2010 British election

[GirlySports]

Originally Posted by nik-

I just can't take the UK seriously. BBC is being all serious with their coverage .. and then they cut to get the count from "Tooting"

God. You suck Britain.

Hahaha I think the county names are cool.

And I like listening to all the different regional accents.

-----

And 60 million is no excuse. 60 million 650 seats, Canada 35 million, 325 seats so the ratio is about the same for each station.

[GirlySports]

I think there's a recount in Barking!

How is everyone supposed to count at 4am!?

[GirlySports]

There's a prominent Labour MP named....

ED BALLS!

[icarus]

Originally Posted by nik-

I just can't take the UK seriously. BBC is being all serious with their coverage .. and then they cut to get the count from "Tooting"

God. You suck Britain.

Mock it all you want, but if you want the best curry of your life go to Tooting!

[icarus]

Originally Posted by GirlySports

There's a prominent Labour MP named....

ED BALLS!

Yes I believe he is the children's secretary. He nearly got ousted but Mr. Balls managed to hang on!

Currently the Tories have 13.1% more of the popular vote than the Liberal Democrats yet 560% more seats.

[GirlySports]

Originally Posted by icarus

Yes I believe he is the children's secretary. He nearly got ousted but Mr. Balls managed to hang on!

Currently the Tories have 13.1% more of the popular vote than the Liberal Democrats yet 560% more seats.

yep, never good to be second best in alot of ridings.

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The word I heard the most on BBC was 'shambles'. It really was a shamble as the counting of the ballots failed. How can the riding that Clegg is running in (where he won by a mile) take 8 hours to count? Why does he have to wait til all votes are counted to make a speech at like 6am? In Canada, they can declare you the winner after 1% reporting cause it's so clear cut.

People couldn't get in to vote, votes weren't counted correctly, who's going to volunteer to count at 3 in the morning? No wonder they're short people. There's some riding on their 2nd recount.

Just a complete shambles!

[PyramidsofMars]

well, that ended up being duller than expected (than I expected, anyway, and I'm admittedly a dunce when it comes to British politics. My constituency when I lived in London was a safe Tory seat with mostly people who never thought twice about their vote).

Nice to see Nick Griffin fail miserably in Barking, though, and George Galloway come in third in his riding.

[icarus]

I guess the one thing about Canada is having 5.5 time zones buys you a bit of time to do some ballot counting. But I agree the British election has been more or less shambolic!

[CaptainCrunch]

I watched the speech this morning by Britain's new Prime Minister, and there's no doubt that the conservatives are going to work with the Liberal Democrates on some pretty key issues like education, immigration and keeping an arms distance from the EU.

So its going to be a coalition majority if I read this right.

[GirlySports]

Originally Posted by icarus

I guess the one thing about Canada is having 5.5 time zones buys you a bit of time to do some ballot counting. But I agree the British election has been more or less shambolic!

Recently Canada closes it's polls at the same time nearly across the country. 9pm Eastern.

Maritimers might be a bit earlier and BC a bit later but everything in between is 9pm. They just declare winners faster. Instead of having this public declaration where all the candidates stand in a line.

[afc wimbledon]

Originally Posted by GirlySports

There's a prominent Labour MP named....

ED BALLS!

He may well end up prime minister

[Canada 02]

Gordon Brown steps down as Labour leader; David Cameron is officially the new PM of Britain

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/...rticle1564792/

Mr. Clegg's Liberal Democrats are reported to have won concessions from Mr. Cameron on their key demand — that Britain change its voting system toward a more proportional system.

Although Mr. Cameron's party bitterly opposes changing the current voting system — which favours Britain's two main parties, Conservatives and Labour — negotiators have pledged to “go the extra mile” to strike an agreement with Mr. Clegg.

Mr. Cameron's team said they offered a public referendum on a more proportional system — but confirmed they will campaign still against any changes. They said Liberal Democrat lawmakers would be offered Cabinet posts, meaning Mr. Clegg could even be appointed as deputy prime minister.

Mr. Clegg wants a European-style proportional representation voting system, which he believes could greatly increase his party's future seats in Parliament. In the latest election, Liberal Democrats won almost a quarter of the overall vote but only 9 per cent of House of Commons seats.

[CaptainCrunch]

Wow, that certainly leaves the conservatives out in the cold.

I wonder how happy the British will be over the Labour party continuing to rule.

Or how long this coalition lasts.

[SebC]

Wow, even Britain is moving away from the "British system", and we're still stuck with it.

[icarus]

Originally Posted by CaptainCrunch

Wow, that certainly leaves the conservatives out in the cold.

I wonder how happy the British will be over the Labour party continuing to rule.

Or how long this coalition lasts.

The Labour party is out. Both the Tories and the Lib Dems despise Labour and so Labour will go into opposition and reinvent itself under a younger leader like David Miliband.

I don't think the Conservatives feel left out in the cold except maybe the backwoods Thatcherites who look more and more like outsiders within their own party--even before the coalition.

[afc wimbledon]

Originally Posted by icarus

The Labour party is out. Both the Tories and the Lib Dems despise Labour and so Labour will go into opposition and reinvent itself under a younger leader like David Miliband.

I don't think the Conservatives feel left out in the cold except maybe the backwoods Thatcherites who look more and more like outsiders within their own party--even before the coalition.

The LIb Dems are actually 50% moderate ex labour and most of the party would have been far happier to put together (and was talking to) a coalition with labour.

Labour put itself out of the running when a sizable group of labours MP's veto'd a coalition on the grounds that the voters had voted for more tories and it would be wrong to ignore the voters wishes!

There is an oddly honourable streak in British Politics particularly when you compare it with the Liberal NDP Bloc attempt at a coalition here.

[icarus]

Originally Posted by afc wimbledon

The LIb Dems are actually 50% moderate ex labour and most of the party would have been far happier to put together (and was talking to) a coalition with labour.

Labour put itself out of the running when a sizable group of labours MP's veto'd a coalition on the grounds that the voters had voted for more tories and it would be wrong to ignore the voters wishes!

There is an oddly honourable streak in British Politics particularly when you compare it with the Liberal NDP Bloc attempt at a coalition here.

I'm not sure where you are getting that from. Labour never vetoed a coalition and many Labour MPs complained that they were never consulted by their party's leadership during the coalition talks to give their input one way or another.

True a number of Lib-Dems have been Labour at one point or another and a number of them would have found a coalition with Labour more ideologically palatable. But I think the same Lib-Dems and Labour MPs would both contest CC's suggestion above that "the Labour party continues to rule".

Here is a good article on the subject acrimony between Lib and Lab during and after coalition talks:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2...recriminations

[afc wimbledon]

Originally Posted by icarus

I'm not sure where you are getting that from. Labour never vetoed a coalition and many Labour MPs complained that they were never consulted by their party's leadership during the coalition talks to give their input one way or another.

True a number of Lib-Dems have been Labour at one point or another and a number of them would have found a coalition with Labour more ideologically palatable. But I think the same Lib-Dems and Labour MPs would both contest CC's suggestion above that "the Labour party continues to rule".

Here is a good article on the subject acrimony between Lib and Lab during and after coalition talks:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2...recriminations

Labour is split in several ways, first there is the hard left centerist split that has always dogged the party and caused the split that formed the LibDems a while back, the hard left did not support any kind of coalition and definetly weren't going to support PR, an absolute requirement of the Lib Dems.

Within the centerist faction of Labour there is a further split between the Brownites and the Blairites and they still hate each other so there was no way to ensure that the requisite number of Labour MP's would support a coalition.

In the end Brown, who as Prime Minister had the legal right to first try at forming a goverment, chose to stand aside and let the LibDems and the Tories try to put a goverment together. It was a recognition that he couldn't bring his party with him and didn't have the moral right to try.

[SebC]

Originally Posted by afc wimbledon

There is an oddly honourable streak in British Politics particularly when you compare it with the Liberal NDP Bloc attempt at a coalition here.

LOL, a minority doesn't impart any kind of right to govern, even moreso when it's first past the post. The only difference between a left wing coalition and a right wing coalition is that the right wing parties merged.

You know what's not honourable? Suspending parliament so you won't get kicked out of office.

[FlamesAddiction]

Didn't want to start a new thread, but I came across this story on the BBC website yesterday and thought it was funny that they chose Chretien's policies as the ones that the new British government needs to mimic to be more economically secure.

Not that Chretien did bad in that respect or anything, but I just found it strange. Besides, wasn't Paul Martin the guy really behind the 1993-1996 economic reforms?

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/10254055.stm