UK General Election

Tony Blairs revenge.... "so you people don't like me eh? well then, watch this, tadar, here's Gordon Brown"

Now he thinks he can actually win an election???

lol not watching closely, but I did hear about Gordon Brown trashing that woman, then a news team sent a reporter to her and told her about it.  She was devastated.

ZOMG LIVE STREAM THIS IS WIN.  It's always such a bitch to find livestream t.v. TY

Was the woman in politics? If not, then I'm actually impressed! You know, because I'm so sick and tired of politicians being oh so respectful of the public all the time regardless of the circumstances, it is just sickening.

Here in Australia, my favourite prime minister ever is Bob Hawke. I never liked him at all until the day he called an old pensioner a "silly old bugger".

Thanks for that link. At least I will be updated.

no, she was a nice old woman.  She asked a couple questions, he responded, said she came from a good family, etc.  Then he got in his limo, and thought his mic was off when he said she was a bigoted woman and the conversation was a disaster.

Oh it was a non public comment, well that's different, I'm no longer impressed that he did that. Having the guts to say what you think publicly is what i respect, not that crap he did.

I'm way to busy with the ungodly mess that is the American political process to pay that much attention to comparatively stable countries like the UK.... but it looks like you guys are going to get a taste of what it's like to put up with the US electoral system.... if so I feel your agony.

I loved the Simpson's episode with the two Aliens running for president. And even though people found out before the election, they were still forced to accept one of them! A very nice poke at the way democracy has removed itself from the control of the voters in America.

You're assuming that democracy was ever under the control of voters in America...

The argument there has fueled dozens or more careers in political science and history, and I definitely worry that there's been a steady decline in the democratic aspects of our government since the middle of last century. But, if you want to do some intellectual contortions and flirt with anachronism, we had a pretty strong democracy in the late 19th century--that is if you consider strong turnout a top criterion and are willing to accept a given era's idea of voting eligibility even if it seems primitive now. It's actually one of the ironies of US 'democratic progress' that the expansion of our franchise has been paralleled by a decline in participation.

@ the OP: I was following casually since about midway through the formal campaigns and actually watched some early returns stuff last night via BBC online. I'm definitely going to be following the post-election stories closely because I tend to think that parliamentary coalitions should be the 'normal,' if messiest way to manage a democratic republic. And I'm very interested to see whether the UK changes their election rules as a result of this hung parliament, and if so, how. (My hope is that they don't move towards the structural duopoly we suffer here in the US.)

Watching a little closer and wondering the same as you.  Stupid Brown and poor lady.

I am with you on the post election, and will hazard a guess on the changes to election rules - no.  I do not think it is bad what happened there, and it was time for it to occur.  Now they can really toss some bums out.

I'd like to hear more from folks from the UK about the post-election. Will this noise at the Daily Mail about many thousands of voters being unable to vote turn out to be mostly made up, close to accurate, or somewhere in between? And just how much are y'all worried about what might happen if you actually end up having 'your version' of our 2000 presidential election?

Well what happened was, there was huge turnouts at some polling stations, which werent prepared to handle the amount of voters coming to them, as this has to be one of the largest turnouts for ages. Some polling stations either ran out of ballots, or closed at 10pm, while at some polling stations, there were huge turn outs of voters who either were told to 'go away' or 'come inside' to vote. 

UPDATE:

At the moment, the liberal Democrats (57 seats) are talking with the conservative party (306 seats) over forming a coalition government, to form a majority government (passed 326 seats for a majority). Talks are still under way at this moment in time. 

According to the chairmen of the bank of England, the government who are in charge now, the chairmen believe that the party who is elected to form the government this term, are likely to become 'unelectable' in the next term, due to the amount of severe cuts, and tax rises which are to be made.

Any other updates, ill post on here.

MY PERSONAL VIEW

I hate conservative parties, I do not believe in there ideology, and I believed that Gordon Brown (who is an un-charismatic leader) would have done a great job in securing the recovery for the UK. However, I do wish that the Liberal Democrats form a new government with Gordon Brown, to secure this nations recovery. Labour have (258 seats) and Liberal Democrats have (57 seats), if they unite, with an Irish party, they will form a majority government, which I would like to see. 

I am just hoping there is no other recession with the conservative party in charge, My Dad remembers the Thatcher days, and he hated the Conservative Party. This party was against bailing out the Banks, against the stimulus packages and many other economic packages which were implmented in Recession.

Can you believe it? The UK would have lost RBS (Royal Bank Of Scotland), Loylds TSB, and Northern Rock etc. Losing major banks, and of course, some of these banks were high holders of shares in the FTSE 100, would have completely took away some of our major components to our wealth.

It seems to me, people prefer a more charismatic leader, then a leader who can actually put out policies, Gordon Brown has made a few mistakes, by selling Gold reserves at a Low price range, and other minor squabbles, but I tell you one thing, he saved our bacon in the recession.

Check it out, type in the 'third way economics'

will update if more news comes up.

Interesting parallel, albeit on a primary scale.  one of the counties here in Virginia ran out of ballots for the democrat primary as well (back in 08), so the poll workers let them write their votes on pieces of paper.  The courts through out those votes as not being legal.  I wonder what would have happened if the British polling places had allowed that?

Yeah, the news coming in was that, some polling statons acutally used pieces of paper when they ran out of ballot papers, however, it is legal to do that in this country. I do know that they were countered, however, if the candidate narrowly lost in the election, they maybe able to seek legal aid to weather (A) the scraps of paper used to vote when ballot papers ran out is allowed in the law at this present in time, and (B) if this was used to corrupt the result in anyway.

UPDATE:

Gordon Brown will be resigning before September.

Labour are now in talks with the Liberal Democrats.

Liberal Democrats main issue in joining a coalition is weather they accept is the alternative vote system or proportional representation system. This helps smaller parties like themselves to get more seats. Here is what changing the voting will mean for each party:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/election_2010/8644480.stm

The chunk I'm still reading at NYT emphasizes that the Lib Dems are still deciding what to do, and Brown's just made it much easier for them to stay in talks with Labour. More than ever, I'm very hopeful that y'all might get some form of PR or at least a preferential ballot so true protest votes could be clear yet not force people to 'throw away votes.'