The Continuing Adventures of Pax-Man

[davidn]

They're still going! Truly, David Dimbleby must be an android. 26 seats remain undeclared, but nobody can win now, so there will have to be dealing either way to form a stable government. Or you could believe the Daily Mail and just accept that this means we're all going to die (as hung parliaments are just behind mobile phones and talcum powder in things that cause cancer).

In tribute to one of the real stars of the evening, who managed to turn "What do you think of the exit polls?" into a loaded and confrontational question, and was heard to say "Look, it's 2:30am, just give me a straight answer" to struggling politicians throughout the night, here's the best thing that radio Dead Ringers ever did.

The Continuing Adventures of Pax-Man

Apart from anything else, I have to admire the Jimmy-Harting of the theme music... coming so close to the actual tune without actually being it.

Comments

[crassadon.livejournal.com]

Wow, the Liberal Democrates have won over 50 seats. That is a not-insignificant amount.

[davidn]

It's not a bad turnout for a party that isn't one of the main two, but it's still shockingly little compared to what they were expected to win this time around. At the moment they've actually lost one seat overall from their previous total.

[e-to-the-ipi.livejournal.com]

Lib Dems have 56 seats from 6,751,786 votes.
Labour have 256 from 8,509,376.

They have a lot of reasons for wanting Electoral reform.

Lib Dem support is very large, and this is a significantly worse showing that last time for them, with two prominent party members losing significant safe seats.

[davidn]

I wonder if the Tories really could tempt the Lib Dems with a promise of proportional representation - therefore a few years of a Con-Lib government, then wildly changed proportions of MPs the next time around and ensuring much more even three-party politics thereafter. It just seems unlikely for the Tories to do that seeing how unwise it would be for their own hanging on...

[e-to-the-ipi.livejournal.com]

The tories are currently trying to get them without proportional representation.

There is no question that they could be tempted, if PR is there. They need it.

[crassadon.livejournal.com]

that is. . .kind of retarded. . .

[e-to-the-ipi.livejournal.com]

It does make sense. I mean, anywhere that uses FPP, if you count the vote of candidates who lose vs. candidates who win, you'd get an even bigger change.

[crassadon.livejournal.com]

That's why I voted for change to how Canadian elections are handled. Though. . .the vote did not pass.

[ms-noone.livejournal.com]

Myself and shoe__gal were just saying that David Dimbleby now looks almost asleep. The BBC should give the man a break. At his age, this could finish him off. I'm half expecting to see a Dimbleby obituary on the BBC news website tomorrow.

[davidn]

If everything falls through and they really do call another election (not exactly a bad idea if so many people were turned away from voting this time...) he's not going to survive!

[kjorteo]

I am amused by the difference in perception of "what happens when one party in Parliament doesn't have more seats than everyone else combined." In Canada, it's called a minority government, and they've had a three in a row now, going from a Liberal-almost-led minority government to a Conservative one to the same Conservative one. (The Conservatives gained about 19 seats in 2008 but still didn't reach majority status, and nothing else really happened, and that election was seen in hindsight as a bit of a waste of time.) There are at least a few people out there who actually prefer it to majority governments, given the somewhat terrifying thought of the Prime Minister being able to do absolutely anything he wants.

In the UK, of course, it's called a hung Parliament and we're all doomed.

Edit: Why do I know this, anyway? I'm American.

Edit 2: Now with more facts.

[davidn]

You know the biggest waste of time ever, much as I hate to say it, was Scotland yesterday! As someone on my Friends list who works with one of the parties pointed out... four months, the equivalent of $400m spent on the election campaigns... and on the day, not a single seat in the entirety of Scotland changed hands.

I think that most people are just scared of it because it's at a time where there's been a very wide change, too (as much as I would like to see that word "change" banned from party campaigns for the next fifty years now) - the second-biggest swing in recent memory, and into a situation that hasn't happened since a decade before I was born. I'm sure people will adapt to the idea eventually...

And, well, you are American, but being unusually well-versed among its population in the histories and existence of other countries is never a bad thing!

[e-to-the-ipi.livejournal.com]

Nonsense! Plenty of seats changed hands, David!

If you look more carefully, you'll see what happened is "The result is exactly the same as in 2005." This means that Labour gained seats there which they'd lost in by-elections. It just happened to take us to exactly the same distribution as we had at the last election.

[ms-noone.livejournal.com]

As someone pointed out in (can't remember where I read this) in most central and south-west Scotland you could stick a red rosette on a monkey and the people would vote for it.