# BritDopers (and nosy foreigners) - The general election 2010 **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [April 6, 2010, 11:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/britdopers-and-nosy-foreigners-the-general-election-2010/535133 "2010-04-06T11:13:57Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 27
**Author:** ![Polycarp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/82dd89/32.png) [@Polycarp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Polycarp)\ **Post date:** [May 7, 2010, 4:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/britdopers-and-nosy-foreigners-the-general-election-2010/535133/521 "2010-05-07T04:26:56Z")
> [@Captain\_Amazing](#): > > I think your numbers are wrong. Tories are at 230, and there are still 181 seats not decided. You’re right. I subtracted wrong in my head. As of now, with 170 seats not yet reported: Conservatives – 237 (need 89 for a bare majority) Labour – 181 (need 145 for a bare majority) Liberal Democrats – 36 Northern Ireland: DUP – 8 Sinn Fein – 4 SD&L – 1 Alliance – 1 Scottish National – 6 Plaid Cymru – 3 Other – 1 ---
**Author:** ![Captain\_Amazing](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6de8d8/32.png) [@Captain\_Amazing](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Amazing)\ **Post date:** [May 7, 2010, 4:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/britdopers-and-nosy-foreigners-the-general-election-2010/535133/522 "2010-05-07T04:26:57Z")
Ah, so his is one of the losses you’ll regret most. ---
**Author:** ![Captain\_Amazing](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6de8d8/32.png) [@Captain\_Amazing](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Amazing)\ **Post date:** [May 7, 2010, 4:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/britdopers-and-nosy-foreigners-the-general-election-2010/535133/523 "2010-05-07T04:31:02Z")
Labour held on to Hammersmith. This is bad for the Tories, because they’ve really been pushing their candidate, Shaun Bailey as the symbol of the “new Conservatives”; young, black, social and community activist. ---
**Author:** ![Baron\_Greenback](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/baron_greenback/32/48_2.png) [@Baron\_Greenback](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Baron_Greenback)\ **Post date:** [May 7, 2010, 4:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/britdopers-and-nosy-foreigners-the-general-election-2010/535133/524 "2010-05-07T04:34:49Z")
> [@Captain\_Amazing](#): > > Ah, so his is one of the losses you’ll regret most. Yes. It was clear in my head. It’s getting late here. ---
**Author:** ![Captain\_Amazing](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6de8d8/32.png) [@Captain\_Amazing](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Amazing)\ **Post date:** [May 7, 2010, 4:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/britdopers-and-nosy-foreigners-the-general-election-2010/535133/525 "2010-05-07T04:36:02Z")
> [@Baron\_Greenback](#): > > Yes. It was clear in my head. It’s getting late here. No, it’s getting late here. It’s getting early there. People are starting to get up to go to work. ---
**Author:** ![Captain\_Amazing](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6de8d8/32.png) [@Captain\_Amazing](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Amazing)\ **Post date:** [May 7, 2010, 4:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/britdopers-and-nosy-foreigners-the-general-election-2010/535133/526 "2010-05-07T04:41:03Z")
The BBC is predicting final seats as 306 Conservative, 262 Labour, and 55 Lib-Dem. ---
**Author:** ![Captain\_Amazing](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6de8d8/32.png) [@Captain\_Amazing](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Amazing)\ **Post date:** [May 7, 2010, 4:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/britdopers-and-nosy-foreigners-the-general-election-2010/535133/527 "2010-05-07T04:45:33Z")
Now Lord Adonis and Chris Grayling are arguing about the whole “moral right” thing. It’s a little ironic that the Lib Dems have done so badly in this election and yet are the ones who look like they’ll be in the position to decide the PM, making them the strongest party in this Parliament. ---
**Author:** ![Lantern](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/d26b3c/32.png) [@Lantern](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lantern)\ **Post date:** [May 7, 2010, 4:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/britdopers-and-nosy-foreigners-the-general-election-2010/535133/528 "2010-05-07T04:46:10Z")
BBC projects 306 seats for the Tories which would probably mean they form a minority government. The smaller parties could come into the picture ; I am unclear on these parties and who they would support. It looks like a major disappointment for the LDP who may not win much more than last time. The only silver lining is the possibility of a coalition with the Tories who would gain a stable majority. The interesting issue is how much the Tories will be willing to concede on electoral reform. ---
**Author:** ![Baron\_Greenback](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/baron_greenback/32/48_2.png) [@Baron\_Greenback](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Baron_Greenback)\ **Post date:** [May 7, 2010, 4:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/britdopers-and-nosy-foreigners-the-general-election-2010/535133/529 "2010-05-07T04:52:32Z")
Caroline Lucas just won! She’s wrong about everything but still. ---
**Author:** ![Captain\_Amazing](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6de8d8/32.png) [@Captain\_Amazing](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Amazing)\ **Post date:** [May 7, 2010, 5:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/britdopers-and-nosy-foreigners-the-general-election-2010/535133/530 "2010-05-07T05:00:55Z")
According to Prof. John Curtice, “On average, where the ethnic population is less than 2%, the swing from Labour to Conservative has on average been 5.1%. In contrast, where more than 25% belong to an ethnic minority, the average swing is just 1.7%” It’s interesting because the Tories did a lot this time to try to reach out to minority voters, and it doesn’t look like it did any good. Good news in that Nick Griffin just lost, and Labour’s majority in Barking actually went up. There was a Monster Raving Loony Party candidate for the seat too. ---
**Author:** ![amarone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e0b2c6/32.png) [@amarone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/amarone)\ **Post date:** [May 7, 2010, 5:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/britdopers-and-nosy-foreigners-the-general-election-2010/535133/531 "2010-05-07T05:12:35Z")
> [@Captain\_Amazing](#): > > The BBC is predicting final seats as 306 Conservative, 262 Labour, and 55 Lib-Dem. Now projecting 308, 260, 53. ---
**Author:** ![Captain\_Amazing](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6de8d8/32.png) [@Captain\_Amazing](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Amazing)\ **Post date:** [May 7, 2010, 5:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/britdopers-and-nosy-foreigners-the-general-election-2010/535133/532 "2010-05-07T05:16:14Z")
Where are the other two seats going? ---
**Author:** ![amarone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e0b2c6/32.png) [@amarone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/amarone)\ **Post date:** [May 7, 2010, 5:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/britdopers-and-nosy-foreigners-the-general-election-2010/535133/533 "2010-05-07T05:21:01Z")
> [@Captain\_Amazing](#): > > Where are the other two seats going? They didn’t say. I think the first forecast was before the Green’s victory, so that may be one of them. ---
**Author:** ![Lantern](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/d26b3c/32.png) [@Lantern](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lantern)\ **Post date:** [May 7, 2010, 5:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/britdopers-and-nosy-foreigners-the-general-election-2010/535133/534 "2010-05-07T05:38:15Z")
I have been looking at the smaller parties and apart from the DUP I don’t see much potential support for the Tories. You have various left-leaning parties like Green, Alliance, Sinn Fein and SDLP. The SNP and and Plaid Cymru will possibly hold the balance of power. Who would they support and what price would they demand? Labour, Lib-Dems and all these smaller parties will likely reach the 326 figure but what kind of government would it produce? Possibly the Tories would be quite happy to sit in opposition to a unwieldy and unstable coalition government which becomes increasingly unpopular and collapses in a year or so. ---
**Author:** ![Mr.Kobayashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/4af34b/32.png) [@Mr.Kobayashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Kobayashi)\ **Post date:** [May 7, 2010, 6:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/britdopers-and-nosy-foreigners-the-general-election-2010/535133/535 "2010-05-07T06:06:01Z")
Damn, what the hell happened to all that talk of the Lib Dems doing well?! Tories currently have 279 seats, even if Labour and Lib Dems formed a coalition it would only be 273 seats in total. Yet add up the total votes; 9.6 mil for the Tories, 13.5 mil for Labour + Lib Dems! Say what you want about the U.S. electoral college, but the parliamentary system is far from perfect too. ---
**Author:** ![Raygun99](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/6f9a4e/32.png) [@Raygun99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Raygun99)\ **Post date:** [May 7, 2010, 6:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/britdopers-and-nosy-foreigners-the-general-election-2010/535133/536 "2010-05-07T06:13:19Z")
This isn’t a problem of parliaments, it’s a problem of First-past-the-post systems, which the US also uses. If there was a viable third party in the US, you’d see exactly the same thing happen there too. ---
**Author:** ![Lantern](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/d26b3c/32.png) [@Lantern](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lantern)\ **Post date:** [May 7, 2010, 6:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/britdopers-and-nosy-foreigners-the-general-election-2010/535133/537 "2010-05-07T06:14:15Z")
Actually the British system is the pretty much the same that elects the House in the US. The reason you don’t get the large discrepancy between votes and seats in the US is the absence of a significant third party like the Lib Dems. ---
**Author:** ![Mr.Kobayashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/4af34b/32.png) [@Mr.Kobayashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Kobayashi)\ **Post date:** [May 7, 2010, 6:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/britdopers-and-nosy-foreigners-the-general-election-2010/535133/538 "2010-05-07T06:17:28Z")
I stand corrected, said the man in the orthopaedic shoes. Tories up to 283, LDs just got to 50. What’s next? Last time something like this happened back in the 70s they had another election a few months later. ---
**Author:** ![Baron\_Greenback](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/baron_greenback/32/48_2.png) [@Baron\_Greenback](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Baron_Greenback)\ **Post date:** [May 7, 2010, 6:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/britdopers-and-nosy-foreigners-the-general-election-2010/535133/539 "2010-05-07T06:19:38Z")
> [@Lantern](#): > > I have been looking at the smaller parties and apart from the DUP I don’t see much potential support for the Tories. You have various left-leaning parties like Green, Alliance, Sinn Fein and SDLP. The SNP and and Plaid Cymru will possibly hold the balance of power. Who would they support and what price would they demand? Labour, Lib-Dems and all these smaller parties will likely reach the 326 figure but what kind of government would it produce? When doing that kind of electoral arithmetic there’s a few factors: One seat isn’t getting done for a few weeks because a candidate died, Sinn Fein’s seats don’t count because that party will not sit in Westminster, and the Speaker’s seat doesn’t count either. Tricky innit. ---
**Author:** ![amarone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e0b2c6/32.png) [@amarone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/amarone)\ **Post date:** [May 7, 2010, 6:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/britdopers-and-nosy-foreigners-the-general-election-2010/535133/540 "2010-05-07T06:22:26Z")
> [@Mr.Kobayashi](#): > > I stand corrected, said the man in the orthopaedic shoes. Tories up to 283, LDs just got to 50. > > What’s next? Last time something like this happened back in the 70s they had another election a few months later. February 1974. Ted Heath was Conservative Prime Minister. Labour got more seats, but nobody had an overall majority. Heath tried to form a coalition with the Liberals. When that failed, he resigned. Harold Wilson then became Labour PM. He did not form any coalition. His minority government lasted only until October 1974, when in the second general election of 1974, Labour got an overall majority of 3 seats. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/britdopers-and-nosy-foreigners-the-general-election-2010/535133.md?page=26) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/britdopers-and-nosy-foreigners-the-general-election-2010/535133.md?page=28)