It’s conceivable, although I promise nothing, that I may do some of this “live blogging” thing, come the early hours of tomorrow morning. It depends on my mood at the time, and on such things as computer availability, dongle workability and so forth and so on.
Somehow I doubt that Perry de Havilland will be hanging on every result. And oh look, he just said it again, see immediately below!
So, if none of us here manage it, but if you nevertheless hunger for this kind of thing, how about paying attention this this guy?
If I can keep my eyes open I intend to stay up most of the night and blog about the incoming results.
In particular (and at risk of sounding disturbingly anal) I intend to monitor the fate of those candidates who voted for and against the smoking ban. (Yes, really.)
I shall be looking out for some preferred candidates including Philip Davies, Greg Knight, Robert Halfon, Annesley Abercorn (Conservative), Kate Hoey (Labour), Lembit Opik (Lib Dem), Nigel Farage (UKIP), Martin Cullip (Libertarian), Old Holborn (Independent) and one or two others.
I shall also be passing comment on the election coverage, much of which will be viewed through the bottom of a glass, darkly.
Well, if it’s your kind of thing, he says he’s going to start around 10 pm. Maybe Perry might even want to give it a glance. He and Simon Clark of Taking Liberties, who wrote the words quoted above and to whom thanks for the email alerting me to this, do seem to be on the same wavelength.
I will be following it until I drop as well. I plan on keeping my American readers informed about what is going on.
Any predictions?
I still see a hung parliament with Tories as the biggest party.
Well, I’m half way through a long ramble that may or may not ever see the light of today. I promise nothing.
Indeed Brian, I doubt I will even turn the television on today and if I do, it will be to watch the SciFi channel.
I’m one of the fortunate few who actually had a Libertarian to vote for on my ballot-paper.
My next 18 hours or so will be spent in the company of a few rather politically-involved friends; we will be playing the drinking-game known as Electoral Oblivion 2010.
Every time a Labour MP loses his/her seat, take a drink.
Every time a Labour Cabinet-minister loses his/her seat, take two drinks.
Every time a Socialist Alliance, Christian Voice, Respect, BNP or other horribly corporatist/authoritarian/leftist/narrowminded-type wins a seat – leave the room to throw up.
If Gordon Brown, Harriet Harperson, Ed Balls or Jacqui Smith lose their seats – drink an entire brewery!
[Please consume alcohol irresponsibly. All participants in this game should have their alcohol-abuse caseworker’s phone-number barred.]
The countdown to “Decision Time In High Definition” on Sky News HD has got to 1 minute and 54 seconds. I can barely contain my excitement.
The telly pundits are saying Con 307, Lab 255, LibDem 59, or around that.
I say, in the words of someone or other earlier this evening, it’s 1992 all over again, and there will be an absolute Con majority.
In among my long ramble, see above, there was a bit about how, at the last moment, voters tend to realise they are picking a government, not a son-in-law. Hence the apparent disappearance of Cleggmania. Whether the PM is nice doesn’t matter. What he decides to do does.
Wish I’d got round to posting that somewhere this afternoon.
There is such a tremendous disparity between votes cast and seats won. One clear thing is that Lil’Dave’s Conservatives will not win a majority of votes cast, let alone a majority of the entire British people.
Just imagine Al Gore was running on the “We are all going to die tomorrow unless you sign over your first-born to me” ticket. How long would the court cases run before he would admit defeat under the gerrymandered British system?
Why do you guys put up with this voting system?
Alice:
Because what’s the alternative? Ours?
Don’t get me wrong: I like dual-sovereignty federalism and separation of powers. However, you have to admit, to an outsider a US election looks like fifty monkeys (and the retarded bonobo known as WA DC) all trying to have sex with the same greased football.
Or four thousand monkeys, when you account for elections being overseen by county clerks.
Well, I’m ashamed to say that I voted Lib-Dem, purely because the alternative was the complete cunt Phil Woolas. Truly, it is grim up north.
I dunno, Sunfish. I think for all the neg press ours got in 2000, it’s still a lot more democratic than either of the UK’s or Canada’s (Canada has the same problem as the UK – first-past-the-post with districts distributed in such a way that the Liberal Party has a huge advantage). This is not to defend the US system, just to say that we could be doing worse.
“a US election looks like fifty monkeys (and the retarded bonobo known as WA DC) all trying to have sex with the same greased football.”
Sunfish, that is quite a mental image. I may never vote again! I always felt dirty afterwards. Now I know why. 🙂
Well, cancel that prediction about an absolute majority for the Cons. This time around, the telly people appear to have got things about right from the word go.
The big losers have been the LibDems. It’s as if that big first debate, where Clegg wowed the nation, never happened.
Yep, the worry now is that we could have a Lib-Labour coalition government, possibly with a condition that Brown leaves. Utterly unsatisfactory. The Tories did not quite clinch it, but then again, there has been a national swing against both Labour and the Liberal Democrats.
Interestingly, the minority parties, such as the BNP and UKIP, failed to really make any impact.
Sadly, Zac Goldsmith, the plutocratic greenie Tory, won in Richmond, although his opponent was a particularly revolting species of LibDem.
A few good Tories got elected.
The markets do not – yet – seem to have been badly rattled. I suspect the “Greek factor” has put off some folk off the LibDems, as well as that party’s amnesty policy for illegal immigrants. That has cost them.
On Brian’s list:
At least Kate Hoey got elected.
I noticed that as the lady has been active since the election.