This blog collects perspectives on the election you won't find anywhere else, by political experts, based in the School of Politics and International Relations at The University of Nottingham.



Showing posts with label Election Night. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Election Night. Show all posts

Thursday, 6 May 2010

Philip Cowley - reactions to results

The BBC/ITN/Sky exit poll shows no one party with enough seats to form a majority. The Conservatives have done well, putting on almost 100 seats, but not well enough. But - if the exit poll is right - there are also not enough Labour and Lib Dem MPs to form a coalition majority either. Most importantly, however, the poll shows things to be on a knife-edge, and close enough so that any strange results could tip the balance. It promises to be one of the most exciting election nights in living memory.

12:05am
The first three seats - the three Sunderland seats - have seen turnout rise by about 5 percentage points. If that is repeated across the country, overall turnout will remain below 70%. However, it is perfectly possible that turnout will be more variable, and the increase will be greater elsewhere.


Professor Philip Cowley

“Were you up for Balls?”

"So it is a fifteen-times-in-a lifetime event – and there are not many of those! Perhaps in these anti-political or post-political times, we still think that somehow it matters..."
“Were you up for Portillo?” became a sort of catchphrase in the aftermath of the 1997 Election. Those who could say ‘yes’ were deemed to be those who really cared. Hah! The Enfield result was declared at 2.41 a.m. Barely past bedtime.