Philip Said:

When will be the UK election results announced?

We Answered:

Because it will be close, we're looking at around 10-11 am Friday. Any official announcement won't be made until about 5pm.

Gwendolyn Said:

Now The UK County Election Results Are In; Has Gordon Brown's Continued Premiership Gone Beyond Absurdity?

We Answered:

yes. clutching at straws is what they are doing. gordon thinks the economy will recover miraculously, and we, the electorate will say halleluyah. gordon is god. thats what hes hanging on for and it wont happen. he should try to credit the electorate with just one iota of common sense. he and his bunch of crooks are finished. we are sensible enough to know that. but he thinks we are stupid. he thinks that if the car industry sells a car its down to his business acumen.
if he creates 500 jobs somewhere he is mr wonderful. hes hiding the fact that unemployment goes up twice as much while he creates worthless jobs. he has to go.

Terry Said:

UK political system help - elections results clarification?

We Answered:

650 seats in the House of Commons. You need 326 to have more than half of them, an overall majority, and have enough seats to govern as a single-party government. UK elections usually result in one party winning more than half of the seats.

This time, the Labour party got 258 seats, removing it from office. The Conservative party got 306 seats (1 still left to vote is a safe Tory seat, so they will probably have 307 in a couple of weeks). The Liberal Democrats got 57 seats.

No party has a majority so the options are either a minority Conservative government, or a coalition. The Tories are too far short to make a minority government work. A Labour/Liberal coalition is still 11 short of a majority, so would need the good will of so many smaller parties, that too is not viable. But a Conservative/Liberal coalition has an 80 seat majority and can function.

What it means is that both parties have to give something up, and both of them get some of what they want. It looks at first glance as though the Lib Dems lose out, getting 5 token cabinet jobs and giving up many of their election pledges - there will be no proportional representation, no immigrant amnesty, no scrapping of Trident etc.

But at closer inspection, the Tories are the ones doing the yielding - they will have an electoral reform referendum on alternative vote, a step in the right direction to Lib Dems, and something the Tories oppose. They are adopting the Lib Dem £10k income tax threshold policy, and some of their education policy to divert money to schools where the poorest pupils are, and have partially yielded on new nuclear plants, agreeing that new ones should get no public money.

A coalition is a negotiation of parties to produce something that works. I am not happy about having a Tory government, but at least this is better than an un-checked Tory government.

Don't forget a political party is a coalition in its own right with many different views in one party. There are Tory members who support PR, Labour members who support PR, Labour members who support first past the post, Tory members who are pro-Europe, Lib Dems who are anti-Euro. The former Liberal MP Sir Cyril Smith was famously in favour of hanging, hardly a "liberal" policy.

Leo Said:

Can I watch the UK election results as they happen online?

We Answered:

Expect BBC, ITN and Sky to run live results.

June Said:

Where are the UK general election results officially announced?

We Answered:

First results could be as early as 10.30pm Thursday. Normally who will form the next Government is known by 4am Friday. This time it could well be much later possibly days.
All leaders will initially be at their constituency counts.