Not for debate as politics can get heated but just for information for those not in the UK.

The Conservatives did far better than expected and David Cameron will be meeting the Queen at 12.30 in regards to forming the new government. The Queen is returning from Windsor, she hadn't been expecting to have to be in London today.

Resignations are expected from the leaders of both the Labour and the Liberal Democrats as they both fared much worse than expected with Labour losing virtually every Scottish seat and the Liberal Democrats just losing most of their seats.

Nigel Farage, UKIP, didn't get elected and said prior to the election that if he failed to be elected then he will resign so that could be three party leaders going.

As I said, this is purely for information so please let us keep it that way and not get it heated. Any posts which are likely to cause a problem will be deleted.

It has certainly been different to what everyone had been expecting. It's been an interesting night and morning so far.

Thanks for the info, Sue, as my local newspaper had to go to press before anything definitive was known. The article simply said things were trending the way you said it ended up.

What is very interesting, in my opinion, is that all the poll had been showing Conservatives and Labour as being neck and neck all the way but then once polling ended the exit polls showed a completely different, and fairly accurate prediction.

There is now to be an investigation as to how the previous polls had been so wrong.

http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/election-2015-i...t-wrong-1500396

A pensioner placed a bet predicting a Tory win, he wagered £30,000 at 7/1, that is his pension taken care of for a while.

I hadn't even heard about the elections until a coworker mentioned it to me...he is from Newcastle originally, so he was definitely in the "know".



I would think by 5am UK time they would have known something, right? When is press time for your newspaper, jabb? Somewhere around midnight local time?

By 5am they knew what way things were going but I'm not sure when exactly they knew that the Tories would have an absolute majority - there are many rural areas that never declare their final results until the Friday morning/lunchtime.

On the Thursday evening Paddy Ashdown said that if the exit polls were accurate he'd eat his hat live on tv... the following day the BBC presented him with a hat made out of marzipan - I hope he ate it all!

Oh yum I would!
I wish I had put a bet on as I was so sure they would walk it.

The new MP for Aberavon in Wales is Stephen Kinnock, son of former Leader of the Labour Party, Neil Kinnock. What I find unusual is that Stephen is the husband of the Danish Prime Minister, Helle Thorning Schmidt.

Not sure how they are going to split their time between countries/constituencies while maintaining a happy marriage, although the electorate must be happy since they voted him in.

How may different "parties" do they have? I have heard Labour (this looks so incorrect to me lol), Conservative, and now Tory...

edit to add: in most cases here in the US, the elections are usually called by midnight Eastern time, because the last poll that is of importance (Alaska (1 hour behind California) and Hawaii (2 hours behind California) have six electoral votes combined) closes at 10pm Eastern time (California - with 55). With the exception of a few states (the list escapes me at this time), polls close at 7pm local time.

SNP win 56 of the 59 seats in Scotland!

There is a full list of parties at the bottom of this Wiki page. Too many to count!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Candidates_standing_in_the_United_Kingdom_general_election,_2015

Conservative and Tory are the same

Which are the largest parties? Something like Democrat and Republican in the US...Conservative/Tory and Labour?

I ask because I don't know UK politics lol.

That article makes it very clear Dave, but yes Tory and Labour are the main parties.
The BBC have made a series called "Inside the Commons", available on DVD. It explains a lot of the quirks and strange customs in the ways of parliament in England. I really enjoyed it.

I think one big difference here compared with the UK is that almost anyone can stand for Parliament, they just have to pay a deposit of £500 which is lost if they do not secure enough votes, currently 5% of the votes cast in the constituency. Flopsymopsy could stand as a candidate for the British Llama party if she so wishes.

Obviously it is different for those in the major parties, they need to be selected by their party.

http://www.parliament.uk/get-involved/elections/standing/

Republican would be similar to Conservatives, Democrats similar to Labour I think.

As for declaring, it isn't done in the same way as the US, television programmes keep us informed of who has won each seat and the final results are in by about lunchtime the following day. Votes are cast on paper, not by machine, so are counted by hand.

Five years ago it was not decided until about five days later, the two major parties had talks with smaller parties about cutting deals, that is how the Conservatives ended up in bed with the Liberal Democrats.

Ha! I'd get loads of votes, loads. Llamas, rabbits, all sorts.



Americans are far more conservative than we are. Democrats are actually philosophically more like the mid-range/liberal Conservatives. I don't think we have a real equivalent to the Republicans, at least not in the sense of having a directly equivalent party.

Right, I just assumed that they were left and right wing.

That is what they call ours here...left-wing for the Democrats and right-wing for the Republicans. Now as to who is more conservative between the USA and the UK...I'm not touching that "with a 39½ foot pole", as Thurl Ravenscroft sang some 50 years ago (the Grinch cartoon).



Some of ours declare as soon as a poll closes, because in about 90% of cases, they are correct. At 9pm Central (7pm Pacific), the news networks all call California immediately, as that is when their polls close, even without a single vote counted and reported. In most cases, New York, Texas, and California are all called as soon as the polls close (three of the four largest states population-wise, albeit in reverse order - I can't remember if Florida or New York state is higher; they seem to run neck-and-neck), but Florida sometimes takes awhile. This may be a dumb question, but the television programs that keep you informed, are they not declaring anything at all?

Each constituency declares the winner of that constituency so as each one declares the television channels show the results so you can see who is winning.

So, in other words, each city/county (whatever y'all call them) informs the news media. Using just Texas as an example, we have 254 counties in the state...each county has multiple cities and precincts (the city I am in has six or seven precincts within the city). Does each precinct report to the news media, or do they report up the chain and the county seat (usually but not always the largest city in the county, but it is the one with the county's courthouse) report to the news?

People from the media are normally present when the result is announced so it is broadcast live.

I don't think that there can be any similarity, we are talking about a win representing a person elected to serve as a member of parliament. We are only talking of 650 seats.

Our general elections every other year have 468 (all 435 members of the House of Representatives and 1/3, or 33 (every six years, 34) Senate seats) seats up for reelection, so that part seems similar to me, or at least I think it does, as results are broadcast live as they come in to the news media.

Texas has 36 Representatives for an idea of how they do it (The House delegation is based on populace of the states, larger states have more seats than smaller states, as Alaska† has one Representative, yet California has 53), yet the Senate is equal...all 50 states have two.

†I use California, Alaska, and Texas in this comparison as Alaska is the largest state by area (although true Texans will never admit it), and Texas is the second largest by both area and population, and California is largest in population.

If I remember correctly in the UK, there is the House of Commons and the House of Lords (I may have the names incorrect), but how many are in each chamber? I don't believe the UK as aa whole has as many residents as Texas does by itself (last census was about 26 million in Texas, but that was as of April 1, 2010)...but they have 650 seats between both chambers? Also, both Jersey and Guernsey have no seats in either chamber, do they?