Lib Dems FTW.

Labour would be business as usual and business has not been awesome lately.

Conservatives would dump all over the country and we'd have a repeat of the country's craptacular state prior to 1997.

Lib Dems actually appear to have common sense. Huzzah.

Oh the nerdrage if the Tories win today will be so, sooooo great it's unbelievable. :O

EDIT: Whoops, forgot where I was posting. Post cleaned up. ^^;

Write-in vote for soup option.

I'm pulling for the Lib Dems from over on this side of the Atlantic. I've been a proponent of Mr Clegg for much longer than whomever jumped on the "Cleggmania" bandwagon after the first televised debate. On that thought, I found it fascinating that, in the last debate, both Clegg and Cameron (if I'm not mistaken) mentioned Obama, as though they might extract popularity from his ver name.

I'd be disappointed if the Conservatives came out victorious, but I wouldn't be entirely surprised. My expectation is that either the Tories or Labour (in an unlikely event) will have to suck up to the Liberal Democrats for a coalition, at which point Clegg becomes Warwick the Kingmaker and then Westminster makes Congress look efficient.

Just out of curiosity, how do the parties in the UK compare to the parties in the US?

BREAKING NEWS!

The gloves are off!

Sensing a threat from the United Kingdom Independence Party, King Brown may or may not have used underhand techniques and tried to blow Nigel Farage's plane out of the sky!

Reports from the Beeb...

The former UK Independence Party (UKIP) leader Nigel Farage has been injured in a plane crash in Northamptonshire.

The plane carrying two people crashed at Hinton in the Hedges Airfield at Steane, near Brackley, at 0759 BST.
Mr Farage was taken to hospital in Banbury with non-life threatening injuries, and the pilot was transferred to University Hospital in Coventry.
The plane came down an hour after polling stations opened for voting in the general election.
The pilot, who was trapped in the wreckage and had to be airlifted to hospital, is believed to be more seriously injured of the two.

Clearly this is a new low for British politics

Well I'm going to put this in the simplest way I possibly can.

Labour favours the poor, working class and unions. Pretty much distroyed our economy by doing nothing to prevent the american banks messing us up so much. Like to focus taxes on the rich which is why Lewis Hamilton lives in Switzerland or something.

Conservatives favour the middle and upper classes, private business and healthcare and stuff. Screwed up our trains services and other public services, like to increase taxes that effect people regardless of income, such as VAT etc.

Liberal Democrats favour total impartial equality (I think), stronger links to other countries and total intergration into the EU. Holding off the last one though til Greece picks it's act up and the EU becomes stable again. A bit of a dark horse since it hasn't been in power since Labour was created in the early 20th century.

I'm in England so I have no idea really about the scottish/welsh/northern irish parties. Bad I know.

BNP are the racism party and you're an intolerant idiot if you support them. Got a lot of support in the EU elections due to people being fed up with labour, largely because people didn't fully understand their manifesto.

UKIP want out of the EU. That's about it for them.

You've got various others, Communist party etc, but they don't get a sniff in ever.

I'm a euro-sceptic but none-the-less I voted LibDem. It was a bit of a spur of the moment thing to be honest. I'd vote UKIP if I had any idea what their other policies are, but I ain't voting a one-shot party in for the general election. I'm just a walking contradiction 🙁

At a loose end whilst watching the count. Just a rough draft, rather ethnocentric and by far from my best work, but...

Just out of curiosity, how do the parties in the UK compare to the parties in the US?

It's a gross oversimplification, but the most straightforward contrast is

Conservative Party = Republican Party
Labour Party = Democrat Party
Liberal Democrat Party = Green Party (an especially tenuous link, but just a frame of reference)

Looking at the present count on the Beeb, I'm not surprised by how the Tories are mopping up Labour seats left, right, and centre. For those not in the know, Labour has been running the show since 1997. The same party in control during the economic hiccups of 2001 and 2008 would be bound for punishment at the national elections (see also: Republican Party).

What astounds me most is how short-term constituents' memories are. Labour rode in saying, "John Major has made your lives miserable; vote for us!" I'd have expected a bigger swing toward the Lib Dems, considering the Conservatives are perceived as the party of business when business is far from popular and JG Brown's boys have a sterling record of diminishing economic returns. I find the net loss among Lib Dems seats surprising; perhaps Clegg getting bogged down in his party's manifesto on EU integration sucked up a lot of his star power.

Oh well. Here's to the last day of the Brown government. Also, the second verse of your parody tickled me, Sam.

Just out of curiosity, how do the parties in the UK compare to the parties in the US?

It's a gross oversimplification, but the most straightforward contrast is

Conservative Party = Republican Party
Labour Party = Democrat Party
Liberal Democrat Party = Green Party (an especially tenuous link, but just a frame of reference)

Looking at the present count on the Beeb, I'm not surprised by how the Tories are mopping up Labour seats left, right, and centre. For those not in the know, Labour has been running the show since 1997. The same party in control during the economic hiccups of 2001 and 2008 would be bound for punishment at the national elections (see also: Republican Party).

What astounds me most is how short-term constituents' memories are. Labour rode in saying, "John Major has made your lives miserable; vote for us!" I'd have expected a bigger swing toward the Lib Dems, considering the Conservatives are perceived as the party of business when business is far from popular and JG Brown's boys have a sterling record of diminishing economic returns. I find the net loss among Lib Dems seats surprising; perhaps Clegg getting bogged down in his party's manifesto on EU integration sucked up a lot of his star power.

Oh well. Here's to the last day of the Brown government. Also, the second verse of your parody tickled me, Sam.

So, the UK political scene isn't much different from the US, huh?

Just out of curiosity, how do the parties in the UK compare to the parties in the US?

It's a gross oversimplification, but the most straightforward contrast is

Conservative Party = Republican Party
Labour Party = Democrat Party
Liberal Democrat Party = Green Party (an especially tenuous link, but just a frame of reference)

It would be far too insulting to imply that the conservatives are like the republicans

I attribute the surge in popularity of the Conservatives to Labour's campaign poster featuring a bright red Audi Quattro

I'm awaiting (without much hope) a by-election in the not-too-distant future, given that my current MP, who kept her seat last night, managed (despite being a lawyer) to break electoral law by tweeting the results of a sample of postal votes in the week before the election. What an utter muppet.

DW

So it's been over 24 hours since all the ballets have been counted and the winner is...

nobody knows! all we do know is that Brown is still the PM in downing street and it's the top news on beeb news all day

Either it'll be Conservative minority, Conservative-democrats (tories + libdem, wut...) or perhaps Labour-democrats (labour + libdems).

BREAKING NEWS!

THE KING IS DEAD?

Brown says he'll be going at some point, and the talks about a merger are now between labour and the lib-dems! god knows what's happening now... and yet again we might end up with another unelected prime minister =/

BREAKING NEWS!

Brown has resigned as PM, as the leader of Labour party and as an MP.

For the next 20 minutes we have no Primeminister!

It is likely we will now have a new political system of Liberal-Conservatism!

David Cameron to be the PM Clegg as deputy

TODAY I WAS INVITED BY THE QUEEN TO FORM THE NEXT GOVERNMENT AS THE KING OF THE UNITED KINGDOM OF GREAT BRITAIN AND NORTHERN IRELAND! I ACCEPTED AND SHALL BE RULING THE COUNTRY WITH AN IRON FIST AND WHOPPERS!

Had to do a lot of research, including watching HIGNFY (funny ep, by the way, though Jo Brand is not a good host) and I finally understand what the heck is happening in my country.

It appears Darth Cameron, fresh from filming Avatar, has been handed the crown by Brown who must have seen how this would have been months and months of bickering and squabbling. Cameron has offered the LibDems a chance to rule the galaxy together, but they have not said anything at all.

Though all the news articles I read seemed to think they had, as they can't stop talking about this new conservative-liberal government. Just what England needs, a bunch of fossils who want to tax the world to kingdom come. I suppose it's the closest we'll get to a LibDem government, but what I see here is a bastardized evil version of something I legitimately wanted several years ago. Kind of like the Healthcare bill we got in the US.

I can't wait to talk to my dad (we spend a lot of time arguing wether Gordon Brown is a good PM. I say no, he says yes) and hear what he has to say. All I can say right now is thank heavens I am away from England right now. I'd never want to live through a Tory government.

Someone has to deal with our deficit. Either they "tax the world to kingdom come" or they cut public spending (or preferably both). Given governments' general track records on staying within budget, never mind actually cutting spending, I'd say the only option is to tax. I'm just happy that we're not Greece, because apparently we'd be torching London at this point, without actually coming up with any alternative to the government's plans.

As I recall, the first 16 years of my life were a Tory government - during which time the local Labour education authority (which didn't like grammar schools) tried to starve my secondary school of funds. Central government said "do you want your funding direct from us?" and suddenly we had a science lab you didn't have to heat with Bunsen burners and they managed to replace some of the ancient terrapin buildings. Great stuff!

Personally, I am looking forward to the emergency Budget. Not one politician has made any concrete statement on what they will do to tackle the deficit (and that includes the previous Chancellor in his last Budget), so it would be nice to know what to expect. It won't be pleasant, but unless Britain would like to default on the national debt and thus ensure that no one ever lends money to us again, there is little choice.

Maybe we can go to the EU and demand a share of their emergency funds? After all, I'm told our deficit is bigger than Greece's and I'm sure Germany would be more than happy to fork out some more...

DW