h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Woo Hoo and, any moment now we can post freely again.

I'm staying up..even if I have to get horribly drunk..

Can't you just get nicely drunk, instead *hic*

Its compulsory to get hidiously drunk on election night...
Hmmm.... don't believe the exit polls for a minute...
Was very* busy here when I went to vote; we had to queue for over half an hour just to get to the actual building... And not a single enterprizing candidate on site to try and bribe me with beer...

Yeah it'll be a couple of hours of rabbiting about exit polls until the real fun begins.

Hoom, can I be bothered to go to the pub and get some a Hophead takeaway...

Ooo the hophead takeout sounds a fine idea... get me some and drop it off here would you?
Ooo first declaration ... maybe I should go nap a couple hours and then come back to see what is happening

I'm used to shouting at the telly, 'Come on you reds!' 'Come on you yellows'..doesn't have the same ring to it.

But with a few more vodka and cokes inside me..it might sound better...

But seriously, if the popular vote is in no way is reflected in the seats because of FPTP this time..I hope the pressure for electoral reform becomes impossible to resist. I've never felt so strongly about that before.

Agreed.... Just hope it doesn't turn out half as bad as teh excit poll suggested.... Unless the libs really have the power of being the ones to manipulate another party, with the hung parliment, then the idea that either of the other two partys would for one minute on their own want us to adopt a voting method that entirely goes against their 'best interests' in terms of being elected again... I should have bought two bottles of vodka...

The exit poll whilst quite different from the polling during the campaign and seat projections based on a uniform swing... is sadly pretty much in accord with what the bookies were expecting.

I should have got some drink in... I need one. I allowed myself to feel less misanthropic about our fellow electorate.

*wants Dimbleby to say "drill baby, drill" to Maitlis"*

I am getting depressed without alcohol to help. Yet again I will not be represented by an MP representing my views. I have NEVER voted for the winning candidate in my constituency - national or local in 33 years worth of voting. Utterly disenfranchised and I am a mainstream party supporter. Yes, I DO own a pair of sandals.

But I knew that would happen didn't I!

PP

I notice Tories keep saying this is a massive rejection of Labour which means people *want a Tory government*. The very idea that some sort of new thing might form between Labour and the Lib Dems is what they don't want people to think. I really really hope the Tories don't get an overall majority, so we can get people thinking in a new way. I'm not saying it'll be easy, but the very idea that two parties might actually come together is a first step towards electoral reform.

God I hate the Tories.

Well said Effers. About time that we had moderated government.

PP

I've just looked at the scores so far. If we extrapolate, IT'S A MASSIVE LABOUR LANDSLIDE!!

Thank Zeus for that. I can go to bed happy.

Every Labour bod keeps telling the cameras how enthusiastic they are about electoral reform and how hung parliament means no one party has a right to monopoly on power...

A sudden and pragmatic change of tune from the last four weeks... let alone thirteen years.

>A sudden and pragmatic change of tune from the last four weeks..<

Too true, I agree. But I do think there is a difference this time, because they know that people really do want change. It wouldn't be any good for Labour to witter on like this if the people didn't want it..that's the difference I think.

The Lib dems should bite their hands off. And I don't think it'll be some sort of old fashioned Lib/Lab pact..but hopefully almost a new party of the left centre. That's my hope.

NI's First Minister has just bowed out...beaten by the Alliance Party. That's their first MP ever.

I'm finding this all very interesting. Over here in Canada we have the same Parliamentary system, but for all of my life and longer Parliament has been divided between three (now four) fairly strong parties. As I've mentioned elsewhere, it can work quite nicely, whether there's a majority government or a minority one. One thing that has come to be here is that there have always been two leading parties which generally take turns forming the government and there is a third party, the New Democratic Party, which everyone knows will never form a government, but it acts as a bit of a conscience for whichever of the major parties forms the government. Just yesterday a major, major bill holding the government to account for progress or lack of progress on climate change passed third reading in the House. The interesting thing is that the bill was a Private Member's Bill tabled by a member of the third party.

Three (or four) parties in a hung parliament can get very important legislation passed which would never be passed in a majority government situation *if* the Members are actually willing to balance their desire for power with the interests of the nation. A strong third party which has no real hope of governing can be a wonderful tonic as its members really have little other than the interests of the nation steering them.

Hopefully your lot will all realize that they have to work together for the people and that the people probably would be really angered by another election call very soon.

Well, I quite agree Anhaga. There's an almost superstitious fear of hung parliaments purely because they are so uncommon (due to the voting system) that they seem like some kind of constitutional crisis.

(Meanwhile, rumours look like Caroline Lucas might notch one up for the Greens...)

I don't think you can neccessarily expect the British to just suddenly change to something sensible modern and logical. They had some some constitutional bloke on the beeb, talking about the Queen and the Duke of Wellington