UPDATED POST: Well, unsurprisingly I think, Labour lost. Far more surprisingly, people were turned away from polling stations in some places without being able to cast their vote. The Guardian report is here.
11 thoughts on “UK Election”
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Feminist Philosophers 
hmmm. Labour lost but it isn’t clear the conservatives have won. They certainly can’t make a parliamentary majority. Nor could a Lib-Lab pact. There’ll be a lot of negotiating…
Disgraceful re voters being turned away. It seems in some constitutencies there was discrimination, with ‘residents’ and ‘students’ being asked to form different queues – the former being fast-tracked…
http://www.facebook.com/?ref=home#!/group.php?gid=121206334573223
People being turned away from polling stations (or selectively misdirected)? Discrimination? Hanky-panky of all kinds screwing up the election process? You’d think this was taking place in the US….
In order to win, a party would have to win a majority. The Conservatives did not do this. Otherwise, it falls upon the PM to resign (under threat of losing a vote of no confidence) before anyone moves into 10 Downing Street.
I still cannot imagine a Tory-Lib Dem coalition and I think Clegg is more likely to join with Labour. Together, they have the best chance and they have more than 54% of the popular vote.
Thom, what do you make then of Clegg’s saying (according to reports) that Cameron should form the gov’t?
Ah – I had’t realised the Conservatives hadn’t won a majority. (I’ve been unplugged for most of the day, hoping to get some work done!)
Stoat – I had no idea students and residents were asked to form separate queues and then residents were fast tracked! That’s pretty awful.
I’ve heard that although Clegg apparently doesn’t want to work with Brown, there’s no reason that Labour has to keep Brown himself as PM. Maybe they could come up with someone who could work with Clegg?
I’m taking comfort from the fact that whoever governs after this election has acquired a poisoned chalice. Remember what Mervyn King, governor of the Bank of England, said: severe austerity cuts will make the winner so unpopular they’ll be out of power for a generation. http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2010/apr/29/mervyn-king-warns-election-victor
Heg, I hate to spoil that comfort, but something equivalent was said in the US about the second Bush term. The thing it leaves out is that the bad people can still make things far worse.
Now, it might be that we’re close enough to bottom, but I have a feeling that’s not so.
Fair point.
@$fi!9ru$%?!%Egf*sh^@§ir!!
Iga:
That would be logical, but Brown is probably dreaming of remaining PM or becoming PM later this year. E.g.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/election-2010/7695794/General-Election-2010-Gordon-Brown-launched-telephone-rant-at-Nick-Clegg.html
I don’t when the soonest they could replace him as Labor leader without him resigning is
I was told that there’s no legal barrier to having the PM and the party leader be different people, but in practical terms I bet that would be pretty hard to arrange if Brown won’t cooperate.