UK General Election 2015

[Zaune]

Roughly equidistant between MK and Peterborough, as it happens, though the closest city is Northampton.

[Pelranius]

Voted. It seems really anticlimatic, all this lead up to "the big day" of "the most important election in a century" or whatever...and I'm putting a cross on a piece of paper in a small church hall. I almost feel let down by the lack of pomp and circumstance. Oh well, time for a beer.

Incidentally, I find it hilarious that people are already talking about another Scots independnce referendum. They lost, so it's "we'll have another go until we get the answer we want!" If they had voted yes and Westminster pushed for a second referendum, there would be hell to pay, but the SNP think they can get away with it. Fuckers. I half-seriously suggested to my dad last week that we could build a fairly decent case for charging Alex Salmond with treason.

What's the best (as in increased possibility of success) time to hold another referendum, from the SNP's point of view? Five years, or ten (I'm thinking may be the latter option).

[Sharp-kun]

10 probably.

The SNP have been playing it down a lot up here.

[Darth Nostril]

Done it as well. Went -somewhat reluctantly- with the Greens in the general election, and spoiled my ballot paper for the two council elections because it was literally Labour, Tories or UKIP.

Green for the general election, both Green candidates for the Teignbridge council and spoiled my paper for the parish council with a write in for Darth Vader because I didn't have a clue who anyone on the ballot was.

Well, went and voted. Should be a half decent turn out, this is the first time I've had to queue to get a boothe.

Is your area's turnout usually really low then? Because usually I wouldn't expect the order-of-magnitude difference in polling numbers required to get that kind of queue unless you have a really low turnout.

Its probably more to do with the time of day I went there, and the fact I've moved so my local station is now in the centre of town rather that at a bowling green Totnes has been Tory for the last 90 years, so I'm not expecting any changes!

In Ashburton the queue was right through the hall, out the door, up the path, through the gate and across the car park. Thought I was going to be there for a while but once I presented my poll card letter to the official at the gate I was directed to just go straight in past the long line of bored looking people and head for polling station 2. Where there was a grand total of one person in front of me.

[Eternal_Freedom]

Wow, my polling booth was a tiny church hall run by two pleasant old ladies. We didn't even have a booth.

[ray245]

It's weird to be voting in the UK as a commonwealth citizen.

[Iroscato]

Looks like the Tories are gonna edge it out. Ugh.

[Darth Nostril]

Forget exit polls, they're pretty much useless. Voting ended ten minutes ago so it's a bit early to start making any kind of predictions.

[Eternal_Freedom]

Honestly we probably won't get a result until, oh, Saturday or so.

[Dartzap]

Yeah, that exit poll is eye watering for the LD's. 80 percent wipeout! Heres hoping it's hokum.

[Bedlam]

Honestly we probably won't get a result until, oh, Saturday or so.

Well if the current Tory / Lib Dem mix can make another majority I'd assume they'd declare a government fairly quickly.

I'm not a Tory fan but I think I'd prefer them to a mix of too many smaller parties, I'm particularly not keen on SNP acting as king makers.

[Bedlam]

Yeah, that exit poll is eye watering for the LD's. 80 percent wipeout! Heres hoping it's hokum.

Well Paddy Ashdown's promised to eat his hat if it's correct, I think that might be worth it.

[Eternal_Freedom]

That exit poll looks...amusingly bad for Labour and the Lib Dems.

Incidentally, it's an article about the British elections...why does it feel the need to spend a whole paragraph talking about Obama and the White House? I get that two of his former guys worked on this election, but really, fuck off yanks, this is our news. (Disclaimer: I have had a few beers tonight).

EDIT: I now realise I was looking at an article on the Wall Street Journal's website, so it makes a tad bit more sense, but still, sod off.

[jwl]

Yougov exit polls got completely different results, interestingly:

YouGov has produced an exit poll of its own for the Sun. And it's thrown up a different result entirely:

Conservatives: 284 seats

Labour: 263

Lib Dems: 31

SNP: 48

UKIP: 2

Plaid Cymru: 3

Greens: 1

And much more in line with projections, too. Hmm....

[Eternal_Freedom]

Ok, I'm gonna call it now, hung parliament and 2-3 days of behind-closed-doors deal making while the media pisses themselves and nothing else gets commented on at all.

[Vendetta]

The YouGov one is much more in line with, well, every poll before the election.

So either the question tomorrow is "why is the BBC election poll the least accurate in history" or "Why was every other poll the least accurate in history".

[Purple]

How do we who know nothing about the British political situation interpret these results?

[Eternal_Freedom]

It's almost certainly going to be a hung parliament - no one party has an outright majority (325 I think is what you need) and there will be a couple days of deal-making to form a coalition. The current Conservative-Lib Dem coalition might just have enough to form a majority, but it'll be close. Labour and the SNP alone can't form a majority no matter what that bitch Sturgeon was hoping for, so if Labour want to try and be in power they'll need to rope in at least the Lib Dems (unlikely I think) and other, small (as in, one MP) parties to form a government. Such a coalition would be...unstable I think.

[Purple]

I take it this means no huge moves, no massive foreign interventions and a lot of the usual euroobstructionism?

[Eternal_Freedom]

What "massive foreign interventions" were you envisaging?

[Purple]

What "massive foreign interventions" were you envisaging?

Stuff like Iraq. I can imagine something like that being pulled against ISIS any day now.

[The Romulan Republic]

I doubt it.

We've been fighting ISIS for close to a year now, and while we may not have won I don't think we're losing either. America's finances are limited and its unlikely that there's much public support for another occupation. Maybe if ISIS suddenly had a massive resurgence and overran Israel or Turkey or something like that. Maybe if a Republican won. But not now. And I don't see Britain taking it on without America.

[Darth Nostril]

What "massive foreign interventions" were you envisaging?

Stuff like Iraq. I can imagine something like that being pulled against ISIS any day now.

Not happening, we've got too many servicemen missing limbs and too many fresh graves from buying into the seps bombastic bullshit the first time round.

[Zaune]

Quite. I can't see us taking ISIS on even with the US, to be honest. Hardly anyone whose reputation stands to suffer by admitting Iraq was a terrible mistake is still relevant electorally, and standing up for ourselves and pursuing a foreign policy line independent of the US looks good to everyone, wherever they are on the political spectrum.

[SpottedKitty]

I think the SNP have just officially broken the swingometer — the vote share change since last time has just climbed over +30%, any higher and the needle wraps round the pin...