The great thing about UK elections is that they only announce the winner of a riding once all the counting is done. No poll by poll interim results for the British. Which means it is only sensible to follow the results five time zones to the west in Canada. From this point on I will blog my impressions, whether deep or insightful, in British Summer Time:
- 0358 BST:that is it for me. School night, you know. I think it is going to be a very narrow Tory majority but only 315 of 650 have declared. Libs and Labour will have 50% of the popular vote and Tories won't get above 36%. Not a great system but good election night and great BBC web coverage.
- 0336 BST: LibDems have 21.4% of the vote and 19 seats won, Labour has 27.9% and 109 seats. Wow.
- 0324 BST: what if Sinn Fein holds power but refuses to go to London?
- 0319 BST: Conservatives up by 4.5% in the popular vote but under 33% and tied in seats declared.
- 0248 BST: Conservatives pass Labour on the popular vote but both are below 31%.
- 0233 BST: where is the great rush of results? How does Britain's productivity deal with this later a set of results tomorrow? The Tories have failed to take Bolton North East... just as I suspected.
- 0205 BST: no huge swing to the Tories yet. Just a moderate one. Is it enough?
- 0145 BST: Land Is Power party's website is down. Apparently bandwidth is power, too. Got about 1/500th of the vote against current PM.
- 0111 BST: Torbay holds! Wow. That is something. I was there once when I was seven in 1970. Opened the door of the hotel washroom on a very large lady who was really very nice about the whole thing.
- 0108 BST: not much has really happened. Soon too much to understand will happen.
- 0034 BST: UK Conservative Leader Cameron reported by the BBC to be heading to a pub for a pint to watch results. Pub owned by a party official.
- 0019 BST: Army bomb squads out in Londonderry.
- 0007 BST: solid streaming vido on the BBC news website of live BBC TV. Watching on a six year old computer. Working nicely. Far better that the polling booths.
- 2347 BST: The BBC in Merseyside has been taking calls from people saying they couldn't vote because polling stations had run out of ballot papers.
- 2338 BST: Barra's ballot box not to be delayed by volcanic ash. Christian votes in the Western Isles against Sunday sailings, Sunday shopping, Sunday not sitting in a dark wool suit may be a key issue.
- 2300 BST: uncertain rulings on being locked in or not in a polling stations. Voters have been locked out who waited for hours. City of Sheffield returning officer apologizes.
- 2251 BST: Sunderland South reports! It is on. Labour takes it. Oh... They always do.
- 2248 BST: Listening to BBC Scotland. Critical familial ridings include Ayrshire North and Arran, Inverclyde and East Lothian, three Labour hotbeds.
- 2247 BST: not much to report given that early results are expected in about three hours.
So fun.
