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Hung Parliament?

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Exit polls in the UK show a “Hung parliament with Tories as largest party with 307 seats. Lab[our] 255. L[iberal] D[emocrats] 59.”

This may not be as hung as some people would like if British exit polls, like those over here, undercount conservative performance.

UPDATE:  From the updated link above, why does this sound familiar?

2242 Lord Mandelson on BBC1: “People have voted for change but they don’t know what type of change they want”. So that’s cleared things up.

UP-UPDATE:  Tories take King Offa‘s seat!  Been following some of Michael Barone’s coverage of the British election at the Washington Examiner and just learned that the Tories captured the first capital of England: “Conservatives gain High Peak (a suburban district outside Manchester) and Montgomeryshire in Wales (where the Lib Dem had won big in 2005), Leicestershire Northwest , Aberconwy, Basildon South, and they’ve gained Tamworth from the Lib Dems.”  In the 8th century, Tamworth was the seat of King Offa, the first man to be called rex Anglorum–or King of the English.  The word Englisc (so spelled but pronounced as we pronounce the language we speak) did not appear until two centuries later.

Technically, Offa was King of Mercia, but the various kingdoms, Wessex and Kent for example, looked to him for leadership and protection.  Only the Nothumbrians did not fall under his sway.  He was most famous for building Offa’s Dyke, which was, contrary to some of our readers’ hopes, not the court lesbian, but a great fortification protecting the English from Welsh raids.

Several Beowulf scholars believe that that, the greatest poem written between the early days of the Roman Empire and the first stirrings of the Italian Renaissance, was written in Offa’s court.

Thus, the Tory taking of Tamworth has great historical significance.

Comments

  1. This may not be as hung as some people would like if British exit polls, like those over here, undercount conservative performance.

    Like in 2008 where, after some bleating about ‘Democratic polling bias’ the polls turned out to be… completely accurate?

    I actually did a commentary on the piece I linked, the choice quote in my opinion being “Quite ironic that despite the scorn Bob heaps upon them, the only time the pollsters got it wrong in this election was that they showed Indiana leaning towards McCain when it actually went to Obama”.

  4. “Hung parliament with Tories as largest party with 307 seats. Lab[our] 255. L[iberal] D[emocrats] 59.“

    Yeah, but everyone knows that guys always take the REAL number and add 2.

  7. Sean A will be here all weak….

    I just watched four solid hours of election day comedy on Channel 4, and not once did any of the comedians there get so desperate as to use a ‘hung parliament’ joke.

    Ugh, it’s past 3AM here now. In 2005, it was all over by now. From what I can see right now though, it looks like the LibDems are going to get less seats than most polling predicted (generally about 100) and they’ll instead end up with what the very late exit polls predicted (around 60, the same or maybe even less than they started with). This is likely LibDem supporters going tactical and voting Labour to try and keep the Conservatives from getting a majority. It’s probably worked too.

    Either way, I’m going to bed. This election is going to take more than a few hours before we get a new government, that much you can be sure of.

  9. Why doesnt the queen just dissolve the parliament permanently? Its not like Brits could lose any more liberty under a monarch than they have already given up to Labour — indeed, under Elizabeth, I suspect they would get a lot of lost liberty back.

  14. David Cameron chose a strategy of pale pastels (versus the Reagan strategy of bold colors) to mark the difference between the Tories and Labour. As such, the Brits really didn’t see much difference between the parties. Hence, no compelling reason to put a Conservative Government in power. Hence, the hung Parliament.