I'm stunned that blogs called it right:
"Gains shown for Conservatives in British election" by Steven Erlanger and Stephen Castle New York Times May 08, 2015
LONDON — Prime Minister David Cameron’s Conservative Party was projected by a national exit poll to have done well in the British general election Thursday, but the nation still faced the likelihood that there would be no outright winner.
Wrong.
Maybe they need help.
The Conservatives were projected by the exit poll to have won 316 seats in Parliament, more than preelection polls had suggested and up nine seats from 2010. But that outcome would still be 10 seats short of the 326 necessary to win an outright majority and seven short of the minimum necessary to have a day-to-day working majority.
Just wait a minute. Late rigs, I mean, results still coming in (exit polls said Gore, Kerry won presidency).
The Liberal Democrats, Cameron’s current coalition partner, were projected to win only 10 seats, a loss of 47 seats from 2010 but enough to put the two parties together right on the edge of being able to form the next government.
That was expected, but the unholy alliance that left Clegg and cohorts with head up Cameron but these last four years did not go over well. When you have a vote between a Tory and Tory, vote for the real Tory.
The Conservatives might also win support from two smaller parties, the Democratic Unionists from Northern Ireland and the UK Independence Party.
Get to UKIP in a minute.
But in an election that polls have shown to be extremely tight all along, there was considerable uncertainty about what the actual results would show, with small swings in any direction capable of shifting the outcome fundamentally.
The exit poll of 22,000 voters, conducted for the BBC, Sky News, and ITV, differed sharply from a variety of opinion polls taken just before the vote. A number of party leaders sharply questioned the projections.
Oh, the STENCH -- especially after the SCOTS had their succession vote stolen!
The opposition Labour Party and its leader, Ed Miliband, appeared to be taking a beating after polls in the run-up suggested Miliband was gaining momentum. The party was projected by the exit poll to have won 239 seats, 19 fewer than in 2010. At the same time, the exit poll suggested that the Scottish National Party had done remarkably well, winning 58 of 59 seats in Scotland, wiping out Labour in what had been one of its strongholds and crushing that party’s hopes for a majority. The Scottish party won only six seats in 2010.
Yeah, makes you wonder how that vote for independence failed.
Btw, did you see the red-state/blue-state map that has been reversed?!
Mayor Boris Johnson of London, who is running for a seat in Parliament as a Conservative, said if the exit poll was accurate, ‘‘then obviously it’s a very, very clear victory for the Conservatives and a very bad night for Labour.’’
The projected success for the Scottish party, which favors independence for Scotland, was met on Glasgow’s streets with the intermittent cheering and jeering reminiscent of soccer fans celebrating their favorite club.
Yeah, bunch of hooligans they (supported by Rupe Murdoch of all people?!?).
Many in Glasgow seemed to think that another independence referendum appeared inevitable, particularly if the exit poll was right in predicting that the Conservatives comfortably beat Labour in England.
Good. Break away from colonial ma$ters whenever you can.
A full count of the vote is not likely to be completed before Friday morning.
Well, race has been called. Can't change it now!
While the exit poll results have been relatively accurate in the past, they are subject to considerable uncertainty, especially given the tight nature of the election, conducted across 650 separate constituencies.
Yuh-huh.
With such narrow margins, the next government, no matter which party forms it, is likely to be a coalition with at best a narrow majority, reliant on legislators from smaller parties and forced to negotiate each major piece of legislation.
Or not.
If the exit poll is too optimistic about the Scottish nationalists and too pessimistic about the Liberal Democrats, final results could show the Conservatives and Labour closer together.
Could it be both?
Voters at polling stations Thursday acknowledged that they were anxious about the results.
Yeah, I'll bet. Most people, when doing something wrong, feel that way.
"Sophia Pym, 30, said she would vote but that she, too, was still undecided. “Do I choose the light-gray color or the dark-gray color?” she asked. “I feel like the result is going to be anti-climactic, the way a balloon deflates.”
Don't get me started on deflating.
Whether Cameron or Miliband becomes prime minister, there will be some big constitutional and international challenges. The result will also have significant implications for Britain’s role in Europe and the larger world, with new questions about Scotland’s place in the United Kingdom, Britain’s place in the European Union and in the larger trans-Atlantic relationship with the United States.
Cameron is committed to renegotiating Britain’s terms of membership in the European Union if he remains prime minister, and to holding a referendum on whether to stay in the bloc by the end of 2017.
Where print ended.
"At the same time, the surge in support for the Scottish National Party is expected to reawaken questions about the future of the Britain. That is an issue that many politicians hoped had been settled last year, when Scots voted against independence in a referendum.
That vote looking stinky now!
The rise of the Scottish National Party has mainly come at the expense of Labour, which had, until recently, dominated Scottish politics. Should Miliband get the chance to form a government, he might need the tacit support of the Scottish nationalists to form a government, although he has ruled out a formal deal.
Turns out Rupe hates Milinband, and even his own tribe turned on him.
The outcome will also determine whether Britain continues to put budgetary austerity at the heart of its economic policies, as the Conservatives have done for the past five years, or focuses more on social spending and investment, as Labour and the Scottish National Party advocate.
You got your an$wer.
Now about all that war $pending.....
Businesses and the financiers of the City of London are also waiting to see what will happen to their taxes, especially if Labour wins with the support of the Scottish nationalists. But they also do not relish the uncertainty of a referendum on British membership in the European Union, as the Conservatives promise.
The important people.
Overall, the outcome is expected to highlight the fragmentation of Britain’s political system and to raise questions about the future of the voting system....
Is ENGLAND heading for FASCISM??!! Is that what they fought Hitler for?
By contrast, the right-wing populist U.K. Independence Party, expected to draw many more votes across the rest of Britain, is likely to win just a handful of seats.
Or maybe not even that, the STENCH of a rigged vote growing ever greater!
Parts of the British news media have played a strident, often partisan, role in the campaign, and on Thursday the Conservative-leaning Daily Mail offered its readers a guide on how to vote to “keep out Red Ed.” The front page of the Labour-supporting Daily Mirror featured a picture of a moving van, urging its readers to force the prime minister to pack his bags and leave his official home on Downing Street. But the power of the press has been undermined, at least to some degree, by the use of social media.
Not only is it pot-hollering kettle pre$$, it's $our grapes pre$$, too!!
In the event of a hung Parliament, Cameron would remain prime minister until he chooses to resign or the new Parliament approves a motion of no-confidence in his government.
I'm sure there are some in Britain who wish to, but.... blah, blah, blah.
Assuming he has no overall majority, he would most likely seek to join again with the Liberal Democrats and would possibly ally with the Democratic Unionist Party of Northern Ireland.
But there is nothing to stop Miliband from talking to other central players at the same time, and the Liberal Democrats could work with either big party.
The process could also be extended. Parliament will next meet on May 18, a Monday, to elect the speaker and swear in newly elected members. The proposed government will be put to the test on May 27, the day it is to present its program in the Queen’s Speech, which is usually delivered by Queen Elizabeth II even though she plays no part in the political maneuvering and takes no sides. That speech is followed by several days of debate, and then by a vote in the House of Commons that serves as a test of the government’s ability to advance its agenda.
Even if the speech were voted down, Parliament would also have to have a vote of no confidence in the government for it to fall. Such a vote could be in June.
The opposition leader would have 14 days to form a government and secure a majority. If that effort failed, new elections would be held.
Printed Globe didn't look at a lot of ballots.
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“It was difficult to know who to vote for [because] a lot of their policies sound quite similar.” In other words, their elections are just like ours.... meaning the bankers own their politicians, too!
"Britain’s Conservatives defy predictions, claim decisive win" by Dan Balz and Griff Witte Washington Post May 09, 2015
LONDON — Newly empowered Prime Minister David Cameron of Britain moved swiftly to establish the terms and priorities for his government on Friday after a stunning national election that delivered his Conservative Party an unexpected majority, devastated three other parties, and redrew the political map of Scotland, but if the election produced an unexpectedly clear outcome, it may have heightened the degree to which the country faces a period of internal debate and potential instability, with questions about the durability of the United Kingdom and its place in the world to be answered.
The sun setting further on the British Empire.
Cameron will have to find a way to manage Scottish nationalists who are demanding more powers and possibly another referendum for independence. Further, his pledge to hold a referendum to determine Britain’s future in the European Union will continue to raise uncertainty about the country’s commitments and reliability there. Barely two weeks ago, Cameron was under pressure to step up his performance on the campaign trail.
And somehow, despite the lackluster campaign and public opinion polls, an unexpected mandate!
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Cameron reiterated his vow to hold a referendum on Britain’s EU membership, and emphasized the carrots in the Conservative Party manifesto — including job-training assistance, additional child-care benefits, and home-building programs — but sidestepped mention of the huge welfare cuts needed to bring these to fruition.
Manifesto? That doesn't sound good. British people know about this?
The Conservatives will hold 331 seats in the new 650-seat Parliament, while the devastated Labor Party will shrink to just 232.
WOW!
The Liberal Democrats suffered even greater losses, paying a steep price for having entered into a coalition with the Conservatives after the 2010 election gave no party a majority. From 57 seats in the last Parliament, the Liberal Democrats will enter the new Parliament with just eight members.
DOUBLE-WOW!
The other big winner in Thursday’s voting was the Scottish National Party, led by Nicola Sturgeon. Eight months after losing an independence vote, the party captured 56 of the 59 Scottish seats in the national Parliament, destroying Labor in its traditional stronghold.
That's strange. Referendum went down to defeat, huh?
The stunning gains by the Scottish National Party not only redrew the politics of Scotland but will add to the challenges Cameron faces in governing a divided United Kingdom.
Hasn't it always been?
The UK Independence Party saw its support rise to 13 percent in the vote, but claimed only one seat due to Britain’s first-past-the-post vote system.
What?!!!!
It's almost as if they were banned from the ballot!
Rather than speculation about who would form the government, Friday brought questions about the future of parties that had been shattered by the strength of the Conservative victory. In rapid succession, the leaders of three parties — Ed Miliband of Labor, Nick Clegg of the Liberal Democrats, and Nigel Farage of UK Independence Party — announced they would resign their positions.
What's next, the good old days of Thatcher?
For all the attention it drew for its anti-immigration views and the pressure it sought to put on Cameron, the UK Independence Party ended up with just a single seat. In addition, Farage, the party’s charismatic and controversial leader, lost his bid to win a seat to a Conservative. His resignation as leader fulfilled a preelection promise, but he did not rule out a comeback. For now, the loss of Farage robs his party of its most visible spokesman.
Well, those "right-wing nationalist" parties that are often labeled racist and Nazi by the propaganda pre$$ are finished in elections now. After the E.U. Parliament was shaken by a somewhat fair vote the PTB in Europe said never again. Nationalism and independence shall be destroyed to further globalism.
The Conservative victory was a tribute to the campaign run by Cameron and campaign chief Lynton Crosby.
They really did step it up the last two weeks(????)!
The message was built around an improving economy, with a strategy to put Miliband and the Labor Party on the defensive over the party’s economic reliability and its potential reliance in government on support from the Scottish National Party.
Didn't work for the Democrats and Obama.
Polling showed that respondents believe the economy improved under the Conservatives, but they did not believe the benefits had been equitably distributed. Cameron ran ahead of Miliband on who voters preferred as prime minister.
Yeah, they see the 1%, or .1%, or .01%, or whatever it is at the top of the pyramid like the rest of us. The greed heads are no longer fooling anyone, I don't care how often their mouthpiece pre$$ trumpets their $elf-$erving charity.
More damaging to Miliband and Labor was the rise of the Scottish National Party and its impact on voting.
‘‘Nationalism squeezed Labor on both ends,’’ said David Axelrod, long a top adviser to President Obama hired to advise the Labor campaign.
The Conservative campaign drew heavily on the techniques employed by Obama’s 2012 reelection campaign. The campaign employed analytics, modeling, targeting, and social media to reach voters.
Makes you rethink that one. Maybe Romney really did win and the mask could have been removed. We would have had a corporate suit for a corporate government. Truly repre$entative. I didn't care; I wrote in Ralph Nader for like the fourth time.
This data work was overseen by Jim Messina, Obama’s 2012 campaign manager.
Hillary should hire them!
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I didn't labour to look at what thoughts might be occurring to others, but while seeking the truth about what really happened I don't want to create a whole storm over things. Still a valuable perspective and resource and it is not worth the argument. Oh, for the good old days.
Another group of crazy conservatives finding it more difficult to govern (and not getting as much attention in the pre$$):
"Netanyahu rival rejects offer to join fragile coalition; PLO, others decry conservative tilt of new government" by Isabel Kershner and Jodi Rudoren New York Times May 08, 2015
This article arrives with the Israeli stamp of approval!
JERUSALEM — A spokesman for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel said Thursday he was reserving the post of foreign minister for Isaac Herzog of the center-left Zionist Union, in hopes of expanding the razor-thin majority government he just formed into a broad one of national unity.
Weren't they the losers of the election? Key word there: Zionist.
But Herzog, whose party finished second behind Netanyahu’s Likud in elections March 17, said his faction would “not be a fifth wheel and have no intention of saving Netanyahu from the hole he has dug for himself.” He promised instead to lead “a fighting, consolidated, strong opposition” aimed at bringing down the government.
That's treason, isn't it?
The conservative Likud party and more-conservative Jewish Home party continued talking through the night before signing a deal at 10 a.m. Thursday that seals Netanyahu’s fourth term but leaves him in a precarious spot, with 61 of Parliament’s 120 seats, the slimmest majority in two decades.
Think Christian nuttie winning presidency, America. That's the analogy.
After drawn-out, fraught negotiations with potential partners who are also political rivals, Netanyahu found himself racing to meet the deadline to form a government, despite his clear election mandate to do so. The new government is expected to be sworn in next week.
How could he have won such a decisive victory then?
The bigger the rig, the more people will believe it?
The leader of the center-right Kulanu Party, Moshe Kahlon, gained an influential foothold with control of the Finance Ministry. Jewish Home got the Education, Justice, and Agriculture ministries, after gaining leverage with Monday’s announcement that Avigdor Lieberman’s ultranationalist Yisrael Beiteinu party would not join the government.
The agreement signed Thursday rewards Jewish Home’s prime constituencies of settlers in the occupied West Bank and modern-Orthodox military families.
Looks like status quo despite the fury and fuss.
It would increase the budget of the Education Ministry, to be headed by the party chief, Naftali Bennett, and of Ariel University, whose West Bank situation makes it controversial; swell the salaries of soldiers in their third year of mandatory service; and armor buses serving settlements.
Moshe Yaalon of Likud is expected to stay on as defense minister. But with many significant posts having been distributed to the other parties, analysts said, Netanyahu could now face an uprising from politicians in his own party who are competing for reduced spoils. One of the government’s first moves could be to change the law that limits the Cabinet to 18 ministers, to satisfy disgruntled senior members of Likud.
Palestinian leaders were quick to denounce the new government as extremist and racist, saying it would expand settlements that most of the world considers illegal and would do nothing to promote peace or a Palestinian state.
They have all been. Their actions have proven it time and again.
Hanna Amira, a member of the Palestine Liberation Organization’s executive committee, said on Voice of Palestine radio that the government was “naked before international public opinion” because it lacks “a fig leaf like the last one,” a reference to centrist ministers who pushed for peace talks, which eased pressure on Israel from the United States and Europe.
Yeah, it is.
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Naked Netanyahu has no clothes.
