It appears that I was a bit hasty last night when I asserted that David Cameron will be the next prime minister of the United Kingdom.
Although the Conservatives did gain the largest number of votes in yesterday’s election, no party has an absolute majority. This means that Gordon Brown remains prime minister until a he resigns or is forced to resign by a no-confidence vote, or until a coalition claiming a majority is formed.
Reported losers include George Galloway, Jacqui Smith, Shahid Malik, and Nigel Farage.
Paul Weston, however, received 664 votes — some of those undoubtedly cast by Gates of Vienna readers.
The table below is adapted from data found at the BBC’s national results page, with all but two of the 650 constituencies confirmed (I left out parties that hold no seats and received less than 1% of the vote):
| Party | Seats | Chg | % | |||
| Conservative | 304 | 96 | 36.1% | |||
| Labour | 257 | -90 | 29.0% | |||
| Liberal Democrat | 57 | -5 | 23.0% | |||
| UK Independence Party | 0 | 0 | 3.1% | |||
| British National Party | 0 | 0 | 1.9% | |||
| Scottish National Party | 6 | 0 | 1.7% | |||
| Green | 1 | 1 | 1.0% | |||
| Plaid Cymru | 3 | 1 | 0.6% | |||
| Sinn Fein | 5 | 0 | 0.6% | |||
| Democratic Unionist Party | 8 | -1 | 0.6% | |||
| Social Democratic & Labour Party | 3 | 0 | 0.4% | |||
| Alliance Party | 1 | 1 | 0.1% | |||
| Others | 1 | 0 | 1.1% |
As you can see, UKIP and the BNP together account for 5% of the total vote, yet they have no seats in Parliament. On the other hand, the Democratic Unionist Party holds eight seats with only 0.6% of the vote. Such are the vagaries of the British parliamentary electoral system.
This election result — with no clear majority — is known as a “hung parliament”. Gaia sends this succinct summary, taken from a comment on one of the British sites:
We actually have the best result. We have political heart attack (seizure). The voting system is out of date rubbish, the polling system was absolute garbage and we have 3 parties of rotten socialists so no wonder the voters can’t make their mind up.
If it takes a month to sort this crap out it’ll prove we can go a month without any Govt in this country. These 3 bunches of socialist scum have all got themselves in a massive public finance meltdown.
Let this political garbage go down the toilet together… they at least deserve that honour!
Below is a Scottish take on the election, from The Daily Record. Notice that the SNP, despite its nationalist ideology, vows not to work with the Tories. This conforms with the well-known fact that many of the most powerful Labour leaders (including “Broon”) are Scots:
- - - - - - - - -
Election 2010: Brown Hanging on as Salmond Says SNP Will Work With New Labour Government — But Not Cameron’s Conservatives
GORDON Brown was hanging on to power by the thinnest of threads today as his opponents conspired to bounce him out of power following an inconclusive General Election.
Tory leader David Cameron put pressure on the Prime Minister to concede defeat after the Tories won the largest share of the votes but fell well short of an overall majority.
But SNP leader Alex Salmond has revealed his party and Welsh Nationalists Plaid Cymru have accepted an offer from Prime Minister Gordon Brown to discuss possibilities for future government.
And he explicitly ruled out working with David Cameron’s Conservatives — even if they turned out to be the largest overall party in Westminster.
The Scottish First Minister said he and his Welsh counterpart had agreed to an offer from Mr Brown for discussions over a potential coalition government.
“Fate seems to have dealt us a mighty hand between ourselves and Plaid Cymru,” he said.
“As I understand it, on the projection we have at the present moment, certainly there would have to be some involvement of the SNP and Plaid Cymru, if you were to get and construct an alternative government scenario.
“So for that reason, I’m accepting the offer of the Prime Minister, on behalf of the SNP, and Plaid Cymru are accepting, to have the Civil Service back-up to have discussions to see what the possibilities are in terms of defending the interests of Scotland and Wales in this parliamentary situation.”
Everyone expects the next government to be short-lived, presiding over political chaos between now and the inevitable fiscal collapse of the UK.
We do indeed live in interesting times.
Hat tips: Gaia and Aeneas.
26 comments:
A coalition between Labour, the LibDems, and all the various Nationalist parties, is too horrible to contemplate.
Baron, you or Dymphna or Fjordman or Takuna Seiyo or somebody needs to look into how voters can be so disgusted with the major parties (in nearly every western nation) and yet not vote for the opposition. For God's sake the British people could have voted for the BNP, UKIP, or the English Democrats. Hell, even the National Front is still around! Even in the Netherlands it could be better. If the Dutch voters are as mad as we hear they are, the PVV should have been able to run in more than just two municipalities last month. And the less that is said about the US the better. At this rate the BNP might win a majority of the white vote... when white voters are 50% of the British population.
When the American Constitution was ratified--by a public that had actually read and debated it--one in four males were qualified to vote, and no women.
de Tocqueville--
Universal suffrage is the least remediable of institutions.
Those who consider universal suffrage as a guarantee of the excellence of the choice made are under a complete delusion. It has other advantages but not that one.
Universal suffrage is a detestable element of government, but a powerful revolutionary instrument.
http://www.leprogres.fr/fr/images/get.aspx?iMedia=17813758
Is this what the west wants? This was at JW.
Reported losers include George Galloway...
Whaaaaaaat? How could the epitome of everything wrong with this rigged-against-popular-will British electoral system have been rejected, especially when he also happens to be the most sickening defender of the mahoundian-multicultural suicide embraced wholesale by Britain's political elite? That is another oddity indeed...
Jedilson Bonfim: Whaaaaaaat? How could the epitome of everything wrong with this rigged-against-popular-will British electoral system have been rejected, especially when he also happens to be the most sickening defender of the mahoundian-multicultural suicide embraced wholesale by Britain's political elite?
Muslim sympathizing and participation in the Oil for Palaces scandal be damned, there are some things so heinous whereby, even for politicians who occupy that rarified above-the-law stratospheric domain, they simply go beyond the pale of acceptable public conduct. The Celebrity Big Brother Catsuit Episode clearly met and exceeded all criteria necessary.
Zenster, that Big Brother thing was certainly bad, but not worse than Galloway receiving a Fakestinian passport from Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in my opinion. I personally find this more disturbing (by the way, could that spot at the center of the eagle's breast on the passport be a swastika? It's too small to see, but it's not a far-fetched possibility...)
So far, I'm sad to say that democracy has utterly failed in coping with the Third World invasion. You could even claim that it has partly created it.
It's amazing that the UKIP and the BNP don't get more votes when Britain is such a mess. Britain created modern parliamentary democracy. No matter how you put it, well over 90% of British citizens more or less freely voted in favor of the continued destruction of Britain. Right now the "Conservatives" don’t constitute a real opposition to Multiculturalism.
So what is the reasoning behind this result? If everyone is so fed up with what is happening?
Can someone in the know please explain?
Godffrey- exactly.
Jedilson Bonfim: … could that spot at the center of the eagle's breast on the passport be a swastika?
From this slightly better image, it appears not, but that certainly doesn't mean they don't wish it was − think: "This Space Available". After all, the "Fakestinians" (that's yet another keeper from you, J.B.), simple adore the Nazi sieg heil salute. We'll not even mention how "Mein Kampf" remains a perennial best seller in the MME (Muslim Middle East).
That the Outer Party-Menshevik-Modern Conservatives are slightly better - and even that's being generous - than the Inner Party-Bolshevik-New Labour in a way makes them much, much worse.
I'm glad the Tories didn't win. They need to be put out to pasture. Their very existence prevents a real conservative opposition from forming. Since almost all legislation is now written in Brussels the Parliament - including the PM - essentially fullfil the same function as a constitutional monarch.
In which case the "face" of this operation maybe as well be Brown/Clegg until or unless some of kind of real opposition can gain a foothold. Hopefully it won't be Cameron/Clegg - two smug gits for the price of one. Ugh.
I'm suprised the BNP didn't break a million votes. I think the turning point for them was when they roughed up that Sunday Times journalist. It set them apart as uncillivised in the mind of voters.
Well, as soon as any mainstream politician in Britain mentions the I-word, other politicians & the media will start a race to be the least-"racist", and the MP's career in politics (and maybe beyond) will be finished as a result. Just take a look at John Cowan, the Labour MP suspended for saying he wouldn't want his children to marry Muslims.
And as ever, most ordinary Brits will happily go along, always diplomatic so as not to upset anyone at work or in their new trendy wine bar, making discussion of the forbidden I-word almost impossible beyond a few web forums.
That said - proud to be one of the tiny minority of infidels voting for Paul Weston...
In hoc signo vinces
@Sean O'Brian.
"I'm glad the Tories didn't win. They need to be put out to pasture. Their very existence prevents a real conservative opposition from forming."
I agree spot on.
Scottish grannies scare their grandchildren with the evils of neoliberal conservatism i.e. Thatcher. Because of this the SNP could never do a public deal with big society Dave. The SNP are more a revolutionary socialist party than a big N nationalist party.
Ironically Scotland is a conservative nation but there are just no real conservatives to vote for, only a self-interested bureaucratic middle class elite who are playing at politics, they will eventually be purged.
Why will the SNP not do a deal with Dave?
He was complaining about the lack of growth in Scotland in an article I read by him. Who else will provide that growth?
Scotland is a sick society, welfare-dependant, and a sad reflection on the former nation that gave birth to Adam Smith. Scotland is only a Conservative nation in the sense that all people are essentially conservative, but won't allow themselves to vote that way!
The vote went the way it did because people were more concerned with getting rid of Gordon Brown than experimenting with the wealth of new parties that have emerged, and I can't say I blame the electorate for that.
New Labour proved a massive fraud, thinly veiled Socialism and Big Government Statism dressed up in hip, cool gear while at the same time plotting to destroy Britain from the inside.
But, people have an almost pathological distaste for the Tories, see this disgusting article in - what else? - the Guardian:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/may/04/why-i-hate-tories-david-cameron
So what option did they have?
This is Afonso Henriques:
Come on guys! The magic of it all is in the ways the British electorate works.
Any constituency elects only one deputy. If you risk voting for a counter-power party, you are favouring the Labour by not voting Conservative. If I were an Englishmen, I would vote Conservative.
"Any constituency elects only one deputy. If you risk voting for a counter-power party, you are favouring the Labour by not voting Conservative"
well said!
If the UK had PR there'd be more than 2000 MPs potentially!
can you imagine being a small party amidst that lot?
Ireland, with a population of 1/20th that of the UK has 1/4 the number of MPs with their PR.
The UK's system gives regional/separatist parties a lot more power, which is why although the BNP got more votes than Plain Cymru, Sinn Fein, Alliance and the SDLP together, the latter block got 12 seats to the BNP's 0
In hoc signo vinces
'Conservative 2010 general election leaflet in Blackburn'
I sincerely hope that Tory leaflet is fake.
4Symbols: 'Conservative 2010 general election leaflet in Blackburn'
From the linked document:
We have in front of us a whole saga of atrocities committed in Iraq, in Afghanistan, in Palestine and as if this was not enough, the Labour government allowed the Israeli Government to create havoc in Lebanon and Gaza in Palestine, destroying their infrastructure and killing and maiming thousands of innocent civilians...
This is British conservatism? As Homophobic Horse noted, this must be some sort of joke or hoax.
From all of the previous comments regarding how little difference there is among the British parties, I would not be surprised if the leaflet were genuine. It would certainly go a long way towards confirming the rumored resurgence of European anti-Semitism.
Would someone more well-versed in this political muddle please check in?
xlbrl, I said before what you said too. Universal suffrage is an utterly idiotic concept supported either by useful idiots or people who have an agenda. Besides 25-65 years olds that are married and have children, with no record, that are net tax payers and that own a house/business shouldn't vote. Also a friend says that I should add a national service and only men who finished it to vote, but I have mixed feelings about this last criteria.
Fjordman, yes, most Europeans are idiots who don't have a problem to ethnically cleanse themselves in the name of non-discrimination and social justice. It will be nice to see how these things will take place when the UK will go bankrupt though.
I doubt it's fake. Remember though that the ward campaign team usually print up a lot of their own material to supplement the official campaign literature, which tends to be limited to just the manifesto.
That said, the tories have been beating the Iraq war drum pretty steady for the last year or so now. Low down, demanding inquiries whilst saying they still support the objectives in principle... they were for it before they were against it and all that rot.
Getting UKIP and BNP members of parliament was an unrealistic hope, I suppose. However UKIP alone cost the tories 20 seats according to some back-of-the-envelope calculations by Richard North at EU Referendum. It might have given them pause for thought. We'll see how the tory party starts campaigning next - and it will start campaigning. In a hung parliament they're unlikely to be ale to do much governing which means they'll start setting themselves up for the next, inevitable election.
In hoc signo vinces
@Zenster
"Would someone more well-versed in this political muddle please check in?"
The key to understanding present day British politics is the liberalism of Thatcher.
If you look at the Scottish vote the Scots are not voting socialist out of deep conviction they are voting to protect themselves against what they perceive to be a resumption of Thatcher's neoliberalism, this was a smart vote like an army digging in. Look on in wonder a whole society - the Scots people - with a political memory anticipating the outcome of an election and entrenching the political will - incredible!
What we are witnessing in the U.K. is a slow movement of power dissolving back down to the grassroots after 30 years of what was Thatcher's psuedo-middle class - psuedo-conservative coup.
As I have commented elsewhere on this site the REAL politics will start after this election.
Thanks 4symbols.
"The party is not concerned with perpetuating itself. Who wields power is not important, providing the hierarchical structure remains always the same." - 1984, George Orwell
Replace "public-bureaucratic" for "hierarchical" in the above quotation and you have a pretty good description of Britain under the EU.
Britain is the model EU country as it consistently implements the large volume of European Commission directives it receives whereas other EU countries - Italy especially - make extensive use of Larry Auster's "unprincipled exception" in their dealings with the EU. (This includes lying about meeting the entry standards for joining the Euro.)
In terms of domestic national politics of member states it is the Lega du Nord and Berlusconi's alliance that are the oddity. They only exist because they - and their uncomplacent voters - have made space for themselves. The three-party leftist death grip currently strangling Britain represents the success of the EU's (Napoleonic) post-political order. This is how it's supposed to work.
What happened? An adversarial parliament has traditionally been more of a feature of Britain (and English-speaking countries generally) than of the Continent. This is why I find David Cameron and his chums so subversive, and so much worse than Labour and the Lib Dims.
Thatcher's economic liberalism (in combination with other factors) had a lot to do with it. She was less conservative than is often supposed and I believe this will become more clear in the fullness of time. For anyone who can't wait that long, I'm writing about this very topic now and will link here to the finished result.
Viking is right about the voters wanting to get rid of Brown.
As a voter in the election I voted Conservative even though I have contributed money to the BNP election fund.
So why did I not vote BNP? Because voting BNP would not have helped to get rid of Brown.
Brown has irrevocably changed the country I love (England) by admitted social engineering. Brown has ensured that my England may well become an Islamic republic in the lifetime of my grandchildren.
I detest Brown and his marxist cohorts with every bone in my body. The Tories are the only party that can stop the situation getting worse at this time.
How will they do that? By limiting immigration from the muslim countries to tens of thousands rather than hundreds of thousands. By strengthen our border forces to cut illegal immigration. By repealing the EU led human rights act that allows the courts to prevent dangerous muslims from being deported.
I am not a natural Tory but simply a hater of marxists. I do know that the BNP are the only party that would reverse the Islamification of England but it won't be until we reach a tipping point that the BNP would be elected to power.
In hoc signo vinces
@Sean O'Brian
"The party is not concerned with perpetuating itself. Who wields power is not important, providing the hierarchical structure remains always the same." - 1984, George Orwell
This is a difficult question to word but how is the "hierarchical structure" being sustained as a political power force it is almost like the obelisque in 2001 A Space Odyssey able to influence even the most ardent conservative thinker.
Looking at the constituent politics of the "hierarchical structure" they are weak and should be easy to destroy, but that is not the case they behave more like a virus than a body politic.
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