Live Blogging Election Night in Britain (link to live BBC TV coverage)

[Lydia Leftcoast]

Source: New York Times

As election day winds to a close in the United Kingdom, The Lede is primed to bring you updates on the vote count in real time. The BBC has kindly provided us with a live stream of its election night broadcast, which begins at 9:55 p.m. local time (4:55 p.m. Eastern time), five minutes before the polls close. Thanks to a new auto-refresh feature, our updates and analysis of the results will appear directly below the video player automatically.

Read more: http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/05/06/live-blogging-election-night-in-britain/?hp

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Live coverage of returns and of widespread reports of people not being able to vote.

[Eyerish]

1. Thanks for the link....

I'm watching it right now...

[Rosa Luxemburg]

2. so far most of the parties are holding what they had last time?

so far....

[grantcart]

3. Conservatives showing about a 6% swing increase

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/politics/election_2010/8666128.stm

appears that they will be just short of an outright majority

[Rosa Luxemburg]

4. The swing is not as much as I thought it would be

[New Dawn]

5. At least the fucking Tories will not be getting a majority government.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

6. Euh, they seem to be pulling ahead

:-(

[New Dawn]

7. The Green Party of England and Wales has won its first seat in parliament.

Caroline Lucas won Brighton Pavillion.

[liberalpragmatist]

8. It's an absolute mess

The Tories don't have a majority, but neither do the LibDems+Labour. And all three parties are disappointed tonight. Labour's vote share is abysmal, though they did better in seats than expected. The Lib Dem bubble popped and they barely made any gains in either the popular vote OR seats. And the Tories still got well under 40% of the vote and have failed to win a majority despite a hugely unpopular Prime Minister running for a 4th term government.

A lot of the speculation is that there will be a messy few days as either Labour or the Tories try to claim a minority government. And then there will probably be another election within the year, maybe by fall.

[tishaLA]

9. I've been watching since ~4.30 PT

and it's been fascinating. They really do seem to be unsure of what will happen next. Can Labour form a coalition and continue to govern considering their terrible losses? Can the Conservatives govern without a mandate?

A mess, yes, but a fascinating mess. I do feel bad for the Lib Dems though.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

10. I'm fascinated by the ritual of having all the candidates stand on stage

while the local elections officer reads the results out loud.