Rolling Election Blog

With just half an hour to go until the polls close in the UK, I will try and provide information on what is going on both for UK and Israeli readers. As its already almost midnight here in Israel not sure I will stay up for the first few hours, but I will see how I go. All times below are Israel time.

The first few interesting things I have seen is the Labour MP for Hendon desperately trying to persuade twitter followers to vote for him this evening, by saying that is supporters in Burnt Oak are flooding out to vote. If I was him I wouldnt be sure they are Labour voters anymore.

23:30 - ICM are saying that Conservatives will have 39% of the vote. With Labour and Lib Dems together. I think therefore a Conservative majority.

23:35 - The beginning of Sky new's election coverage is boring, why start an hour before anything happens?

23:40 - I am predicting a Conservative majority of about 20 seats. The polls may have been quite close in recent weeks but I believe that all the hard work that the Conservative machine has put in over the past few years to identify and persuade their supporters to have voted today will pay off and see them get more of their supporters out than the other parties. Do the Lib Dems even know where their new supporters were and did they come out to vote today? I dont think so.

23:50 - The Lib Dem candidate in Mill Hill has been recording high turnout in Mill Hill but not sure who is voting. This will be very interesting in the local Barnet election but as there have been no Labour tellers there how can Dismore even say he represented the whole constituency?

00:00 - Exit poll says Conservative larges party 19 short of a majority, with Lib Dems having less seats than in 2005

00:03 - According to the Exit poll Gordon Brown would not even have a majority with the Lib Dems in coaltion with only 314 seats. So looks like the end of Labour Government

00:15 - Nick Robinson of the BBC says that based on exit poll Gordon Brown does not have to resign as Prime Minister until Parliament returns, given that he never wanted to go to the British public for a vote, will he try and hang on?

00:20 - the first seat to announce will be interesting because we will see the change in the vote percentage from 2005, the exit poll does not show it, so the public cant make their own interpretation of todays vote.

00:55 - the first seat announces Labour is down 11.7%, Lib Dems down 0.6% and conservaties up 5.2% a swing of 8% if this is the same across the Country would be a large majority for Conservatives.