Britain in limbo as hung parliament looms

[Ghost Dog]

Source: Agence France Presse

LONDON (AFP) – Conservatives came top in Britain's close-fought general election but failed to deal a knock-out blow to Labour Prime Minister Gordon Brown, plunging Britain into political uncertainty on Friday.

While Conservative leader David Cameron insisted Brown had lost his mandate to govern, key allies of the prime minister indicated his party would bid to cling to power in a deal with the centrist Liberal Democrats.

Partial results and exit polls showed the Conservatives were in line to win around 305 seats -- 21 short of an overall majority of 326 in the 650-seat House of Commons -- against 255 for Labour and 61 for the Liberal Democrats.

If confirmed, the forecast would leave Britain with a so-called "hung parliament", where no one party has a clear majority, for the first time since 1974.

Read more: http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20100507/ts_afp/britainvote_20100507071626

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Regional Scottish and Northern Irish, plus the one Green seat, will also be pivotal, by the looks of it.

[dipsydoodle]

1. The oddity will be

that Lab + Lib < Con + Others.

[steaa]

2. The majority of 'others' are not natual allies of the Conservatives.

nt

[Soylent Brice]

3. what's your take on all this? is it ooking grim across the pond?

i have to admit, this election has me a bit confused.

[dipsydoodle]

4. It was an inevitable outcome

and it just a matter of who gets together with whom. As I write the Cons are talking to the Lib Dems about forming an alliance but the sticking point may prove to be electoral reform to allow proportional representation. Here's a current link for you that may be updated : http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/election_2010/default.stm

:hi:

[Soylent Brice]

5. thanks!

sounds like a very odd alliance.

[Posteritatis]

6. That sort of thing happens, though; the equivalent is happening in Canada too

The social-democratic NDP have been generally backing the want-to-be-the-GOP Conservatives for awhile, to the dismay of anyone who thought they were electing people on the left of the spectrum when they voted NDP...