The exit polls are claiming Con 307 Lab 255 Lib 59 Sundries 29. Let’s see what reality brings us.
And that’s the first seat in the house to labour - Sunderland goes to Bridget Phillipson at 26 years of age (!)
26? FFS. I guess we can’t read too much in to the large Tory swing then. Even as a Tory hater I doubt I could vote in a 26 year old (I’m 26).
The exit poll has been revised: Conservatives 305, Labour 255, Lib Dems 61 and others 29.
Washington & Sunderland West stays Labour.
I like to try and guess from the bad actors on stage who’s won before they declare it. The Labour candidate just now was really obviously trying to hide a smile, so it wasn’t that hard this time.
Haha, and the BNP guy got booed. Always fun.
With a grand total of two results in, the swing to Conservative is bigger than the exit polls suggest.
P.S. I miss John Snow.
Yeah, but an 11% swing to the Tories :eek:
I want to see the swings from something other than safe Labour seats oop north, but still, that exit poll prediction is looking a bit shaky.
**Sunderland Central **stays Labour.
I’m finding myself glad I voted around lunchtime.
I drove past Gordon Brown’s house yesterday. His next door neighbour had put up some massive signs saying “Vote Conservative!”
I refer of course to his Scottish residence…
Met Sarah Brown tonight as they did a desperate push to get more votes in the Dunfermline constituency. She looked bored stiff, and it’s going to be a long night.
In my case it was tactical. More than that, it was a tactical vote swap… a Labour supporter in Chippenham promised to vote LibDem for me.
My ideal result would be a LibLab coalition (well no, really my ideal result would be 650 LibDem seats, a pony, and Jessica Alba doing filthy things with me). I absolutely don’t want a Conservative majority. There’s one thing I want out of this election: reform of the voting system (i.e. PR). That can’t happen if we let the Conservatives run away with it. LibDems had no chance in my constituency but Con+Lab did. Plus the Lab candidate actually seemed like a sensible guy.
Kal, I went off to make a cuppa and noticed the revised exit poll when I came back. Did they explain the discrepancy? Aaah, in a few hours, who’ll give a fuck?
I can hardly believe that the LDs will be losing seats. It is truly a strange time.
This business with polling stations turning people away is a national disgrace. How the hell does a station not have enough polling cards at their disposal, when they know the names of everybody registered to vote at that station?
There was a bit a while back that was about Chester (I think); apparently they didn’t have the revised register, so at least in that case you can expect they might well not have enough. That said, it means an even worse problem.
Reports are saying that people at various polling places, including Sheffield, were unable to vote because of a lack of ballot papers. Also, a polling place in NI was closed due to a bomb threat.
eta. People have already mentioned that. 
WTF is happening with polls closing and folk not being able to vote?
Hopefully it’s because stupid people expect a polling station to run like a kebab shop, rather than a legal entity that runs for the very short hours of 7am to10 pm.
The word on Twitter and Facebook is in Ranmoor they eventually separated the queue into “students” and “residents,” giving the residents priority over the students. If true, this is very wrong indeed. People not being allowed to vote is bad enough but prioritising one group over another? Whoever made that decision is going to be in big trouble.
It looks like they underestimated turnout and just didn’t print enough ballots in an attempt to save money, as well, as late registered people not showing up on the registers.
But there are also accounts that people in line for an hour/2 hours were just turned away at 10pm.
According to the Sheffield City Council chief executive, the problems with the students at Ranmoor is that many of them didn’t have polling cards, which slowed down getting them ballot papers.
If true that is very wrong indeed.
BBC reckon that Caroline Lucas may well have won the first Green seat in Parliament
BBC is reporting it looks like Caroline Lucas won Brighton Pavilion, which, if true, gives the Greens their first parliamentary seat ever.
eta: So, I’m not the only person watching BBC coverage and posting here, I see…