General Election 2010: who did you vote for?

[Saracen]

Tories narrowly missed decapitating Ed Balls. A 9.3% swing to Tory wasn't quite enough, but it reduced a whopping great majority to just over 1000. A very good acceptance speech from him though, where the first thing he did was congratulate the Con candidate on a good clean fight and a far to successful one for comfort.


The LibDems did succeed in knocking Charles Clarke off his perch in Norwich South though. I doubt Brown and Balls will miss him much. Not a good night for former Labour Home Secretaries.

[finlay666]

Still no result from my area, I suspect it will stay Tory though

[Saracen]

70% of results declared, and about a tad under 50% of them are Tory. If that persists, the Tories will hit 322 seats of the 326 they need for an overall majority. It's still a possibility, and at least a large minority looks likely.

[educatedfool]

Looks like democracy has failed.

[Saracen]

Depends how you assess the democratic will.

Currently, the Tories have 36.7% of the vote and don't quite have a majority share of the seats. At the 2005 General Election, Labour only got 35.3% of the vote, but a 33 seat overall majority.

By that score, if this is a fail, 2005 was a far bigger fail.

[TooNice]

Nothing in my area yet either (Labour has a strong hold).

So, what's your assessment of Mr Balls?

I am largely here as the resident insomniac as someone who follows politics closely but recent threads on Hexus has been enlightening.

[Saracen]

.....

So, what's your assessment of Mr Balls?
....

Personally, much as it is for Brown ..... but his constituents elected him again, if a bit narrowly. Still, under FPTP he only needs a majority of 1.

[TooNice]

I mean, as a politician. Do you think that he would make a good leader for Labour?

First Green Party MP elected. Even though than the BNP.

And what's the name of the independent who lost his seat?

[Saracen]

Barking result is in. Margaret Hodge is one of the few Labour incumbents to get a swing from the Tories .... probably as an anti-BNP vote. Nick Griffin was after that seat and failed miserably. His share of the vote dropped, and he was apparently after 2nd place and didn't get it.

[j.o.s.h.1408]

Still no result from my area, I suspect it will stay Tory though

how do u check results in your area?

[Saracen]

I mean, as a politician. Do you think that he would make a good leader for Labour?

I'm not really familiar enough with the workings of any of the parties to know who'd make a good leader. I'm far from familiar with the details of factions within Labour, and what level of support Balls might have. From hat little I do know, I doubt he'd get it, if only because he's seen somewhat as Son of Brown.

[Saracen]

how do u check results in your area?

Here. Menu on the left.

[Lucio]

...
Update ... about 2/3 of the results in, and :-

Labour 5.6m votes = 168 seats
LibDem 4.6m votes = 35 seats.

Hardly seems fair.

There's a fascinating article in the New Scientist about how no voting system is a mathmatically fair system. Even the much trumpted "proportional representation" system that the LibDems wanted for so long would provide an accurate representation of the people's wishes

[Saracen]

There's a fascinating article in the New Scientist about how no voting system is a mathmatically fair system. Even the much trumpted "proportional representation" system that the LibDems wanted for so long would provide an accurate representation of the people's wishes

"Would" or "wouldn't"?

I agree everything has problems, but when the degree to which the people are represented is so grossly distorted, it does seem to me to push the idea of "democracy" pretty hard.

For instance, as I type this, the Tories already have more people recorded as voting for them than the total that voted for Labour in 2005, and there's still more than 60 results to come.

In 2005, 9,566,618 Labour votes compared to 8,785,941 for the Tories gave Labour 356 seats and the Tories 198, i.e. a Labour/Tory majority of 158.

This time, so far, 9,821,224 votes for the Tories gives them 284 seats, and 7,714,788 for Labour gets them 231.

Or to out it another way, in 2005, Labour got a large overall majority with 35.3% of the vote. The Tories so far have 36.5% of the vote and are not expected to get a majority at all. The system works in Labour's favour, largely due to the size and borders of constituencies, meaning that the Tories need about 6% more than Labour just to break even. And if the Tories are hard done by in terms of how votes translate into seats, they are far less hard done by than the LibDems where, last time, 22% of the vote got them 10% of the seats.

[educatedfool]

Bring on the hung parliament, this **** is exciting.

[shadowmaster]

Bring on the hung parliament, this **** is exciting.

I know, this is quite entertaining. Looks like we have found an advantage to politics