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The Official UK Election Thread! 6th May it is!

My own constituency, Islington South, has been retained by Labour. It was a huge target for the Lib Dems (as there were only about 500 votes in it last time) but they failed miserably, with both them and the Greens losing ground while Conservatives and Labour both gained.
 
Andy Slaughter has hung on to Hammersmith for Labour, holding out Shaun Bailey the working class black Conservative candidate. That was another target seat for the Tories that they didn't quite manage to pick up.
 
Matthew Best said:
Andy Slaughter has hung on to Hammersmith for Labour, holding out Shaun Bailey the working class black Conservative candidate. That was another target seat for the Tories that they didn't quite manage to pick up.
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Excellent! This is my constituency, and even though I have nothing against Shaun Bailey himself, I was hoping this would be the outcome.
 
I wonder, could this end up being a "Everyone-but-the-Tories" alliance?

I mean, the SNP, PC and a few others who might make it certainly aren't going to ally with the Conservatives, and Labour and the Lib Dems might try and get everyone together to block the Tories.
 
The BBC forecast is for a hung parliament, with the Conservatives having 306 seats (20 short of an overall majority). So Labour could presumably try to hang on to power with the support of the Lib Dems and some of the others.
 
Anyone else find it hilarious that the thin, balding man on TV right now is Lord Adonis?
 
Fairly interesting stuff. But too bad C-SPAN is cutting off coverage now until 5 am. I have noting of importance to add but I will have to say that this was much more interesting than the Canadian election I tried to watch.
 
I heard Alex Salmond was still complaining about being excluded from the Prime Ministerial TV debates, despite the fact that the apparent surge in Lib-Dem popularity did not translate into votes.

Something I read (possibly I dreamt or misremembered it) was that 59% of people said they would vote Lib-Dem if they thought they would form the government. This is my problem with tactical voting, people end up second- and third-guessing what everyone else will do; if people vote for who they want then things might be clearer.

The news of people not being allowed to vote is quite shocking; if people had been queuing for 3 or 4 hours, there was plenty of time to find some way to accommodate them, as was done at (I think) Lewisham, where the presiding officer got all those still in the queue at 10pm inside and with a ballot paper, and voting went on until 10:30. Now, this might not be physically possible at all polling stations, but maybe there needs to be some lateral thinking as to what 'inside the polling station' means.

ETA: The exit polls proved to be remarkably accurate, barring any last minute surprises.

A couple of highlights from the coverage, spotted by others: Paxman asking a Lib-Dem spokesman if he was ready to "get into bed with Peter Mandelson", and Paddy Ashdown trying to say the Tories would be playing a trick but actually saying 'the Tories will play the prick'.
 
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Matthew Best said:
Weirdly, at 6am after a long night, we still don't know who the winner is!
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That's usual for such a close contest. When the vote is more cut and dried it's possible to see who's going to win much earlier. Also a high turnout (some reports say more than 70%!!!) means more votes to count, which takes longer.
 
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