UK General Election

well i am voting LibDem as i feel we need a real change away from the boring old conservative/labour rubbish. our voting system is so outdated and needs urgent reforms so am backing the LibDems and ppl should not believe the twaddle about wasting votes, thats just the fear of the bigger parties who are running scared

I would like to see you guys give the LibDems a go. But by the look of things whoever gets in has an up hill battle to put the country back on track with the economy . No one wants to talk about what they are going to do about the deficit . They are to busy telling everyone what would happen if you vote for someone else

I wish the poms all the best (but not at the cricket) you have a hard slog ahead of you.

Wow...you elect your Generals in the UK?

In the armed forces of the US, you have to be promoted to that rank.

Hehe

I'd be delighted to see a surprise Lib Dem majority, but I'd settle for them being first in a coalition, preferably with Labour (I think there's more hope of them helping Labour get with the 21st).

The main long-term thing I hope comes out of this is a shift to population-based, roughly equal-sized districts and the removal of voting rights for hereditary peers. For the short term, I hope y'all's elections help you keep your national mood in good enough shape to support your part of the faith-based global economy. The last thing we need is to see more articles about Spain's troubles end with notes that the UK might not be far behind.

Voting Tories... the only real option!

Tough on immigration, tough on the EU!

Whoever is most against spending, squandering, will win.

Maybe you guys should try giving Absolute Power back to the Royal Family? Might be interesting.

Noooooo too many of us died trying to get rid of them to let them walk back in. Plus I dont think the PC crowd could stand another beheading.

My groats are on the Whigs to sweep the country...

i really don't care who wins, politicians will say whatever they need to get into power then reneg as usual. and as usual the sheeple continue to believe the garbage they are told. Hey maybe this time it will be different (sarcastic laugh). I am kind of interested to see how many actually bother to vote.

Just voted LibDem. Nick Clegg is our local MP anyway.

I think we have all had enough of blue, red, blue, red, blue, red. Time to put a smiley orange on the face of Britain

Scraps I've seen indicate y'all are having heavy turnout, and the election places don't close until 2200. Do any of you Brits think that heavy turnout could yield different results than the latest opinion surveys predict.

p.s. For the discerning nerds amongst us, there's a fun map toy at the Guardian.

Opinion polls are only a rough guide. Most of the people asked were 'don't knows'.

The last two elections have had poor turn outs. The theory is they were Conservatives who weren't happy with party policy. As they would never vote Labour, they simply refused to vote at all. If most of those are voting again, then the result could be interesting.

lol while I'm sure that's true. Prince Charles looks like too much of a wuss to be a Tyrant...hehe. I could see the princes being all "Let them eat cake!!!" when they grow up though.

Margaret Thatcher famously said that the problem with socialism is that eventually you run out of other people's money.  Greece is already past that, and is attempting to steal money from Germany.  The UK is only a couple of years away from the same thing, and I don't have any confidence that Cameron will make any difference.  Neither do any of my British friends. UK government spending is already more than 50% of GDP.  Your soldiers can't afford to use real ammunition in training, and your NHS lets patients die of thirst while in hospital.  Your police are getting closer and closer to enforcing Sharia law, and anyone who says anything against it is labeled a bigot, by your prime minster, no less.

The US is on the same path only a few years behind.  No wonder gold is now at 1200 dollars an ounce and on the rise.

The thought of gold being that precious reminds me of a friend whose family had to sell everything they owned to get enough gold to pay someone to get them out of Cambodia after Pol Pot took over.  Not that I'm comparing Greece to Cambodia ... although if the communists throwing Molotov cocktails in Athens have anything to say about it, perhaps it's not that far off.  

The country is looking either pale blue (Conservative minority)

Or sickly peach (Lab/Lib coalition)

Either way it's going to be messy.

Brown needs to know when he's not wanted. Time to go.

And that's probably exactly why he'll try his absolute best to stay. And in that case that sickly peach will turn out somewhat weirder as Lib/Lab is apparently not enough on its own ( Lab/Lib/Green/SNP/PC anyone? :] ).

Overall, the results are a bit of shame. Guess there's going to be another election in a year or so. Don't think there's much chance of this configuration surviving much longer. Guess that in the meantime we need to pray for something dramatic to happen, like Labour implosion or bankruptcy.

So what about "first past the post?" Think that it will remain intact until the next election, whenever that turns out to be? And if it gets changed, will y'all end up with a solid structural duopoly like we have in the US or a real multiparty system where coalitions are a normal part of governance?

(I had no idea how caught in the middle the UK is until I started reading about this election. I hid from the comparative people in grad school because they were all freaking out over the fall of the USSR and could barely make sense to each other, much less folks from other specialties.)

I f they are anything like  the half wits  here then  I feel sorry for all of you, (sarcastic?) well I guess it is cos I have no time for any polly they can't lie straight in bed  and wouldn't know the truth if it hit them on the ass , the geezers here are  no better: I hate them

Half wits - that's giving them too much credit.

That's a very good question you know. Depending on how the current mess sorts itself out everything could stay as it is for now ( if messers Cameron and Clegg agree to disagree and get on with it ), or we might ( probably ) end up with Australian style AV+ instead ( if somehow Mr Brown manages to stay on ). In my personal opinion we would need one more hung parilment to get enough political will to push the electoral change through. And duopoly? If it didn't happen in the last 150 or so years this voting system was in force, it's even less likely now.

Not quite. Elevation to the rank of Brigadier and beyond requires confirmation by Congress.

Just to remember you brits that they are lots of people over the channel that would like to benefit from a political chaos in UK to invade you !

About time for some payback for the Hundred Year's war !

I was being polite hehe, I could have said the F word