lost its only seat
SNP (Scot)- made no gains, 6 seats, hoped for 20 (well, no was mentioned by leader earlier in campaign)
Plaid Cymru (Wales)- No gains, expected 5
BNP- lost some ground, no where close to seat
UKIP- again no seats (main candidate injured in plane crash)
Only parties who did in any way well were Alliance party of Northern Ireland and Green party who each won one seat.
Someone mentioned this on the BBC today. Technically, the Queen goes first to the prime minister to ask him if he can form a government. If he says no, she goes to the leader of the opposition.
So even if the Tories seem to have an easier path to forming a coalition, the Queen will give Labour a chance first.
Ok I’m looking at what are possible coalition possibilities with the latest seat results.
The simplest one would be the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats joining together as those two together are enough for a majority. However if Clegg is going to join in a coalition it is more likely to be with Labour. Brown has said that he absolutely agrees with Clegg that some proportional representation is needed, but Cameron has only said an inquiry is needed. As Clegg has said that a proportional voting is his main condition for joining a coalition, not to mention that his party is more ideologically in tune with Labour than Conservative, I think he won’t join Cameron.
For a Labour led condition (258 seats) Brown could join with Liberal Democrats (57 seats) for 315 seats in total, still 11 short of a majority. The most likely minor party partner would be the left leaning Scottish national party (6 seats)for 321. Then Brown would need 5 more seats, either Sinn Féin (5 seats) which is then 326, a majority, or he could get Plaid Cymru (3 seats), SDLP (3 seats), or Green (1 seat). I think getting Brown getting the Lib Democrats, Scottish National Party, and SDLP will be easy, but with that he is still 2 votes short, and I believe both Sinn Féin and Plaid Cymru are nationalistic parties advocating independence for certain provinces that may not be politically popular in the rest of the nation.
For Cameron (Tory seats 306), I believe only Democratic Unionist (8 seats) and “Alliance” what ever it is (1 seat) are right wing, but that still isn’t enough for a Tory led majority. Even the last two seats in Parliament would only get him to 317 seats I believe, so Cameron would all but be required to get the Liberal Democrats on his side for a coalition.
All in all I still think that a minority led Cameron government is the most likely result but that if there is a majority it will be Labour led. Your thoughts?
I am not sure of Clegg’s exact proportional representation proposal but here is what the House of Lords would look like if the number of seats is based on the percentage of vote each party receives. From the 2010 election but only 649 seats (as the last district election hasnt been held yet).
Conservatives – 234 seats. 36.11% of the vote. Actual seats: 306
Labour: 188 seats. 29.02% of the vote. Actual seats: 258
Lib. Dem: 149 seats. 23.03% of the vote. Actual seats: 57
Dem. Unionist Party: 4 seats. 0.57% of the vote. Actual seats: 8
Scott. Nat. Party: 11 seats. 1.66% of the vote. Actual seats: 6
Sinn Fein: 4 seats. 0.58% of the vote. Actual seats: 5
Plaid Cymru: 4 seats. 0.56% of the vote. Actual seats: 3
Social Dem. & Lab. Party: 2 seats. 0.37% of the vote. Actual seats: 3
Green: 6 seats. 0.96% of the vote. Actual seats: 1
Alliance Party: 1 seat. 0.14% of the vote. Actual seats: 1
UK Independence Party: 20 seats. 3.10% of the vote. Actual seats: 0
British Nat. Party: 12 seats. 1.90% of the vote. Actual seats: 0
Ulster Conserv. & Unionists – New Force: 2 seats. 0.35% of the vote. Actual seats: 0
English Democrats: 1 seat. 0.22% of the vote. Actual seats: 0
Respect-Unity Coalition: 1 seat. 0.11% of the vote. Actual seats: 0
Tradional Unionist Voice: 1 seat. 0.09% of the vote. Actual seats: 0
I know an Independent won but im not sure what affiliation or ideology they have. Im sure he/she would have a seat under this system.