UK Election Thread, The M.P. Who Shagged Me

http://www.nus.org.uk/en/News/News/NUS-condemns-election-officials-as-st...

Students have complained that they were denied the right to vote because of a decision to segregate student voters from other members of the electorate, the latter having been fast-tracked.

Someone asked for percentages: 

CON 35% LAB 28% LDEM 22%, : LAB to CON swing: 5.9%, betting market: 89% chance of hung parliament

Current results:  (325 of 650 seats)

Conservative   153  (35.5%)

Labour  122   (27%)

Liberal Democrat   23  (22%)

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/shared/election2010/results/

I was just thinking the same thing aka Mycroft!  Luckily half the polls still need to be declared! Here's to hoping!

aka Mycroft wrote:

Labour and the Lib Dems combined have fewer seats than the Tories.

So?

The only party given anything approaching a mandate tonight is the Conservatives.

Lib Dem support was obviously a mile wide and an inch deep.  There appears to have been a fairly significant swing from the Lib Dems to the Tories (resulting in the loss of some incumbent seats), which has been counterbalanced somewhat by a swing from Labour to the Lib Dems (resulting in a few gains at the expense of Labour), but overall it looks like a wash for the Lib Dems. The Tories seem to be doing slightly better than the polls were predicting and it may be that at the end of the night, with the support (tacit or otherwise) of Unionist Northern Ireland MPs, he will have something close to a de facto majority.  Seems doubtful that a Labour-Lib Dem coalition would have a majority of seats.

ETA: Best-Name-For-A-Cabinet-Minister-Ever Ed Balls has just been re-elected with a slender majority, denying the Tories their "Portillo moment".  No senior cabinet figures have been defeated so far.

According to the BBC, at this point in the evening the results are as follows:

Conservatives are up 56 seats

Labour is down 49 seats

Liberal Democrats are down 6 seats

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/shared/election2010/results/

ghoris wrote:

ETA: Best-Name-For-A-Cabinet-Minister-Ever Ed Balls has just been re-elected with a slender majority, denying the Tories their "Portillo moment".  No senior cabinet figures have been defeated so far.

So Balls' up then?

The Conservatives have won very close to half of the decided seats. Given the dashed expectations of the Liberal Democrats, the remaining questions are how close the Conservatives will come to an absolute majority and whether the Unionists will have enough to push them over the top if they are close. I think Labour should be somewhat relieved to hand over power to the Conservatives in a minority situation, given the economic situation, particularly if the Tories don't have a working majority. It is looking like it will be somewhat similar to our last election.

ghoris wrote:

I expect there will be a late surge for both Labour and the Lib Dems, as the seats in large urban centres (London, Birmingham, Manchester) which are traditionally more friendly to them than to the Tories, seem to be among the last to report.

True.  There's a large section of London seats that are not in yet, although they are not all going to go Labour.

Some are expected to go Conservative, including Finchely-Golders Green, Margaret Thatcher's old seat, which Labour is expected to lose.

Caroline Lucas has won Brighton Pavilion to become the first-ever Green MP elected to Westminster.

Augustus wrote:

ghoris wrote:

I expect there will be a late surge for both Labour and the Lib Dems, as the seats in large urban centres (London, Birmingham, Manchester) which are traditionally more friendly to them than to the Tories, seem to be among the last to report.

True.  There's a large section of London seats that are not in yet, although they are not all going to go Labour.

Some are expected to go Conservative, including Finchely-Golders Green, Margaret Thatcher's old seat, which Labour is expected to lose.

Fair enough, but as you pointed out the Tories have had disappointing results in London so far. They have only picked up one seat - Battersea - and they have lost a number of seats they had heavily targetted such as Hammersmith and Tooting. Thus far the swing to the Tories from Labour has been much lower in seats with significant minority populations, which suggests to me that it is going to be rough going for the Tories in London. They might pick up a few seats around the margins (the aforementioned Finchley, and it looks like they are set to snatch Richmond Park from the Lib Dems) but I do not see a big swing to the Tories in London.

The Lib Dems have just lost another seat - this one to the Conservatives in Richmond Park.

Labour also holds the neighbouring Dagenham seat despite a 5% swing to the Tories. The BNP edges the Lib Dems for third place.

Apparently the reason for the delay in counting the London seats is that there are a number of concurrent local authority elections, and so the ballots have to be separated and sorted.

ghoris wrote:

Augustus wrote:

ghoris wrote:

I expect there will be a late surge for both Labour and the Lib Dems, as the seats in large urban centres (London, Birmingham, Manchester) which are traditionally more friendly to them than to the Tories, seem to be among the last to report.

True.  There's a large section of London seats that are not in yet, although they are not all going to go Labour.

Some are expected to go Conservative, including Finchely-Golders Green, Margaret Thatcher's old seat, which Labour is expected to lose.

Fair enough, but as you pointed out the Tories have had disappointing results in London so far. They have only picked up one seat - Battersea - and they have lost a number of seats they had heavily targetted such as Hammersmith and Tooting. Thus far the swing to the Tories from Labour has been much lower in seats with significant minority populations, which suggests to me that it is going to be rough going for the Tories in London. They might pick up a few seats around the margins (the aforementioned Finchley, and it looks like they are set to snatch Richmond Park from the Lib Dems) but I do not see a big swing to the Tories in London.

If that's the case, the total of Labour and Lib Dem may be greater than Conservative and Unionist, in which case Labour could retain power with the support of the Lib Dems and other parties. The BBC forecast is the Conservatives don't have enough seats to prevent that possibility.

Labour just got resoundingly defeated in Portsmouth North.

The Labour MP who was defeated here was involved in the Expenses controversy.  Glad to see that several of the MP's involved in that scandal have been punished.

takeitslowly wrote:

Nick Clegg has alot of bargainning power, potentially speaking and their party must demand a referendum for PR REFORM, this could be epic!

There's one downside for Nick Clegg though - his party is not performing that well, and is actually losing seats.  Considering the lack of mandate he has received, there is only so much he will be allowed to demand.

N.Beltov wrote:

The gap between the Conservatives and the sum of Labour/Lib Democrat is narrowing. The Conservative tide looks to be ebbing and they are S.O.L. in terms of forming a majority. If the trend continues and the Lib Dems side with Labour then the Conservatives will not even be able to form a government.

Electoral reform would be a positive result out of this election. It might convince some political neaderthals in our own country that reform is necessary here as well.

The Conservatives have won the largest number of seats, and the Dems may be expected to side with them.

Things are picking up now!

Nick Clegg just spoke and acknowledged that it was a disappointing night for the Lib Dems.

Meanwhile, the Conservatives have taken another seat from Labour in Warrington South.

Look at that only 500,000 confirmed fascists in all England... so far.

Do you think the US State Department is going to issue a statement expressing its concern over election irregularities, given the large numbers of people who were unable to vote?

Finchley & Golders Green has finally reported and is back in Conservative hands!

Good to see this happen during Margaret Thatcher's lifetime.  She deserved to see this.  

The Liberal Democrats have lost another seat, this one in Camborne & Redruth, to the Conservatives.