My wife and I have just voted in today’s general election at our local polling station. Nothing more now until the ballots are counted after 10pm this evening and the results start coming during the night.
If you find yourself at a loose end any time today and tonight and land on this page, well, you can follow the election chit-chat on Twitter with this handy widget you see embedded here (RSS subscribers: if you don’t see the tweets, head over here).
<script src=”http://widgets.twimg.com/j/2/widget.js”></script><script>
new TWTR.Widget({
version: 2,
type: ‘search’,
search: ‘#ge10’,
interval: 6000,
title: ‘2010 UK General Election’,
subject: ‘#ge10 Election Buzz’,
width: 500,
height: 300,
theme: {
shell: {
background: ‘#dbd8db’,
color: ‘#050505’
},
tweets: {
background: ‘#ffffff’,
color: ‘#444444’,
links: ‘#1985b5’
}
},
features: {
scrollbar: true,
loop: false,
live: true,
hashtags: true,
timestamp: true,
avatars: true,
behavior: ‘all’
}
}).render().start();
</script>
This has been quite a campaign during the past four weeks (thankfully a short period to be intensely exposed to such a volume and wide range of political spin and opinion, the majority of which has been analogue in my constituency).
How does it all look? Is David Cameron going to be the new tenant at No 10 Downing Street? Will Gordon Brown hang on by his fingertips? Can Nick Clegg make the huge difference to the political landscape that he aspires to?
It really is anyone’s guess according to almost every opinion poll as this graph by UK Polling Report of voting intentions since the last general election suggests.
The blue line is the Conservative Party, red the Labour Party (the current incumbent party), and yellow the Liberal Democrats. It looks like a hung parliament is a very real prospect.
Most of the mainstream media today don’t appear to see a hung parliament as the most likely outcome: they have very clear opinions if their front pages are indicators:
Good old Daily Star, keeping an eye on what the really significant news is today!
The montage above is courtesy of The Guardian which has a gallery of today’s front pages. I hope they do the same for tomorrow’s front pages.
I expect we’ll be up into the wee hours tonight glued to the telly (and me to Twitter as well, no doubt) as events unfold.
I’ll update this post with the eventual outcome when it’s known.
[Update May 9, 11am:] The third day of limbo since polling day where the result was: Conservatives 306 seats, Labour 258 seats, Liberal Democrats 57 seats, all the rest 28 seats. The Guardian has a great gallery of front pages again from the day after polling day.
With no single party with an overall majority, this is hung parliament territory. It’s also deal-making time where the latest situation this Sunday morning is that the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats continue discussions they began on Friday to see if they can hammer out a deal that would put the Conservatives into government and David Cameron into Number 10.
The BBC’s Election website is as good a place online as any to keep up with developments.
Related post:
12 responses to “The next party’s about to begin”
Hobson: The next party’s about to begin:
My wife and I have just voted in today’s general election at our local p… http://bit.ly/aXDJYo
[nh.com] The next party’s about to begin http://goo.gl/fb/VSx5r
Hobson: The next party’s about to begin:
My wife and I have just voted in today’s general election at our local p… http://bit.ly/aXDJYo
[Blog] The next party’s about to begin http://tinyurl.com/29vg6oo #fb #in #ge10 #ukelection
RT @jangles [nh.com] The next party’s about to begin http://goo.gl/fb/VSx5r
@mstory123 anyone's guess, Mark. Hung parliament is a possibility. Looks like it will be close in any case. http://is.gd/bWL2F #ge10
[…] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Neville Hobson, Neville Hobson, Neville Hobson, prblogs, Jon Coulter and others. Jon Coulter said: RT @jangles [nh.com] The next party’s about to begin http://goo.gl/fb/VSx5r […]
The next party’s about to begin http://bit.ly/bNUpyf
The next party’s about to begin http://ow.ly/17hJBE
How to view the election online – http://bit.ly/cz1UhV
How to view the election online – http://bit.ly/cz1UhV
This elections are not just about candidates, but how the social media has something to contribute as well! Let's see which are the reactions about how twitter and that application installed on facebook today “today is polling day” (http://www.facebook.com/democracyuk) are influencing the elections. Good luck to the three candidates!