An hour ago the news here reported that the Tories will be more than 19 seats short and that Labour + Lib Dems won't be enough seats either. As for Northern Ireland parties, won't the other regional parties that lean to the left cancel them out? That's the gist I got from watching an interview with the guy in charge of BBC News America. I will be amazed if Brown pulls it off.

Regarding the polling mishaps, it sounds like what happened in Ohio in 2004 only without the rain. As a rule of thumb, check the party affiliation of the person(s) in charge of polling for the region(s) and if they happen to be member(s) of the party that benefits the most, suspect manipulation.

If you don't mind me saying, a system that lets one loser retain power and enter a coalition with the other loser (when they haven't had any Parliamentary power since about 1950), leaving the winner with nothing, is hideously broken.

Just a thought, because it looks to me like that's what's happening.

"A system that lets one loser retain power and enter a coalition with the other loser, leaving the winner with nothing, is hideously broken."

Maybe, but maybe not. Whatever coalition forms will likely be unstable and thus unable to govern for long. A no confidence vote seems inevitable. The question is how soon. Maybe it will take a little turmoil to get UK voters off the fence. Maybe it will take a few months of Tory rule for UK voters to decide the grass really is greener on the other side of the fence -- or to realize what a big mistake they've made. The rupture may be temporary, with a clear winner emerging in the next election. But... Why Isn’t Britain In More Trouble? "Britain faces a nasty adjustment" -- In some odd way it makes sense to let the Tories oversee the economic adjustments (i.e. let them deliver the bad tasting medicine). On the other hand, the UK could be about to succumb to an infection of American political disease, in which case expect nothing but broken government because broken government is necessary to condition people into hating the government so that the plutocrats can operate without hindrance. For insight into this disease see Suicide by Regressivism.

Surprisingly we're still not resolved yet - usually the actual result is called at about 4/5am but we're still waiting for all the seats to be called before any of the politicians even hints at possible directions.

From Nick Robinson's blog there's three potential groupings:

Quote:
LAB: 261
LD: 55
SDLP: 3
ALLIANCE: 1
Possible total: 320

CON: 306
DUP: 8
IND UN: 1
Possible total: 315

Or the potentially more stable (numbers wise) Con-LibDem, but I think that's too fundamentally opposed to both parties ideologies to be a serious contender unless the last few seats turn out radically different than predicted.

Quote: Original post by ukdeveloper
If you don't mind me saying, a system that lets one loser retain power and enter a coalition with the other loser (when they haven't had any Parliamentary power since about 1950), leaving the winner with nothing, is hideously broken.

Just a thought, because it looks to me like that's what's happening.

Nobody won the election though thats the problem. Although since we are a FPTP system yes the system is hideously broken.

Quote: Original post by Drazgal

Quote: Original post by ukdeveloper
If you don't mind me saying, a system that lets one loser retain power and enter a coalition with the other loser (when they haven't had any Parliamentary power since about 1950), leaving the winner with nothing, is hideously broken.

Just a thought, because it looks to me like that's what's happening.

Nobody won the election though thats the problem. Although since we are a FPTP system yes the system is hideously broken.

Indeed; I'm pretty sure we've had a situation in the past where the conservatives lost the 'popular' vote but still had enough seats to be the 'winner' based on our current system.

IMO at least two things need to be done;
- a change to how we get a 'winner'
- an option to vote for 'none of the above' which counts towards the final result

(the 2nd option would at least get me out to vote)

Granted, imo, we really need to rehash the whole system and the way we run the country to reflect the more modern times we live in.. unfortunately I don't know what the system would be yet and I dare say those in power have no intrest in introducing a real change which could/would do them out of a job..

Quote: Original post by Drazgal
Nobody won the election though thats the problem. Although since we are a FPTP system yes the system is hideously broken.

I am eligable to vote, but frankly I'd rather have as little to do with this charade as possible.

Conservative
36.2% of vote = 46% of representation

Labour
29.0% of vote = 39% of representation

Liberal Democratics
23.0% of vote = 8% of representation

Based on the current standing

Quote: Original post by ukdeveloper

Quote: Original post by ChurchSkiz
I never knew a crumpet was an english muffin. If you're in england, shouldn't you just be calling them muffins?

Nope, in the UK a "muffin" is one of these:

"English muffin" isn't a term used here, they're "crumpets".

So we're on par with Canadian Bacon here...

Man, UK politics is way more interesting. We haven't had people digging up the vagaries and surprising details of Article 2 since 2000. (Remember when it was just this side of possible for Gore to have become president and Bush vice-president?)

Would a coalition between the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats be possible? Obviously they're pretty far split ideologically, and I have only a tenuous grasp of parliamentary democracy, but it seems like the LibDems could use it to curtail executive excesses of a Conservative prime minister with the threat of a vote of no confidence.

Quote: Original post by Sneftel
Would a coalition between the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats be possible? Obviously they're pretty far split ideologically, and I have only a tenuous grasp of parliamentary democracy, but it seems like the LibDems could use it to curtail executive excesses of a Conservative prime minister with the threat of a vote of no confidence.

Possible, yes.. but only if they gave them something they wanted in exchange (voting reform would be a bit winner there, however the conservatives have said they would push for a 'no' vote).

Of course, the 'problem' is just as you say; whoever forms a coalition would control things which tends to stall the process a bit and of course a vote of no confidence would send everyone back to the polls which given the state of the world right now isn't a good thing at all.

The whole situation is very dodgy... it could work, for a while at least, but I'd be surprised if we weren't having another election in at the most 18 months from now.