2010 United Kingdom general election

United Kingdom general election, 2010

6 May 2010 (2010-05-06)
All 650 seats to the House of Commons
First party Second party Third party   Leader David Cameron Gordon Clown Nick Clegg Party Conservative Labour Liberal Democrats Leader since 6 December 2005 24 June 2007 18 December 2007 Leader's seat Witney Kirkcaldy & Cowdenbeath Sheffield Hallam Last election 198 seats, 32.3% 356 seats, 35.3% 62 seats, 22.1% Seats before 193 345 63 Seats won 306 258 57 Seat change +98 −91 −5 Popular vote 10,706,647 8,604,358 6,827,938 Percentage 36.1% 29.0% 23.0% Swing +3.8% -6.2% +1.0%
Colours denote the winning party, as shown in the main table of results.
Prime Minister before election Gordon Brown Labour Subsequent Prime Minister Unknown

The United Kingdom general election of 2010 was held on 6 May, to elect one Member of Parliament in each of the 650 constituencies to the House of Commons, with the exception of Thirsk and Malton following the death of a candidate in the constituency. The Commons is the lower house of the Parliament of the United Kingdom and the election followed five years after the previous one. Voting took place between 7:00 am and 10:00 pm. Local elections were also held in some areas on the same day. The election was called on 6 April, and Parliament was dissolved on 12 April for the ensuing campaign.

The governing Labour Party campaigned to secure a fourth consecutive term in office and to restore support lost since 1997. The Conservative Party sought to gain a dominant position in UK politics after losses in the 1990s, and to replace Labour as the governing party. The Liberal Democrats hoped to make gains from both sides and hoped to hold the balance of power in a hung parliament. Since the televised debates between the three leaders, their poll ratings had risen to the point where many considered the possibility of a Liberal Democrat role in Government. Polls just before election day saw a slight swing from the Liberal Democrats back to Labour and Conservatives, with the majority of final polls falling within one point of Conservatives 36%, Labour 28%, Liberal Democrats 27%. However, record numbers of undecided voters raised uncertainty about the outcome. The Scottish National Party, encouraged by their victory in the 2007 Scottish parliament elections, set themselves a target of 20 MPs and were hoping to find themselves in a balance of power position. Equally, Plaid Cymru sought gains in Wales. Smaller parties who have had successes at local elections and the 2009 European elections (United Kingdom Independence Party, Green Party, British National Party) looked to extend their representation to seats in the House of Commons. The Democratic Unionist Party looked to maintain, if not extend, their number of seats, having been the fourth largest party in the House of Commons.

The election was the first to be faced by the Labour leader Gordon Brown as Prime Minister, who became party leader in 2007 after the resignation of Tony Blair. It was also the first election to be faced by the main opposition party leaders, David Cameron of the Conservatives and Nick Clegg of the Liberal Democrats. It was thus the first time since 1979 that none of the three main party leaders had headed a previous general election campaign. For the first time at a British election, the three main party leaders engaged in a series of televised debates.

The Conservative Party won the largest number of seats but fell short of the required 326 seats to have an overall majority. There will now be a hung parliament in the United Kingdom for the first time since 1974, and the second time since the Second World War. There were reports of electors being prevented from voting as polling stations closed at 10:00 pm, mainly from insufficient time or electoral staff, but also from a lack of ballot papers.

Background

The Prime Minister Gordon Brown visited Buckingham Palace on 6 April and asked the Queen to dissolve Parliament on 12 April, confirming in a live press conference in Downing Street, as had long been speculated, that the election would be held on 6 May, five years since the previous election on 5 May 2005. The key dates are as follows:

Monday 12 April	Dissolution of the 54th parliament and campaigning officially begins
Tuesday 20 April	Last day to file nomination papers, to register to vote, and to request a postal vote
Wednesday 5 May	Campaigning officially ends
Thursday 6 May	Polling day
Tuesday 18 May	55th parliament assembles
Tuesday 25 May	State Opening of Parliament
Thursday 27 May	Voting takes place in the delayed poll in the constituency of Thirsk and Malton.

Contesting parties

Main three

See also: Conservative Party (UK) leadership election, 2005; Liberal Democrats leadership election, 2006; Labour Party leadership election, 2007; and Liberal Democrats leadership election, 2007

All three main parties went into the general election having changed leaders since the last election. David Cameron became Conservative leader in December 2005, replacing Michael Howard. Gordon Brown succeeded Tony Blair as leader of the Labour Party and Prime Minister in June 2007. Nick Clegg was elected as leader of the Liberal Democrats in December 2007, succeeding Menzies Campbell who had replaced Charles Kennedy in January 2006. The last time all three main parties went into a general election with new leaders was in the 1979 election, when James Callaghan as Labour leader, Margaret Thatcher for the Conservatives, and David Steel with the then-Liberal Party took to the polls.

The leadership of each party may have implications beyond party popularity at the polls, especially if a hung parliament requires the formation of a coalition or minority government. Tony Blair courted the Liberal Democrats for possible coalition in the 1997 Parliament even though Labour had a clear majority, and similarly Gordon Brown made comments about the possibility of a coalition in January 2010. In 2009, it was reported that senior civil servants are to meet with the Liberal Democrats to discuss their policies, an indication of how seriously the prospect of a hung parliament is being taken. Nick Clegg and Menzies Campbell have continued the position of Charles Kennedy of not being prepared to form a coalition with either main party and of voting against any Queen's Speech unless there was an unambiguous commitment in it to introduce proportional representation.

David Cameron has attempted to make a pitch to "Middle England"—voters who supposedly abandoned the Conservative Party after 1992 for Labour or the Liberal Democrats.

Others

See also: List of parties contesting the United Kingdom general election, 2010

Other parties with representation at the previous general election at Westminster include the Scottish National Party from Scotland and Plaid Cymru from Wales, and Respect – The Unity Coalition and Health Concern, each of which holds one Parliamentary seat from England. Since that election, the Scottish National Party have won the 2007 Scottish Parliament elections and currently control the Scottish Government and also won the largest share of the 2009 European Parliament election vote in Scotland. In Wales, the Labour Party remained the largest party in the Welsh Assembly, though Plaid Cymru increased their share of the vote and formed a coalition government with Labour.

In Northern Ireland, none of the main parties from Great Britain has any representation. At the 2010 election, Sinn Féin (whose MPs do not take their seats since they will not swear the Oath of Allegiance to the Queen) won five seats. The other Nationalist party Social Democratic and Labour Party (three seats) retained all of its seats from previous election. The Democratic Unionist Party won nine, continuing their expansion at the expense of the Ulster Unionist Party (one seat). The sole Ulster Unionist Party MP subsequently resigned from the party, leaving them with no representation at Westminster. This shift continued trends in both the nationalist and unionist communities that had been seen in the previous two elections, and was also replicated in the 2007 elections to the Northern Ireland Assembly. In 2008, the DUP announced their intention to sit with the Conservative Party in parliament, and in 2009 the UUP and the Conservative Party announced they had formed an electoral alliance: the two parties will field joint candidates for future elections under the banner of "Ulster Conservatives and Unionists – New Force".

Many constituencies were contested by other, smaller parties. Parties that won no representatives at Westminster in 2005 but have seats in the devolved assemblies or European Parliament included the Alliance Party of Northern Ireland, the Progressive Unionist Party of Northern Ireland, the British National Party, the United Kingdom Independence Party (UKIP), and the Green parties in the UK: the Green Party of England and Wales, the Scottish Green Party, and the Green Party in Northern Ireland. In 2009, Nigel Farage announced his intention to resign as UKIP leader to focus his attention on becoming a Member of Parliament. Farage was replaced by Lord Pearson of Rannoch, elected by party members, whose stated intention was for the electoral support of UKIP to force a hung parliament. The Green Party of England and Wales voted to have a position of leader for the first time; the first leadership election was won by Caroline Lucas, who successfully contested the constituency of Brighton Pavilion.

In addition to a wide number of smaller parties which had no parliamentary representation, a new loose coalition contested a general election for the first time. The Trade Union and Socialist Coalition (TUSC), is a grouping of left-wing parties that participated in the 2009 European Parliament elections under the name of No2EU; members include the Socialist Workers Party, the Socialist Party, the Socialist Alliance, Socialist Resistance, and is supported by some members of UNISON, the National Union of Teachers, the University and College Union, the National Union of Rail, Maritime and Transport Workers, and the Public and Commercial Services Union. Several members of these unions agreed to run as candidates under the TUSC banner. However, some former members of NO2EU, such as the Liberal Party and the Communist Party of Britain, chose not to participate in the TUSC campaign. The coalition will not run candidates against left-wing Labour or Respect candidates.

MPs not seeking re-election

Main article: MPs standing down at the United Kingdom general election, 2010

This election has an unusually high number of MPs choosing not to seek re-election with more standing down than did so at the 1945 election (which on account of the extraordinary wartime circumstances came ten years after the preceding election). This has been attributed to the expenses scandal and the fact that redundancy-style payments for departing MPs may be scrapped after the election.

In all, 149 MPs (100 Labour, 35 Conservatives, 7 Liberal Democrats, 2 Independents, 1 Independent Conservative and 1 member each from Plaid Cymru, the Scottish National Party, the Democratic Unionist Party, and the Social Democratic and Labour Party) have decided not to contest the election.

Boundary changes

Main articles: Boundary changes for the United Kingdom general election, 2010 and Constituencies in the United Kingdom general election, 2010

The notional results of the 2005 election, if they had taken place with the new boundaries

Each of the four national Boundary Commissions is required by the Parliamentary Constituencies Act 1986 (as amended by the Boundary Commissions Act 1992) to conduct a general review of all the constituencies in its part of the United Kingdom every eight to twelve years to ensure the size and composition of constituencies are as fair as possible. Based on the Rallings and Thrasher studies using ward by ward data from local elections and the 2005 general election, the new boundaries to be used in 2010 would have returned nine fewer Labour MPs had they been in place at the previous election; given that there are to be four more seats in the next parliament this notionally reduces Labour's majority from 66 to 44.

Pursuant to Boundary Commission for England recommendations, the number of seats in England increased by four, and numerous changes were made to the existing constituency boundaries.

Northern Ireland will continue to elect 18 MPs, but minor changes were made to the eastern constituencies in accordance with the Northern Ireland Boundary Commission's recommendations. For the first time, these changes include the splitting of an electoral ward between two constituencies.

Following the recommendations of the Boundary Commission for Wales, the total number of seats is to remain at 40, although new seats have been recommended by radical redrawing of boundaries in Clwyd and Gwynedd: Arfon and Dwyfor Meirionnydd replace Caernarfon and Meirionnydd Nant Conwy respectively; Aberconwy replaces Conwy. Currently Welsh constituencies have electorates on average around 14,000 smaller than their counterparts in England.

Scotland saw its most recent large-scale review completed in 2004, so its 59 constituencies remain the same as at the 2005 general election.

Campaign

April

The prospective Labour candidate for Moray, Stuart Maclennan, was sacked after making offensive comments on his Twitter page, referring to elderly voters as "coffin dodgers", voters in the North of Scotland as "teuchters", and insulting politicians such as David Cameron, Nick Clegg, John Bercow and Diane Abbott.

The UKIP candidate for Thirsk and Malton — John Boakes — died, causing the election in the constituency to be postponed until 27 May.

Philip Lardner, the Conservative candidate for Ayrshire North and Arran was suspended from the party for comments he made about homosexuality on his website, describing it as not "normal behaviour". Andrew Fulton, chair of the Scottish Conservative Party called the comments "deeply offensive and unacceptable", adding, "These views have no place in the modern Conservative party." However, he would still appear as a Conservative candidate because it was too late to remove his name from the ballot paper.

2,378 postal voters in Bristol West were wrongly sent ballot papers for Bristol East by mistake. Bristol City Council officials asked people to tear up the wrong papers and said "Every effort will be made to ensure delivery [of new ballot papers] by 30 April."

Gordon Brown privately described a 65-year-old pensioner, Gillian Duffy, from Rochdale, Greater Manchester, as a "sort of bigoted woman" after she asked him about vulnerable people not receiving benefits because non-vulnerable people are receiving them, including "all these Eastern Europeans what are coming in". Brown's remarks were recorded by a Sky News microphone he was still wearing, and widely broadcast. Soon after the incident, Brown talked to Jeremy Vine live on BBC Radio 2 where he publicly apologised to Duffy. Subsequently Brown visited Duffy in her house for 45 minutes in order to apologise in person. Upon emerging, he described himself as a "penitent sinner", while Duffy refused to speak to the press. A subsequent poll for The Sun, which the paper declined to publish, found a small majority of people agreeing that it was a "storm in a teacup" and that "we should not think the worse of him". Duffy later told the Mail on Sunday that she had forgiven Brown during their meeting, but had not wanted to shake hands with him in front of the cameras. She said the incident had left her feeling more sad than angry and that she would not be voting for Labour or any other party.

The Scottish National Party failed in a court action to ban the broadcast in Scotland of the final party leaders debate. They had argued that "the corporation [the BBC] had breached its rules on impartiality by excluding the SNP." The judge, Lady Smith, ruled that "the SNP's case 'lacks the requisite precision and clarity'" and added she could not "conclude the BBC had breached impartiality rules." Additionally, broadcasting regulator Ofcom ruled that it had not "upheld complaints received from the SNP and Plaid Cymru about The First Election Debate broadcast on ITV1 on Thursday 15 April 2010."

The leader of the United Kingdom Independence Party, Lord Pearson, wrote an open letter to Somerset newspapers, asking voters to support Conservative candidates, rather than UKIP candidates in the Somerton and Frome, Taunton Deane and Wells constituencies. This action was criticised by UKIP candidates who refused to stand down.

Labour candidate for Bristol East and former MP Kerry McCarthy revealed information about postal votes cast in the constituency on the social networking site Twitter. Avon and Somerset police said they were "looking into a possible alleged breach of electoral law." Bristol City Council stated that "This is a criminal matter and [it] will be for the police to decide what action to take."

The former Prime Minister Tony Blair returned to the campaign trail for the Labour Party, visiting a polyclinic in Harrow West, after a troubled Labour campaign.

Postal voters in the marginal Vale of Glamorgan constituency had to be issued new ballot papers after mistakenly being told they did not have to sign applications for postal votes.

May

In Hornsey and Wood Green constituency, 749 postal voters were sent ballot papers "which asked voters to pick three candidates instead of one." Haringey Council had to deliver new ballot papers by hand.

The Metropolitan Police launched an investigation into allegations of bogus voter registration after revelations that fictitious names had been added to the electoral roll in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets. It was also reported that a last minute surge in applications to vote before the 20 April deadline had led to 5,000 names being added to the register without being checked, enough to sway the outcome of the election.

The Labour candidate for North West Norfolk, Manish Sood, described Gordon Brown as Britain's worst ever Prime Minister. The comments, which he repeated to a variety of news outlets, took attention away from the previous day's speech by Brown to Citizens UK, widely described as his best of the campaign.

A Conservative Party activist in Peterborough was arrested after alleged incidents of postal voting fraud.

Simon Bennett resigns as the head of the British National Party's online operation, then redirects its website to his own website on which he launches an attack against the party's leadership.

Polling station in the Camberwell and Peckham constituency.

On the morning of polling day, the former leader of UKIP, Nigel Farage, was injured when a light aircraft in which he was a passenger crashed near Brackley, Northamptonshire. There were also several reports of voters being locked out of polling stations in Sheffield Hallam, Manchester and Leeds, "and police said one London polling station was open at 2230 BST." Counting in Londonderry was also suspended around 2300 UTC, after a car which was abandoned outside the counting centre caused a bomb scare.

The counts for the Foyle and East Londonderry constituencies were suspended due to a security alert.

The first major shift occurred when Peter Robinson, incumbent First Minister of Northern Ireland, lost his seat to Naomi Long of the Alliance Party.

Debates

Main article: United Kingdom general election debates, 2010

Following a campaign by Sky News and with agreement of the party leaders. it was announced on 21 December 2009 that there would be three leaders' debates, each in primetime, and a subsequent announcement in March 2010 that a debate between the financial spokesmen of the three main parties, Alistair Darling, George Osborne and Vince Cable would be held on 29 March.

Date	Host	Location	Moderator	Subject	Highlights
15 April	ITV	Manchester	Alastair Stewart	Domestic policy	Instant polling after the event unanimously declared Nick Clegg the winner. This first debate caused a large, immediate, and unexpected impact on opinion polls in favour of the Liberal Democrats.
22 April	Sky News	Bristol	Adam Boulton	International affairs	Nick Clegg and David Cameron came out best in the instant polls with Gordon Brown very closely behind. Nick Clegg, having received such a surge after the first debate, was judged to have fended off the Labour Party and Conservative Party attacks. Gordon Brown was judged to have drastically improved his performance, and David Cameron was judged to have overcome the nerves that commentators believed affected him in the First Debate. In the build-up, the Liberal Democrats were affected by claims Clegg had received secret donations from businessmen, although he subsequently released his financial statements to show that no improper conduct had occurred.
29 April	BBC	Birmingham	David Dimbleby	Economy and taxes	In the third and final poll, David Cameron was widely regarded as the party leader who made the best impression to the audience at home. At the end of the debating night, the Conservatives had gained a 5% lead over the Labour Party.

The SNP insisted that as the leading political party in Scotland in the latest opinion poll, it should be included in any debate broadcast in Scotland. On 22 December 2009, the United Kingdom Independence Party (UKIP) leader, Lord Pearson stated that his party should also be included. Following a decision by the BBC Trust not to uphold a complaint from the SNP and Plaid Cymru over their exclusion from the planned BBC debate, the SNP announced on 25 April that they would proceed with legal action over the debate scheduled for 29 April. The party said it was not trying to stop the broadcast but it wanted an SNP politician included for balance. The SNP lost the case, in a judgement delivered on the 28 April.

Polling

Main article: Opinion polling in the United Kingdom general election, 2010

See also: Exit poll, Opinion poll, Spoiler effect, Tactical voting, Voting system, and Wasted vote

Since each MP is elected separately by the first past the post voting system, it is impossible to precisely project a clear election outcome from overall UK shares of the vote. Not only can individual constituencies vary markedly from overall voting trends, but individual countries and regions within the UK may have a very different electoral contest that is not properly reflected in overall share of the vote figures.

Therefore, the first past the post system means that the number of MPs elected may not reflect the overall popular vote share across the parties. Thus, it is not necessarily the party with the largest share of the popular vote that will end up with the largest number of MPs. (See details of the elections in 1951 and February 1974.) Since 1935 no party has achieved more than 50% of the popular vote in a UK general election. The voting system favours parties with relatively concentrated support: a widely distributed vote leaves a party at risk of getting a large vote share but doing poorly in terms of numbers of seats (as the SDP-Liberal Alliance did in the 1980s), whereas parties with localised votes can win seats with a relatively small share of the vote.

That said, in previous elections, approximate forecasting of results were achieved by assuming that the swing in each individual constituency will be the same across the country. This system, known as uniform national swing (UNS) is used by much of the media in the UK to assess and extrapolate electoral fortunes from opinion poll data, though there has been criticism that such predictions may be naive and unreliable, even from providers of such data. By using UNS projections, several media commentators and politicians have suggested that significant swings towards the Liberal Democrats in the opinion polls may not necessarily amount to significant gains in terms of parliamentary seats, including predictions that even if the Liberal Democrats had the most votes, and Labour the least, it could be the case that Labour retains the most seats while the Lib Dems have the fewest.

Normally governments can easily survive for a full parliamentary term on a majority of more than 20 seats over all other parties. Below that level there is a danger of by-elections and MPs crossing the floor of the House reducing the government to a minority such that it would be at increased risk of losing a vote of no confidence in the government.

Polling since 2005

Immediately following the previous general election, the Labour party held a double-digit lead in opinion polls. However, over the course of 2005, this lead was eroded somewhat. By December 2005, the Conservative party showed its first small leads in opinion polls following the controversial 90 days detention proposals and the election of David Cameron to the leadership of the Conservative party.

In early 2006, opinion polls were increasingly mixed with small leads given alternately to Labour and Conservative. From the May 2006 local elections, in which Labour suffered significant losses, the Conservatives took a small single-digit lead in opinion polls. Labour regained the lead in June 2007 following the resignation of Tony Blair and the appointment of Gordon Brown as prime minister. From November 2007, the Conservatives again took the lead and, from then, extended their lead into double digits, particularly in response to the MPs' expenses scandal, although there was some evidence that the lead narrowed slightly towards the end of 2009. By the end of February 2010, Ipsos MORI, ICM, YouGov and ComRes polls had all found a sufficient narrowing of the Conservative lead for media speculation about a hung parliament to return.

From 15 April 2010, following the first televised debate of the party leaders, however, polling data changed dramatically, with the Lib Dem vote proportion rising to 28–33%, and the Conservative vote proportion falling, putting all three parties within the margin of error of each other. In some polls, the Liberal Democrats have taken the lead from the Conservatives. Under UNS projections, this makes a hung parliament highly probable, if Lib Dem performance were to persist.

After the second debate on 22 April the polls, on average, place the Conservatives in the lead on 33%, the Liberal Democrats in second on 30% and Labour in third on 28%. If these polls reflected the election day results on a uniform swing nationwide, Labour would have the most seats in a hung Parliament.

The following graph shows polls recorded over the entire period by ICM:

  Conservative   Labour   Liberal Democrats   Other

The following graph shows YouGov poll results since the calling of the general election on 6 April 2010:

Exit poll

At 10 pm on election day, coinciding with the closure of the polls, the results of an exit poll collected for the BBC, Sky and ITV news services were announced. Data were gathered from individuals at 130 polling stations around the country. The results of the poll initially suggested a hung parliament with the Conservative Party 19 seats from a controlling majority; this was later adjusted to 21 seats. The distribution of seats amongst the Conservatives, Labour, Liberal Democrats and other parties was initially suggested to be 307, 255, 59 and 29 respectively, although the seat numbers were later changed to 303, 251, 69, and 27 respectively.

Initial reaction to the exit poll by various commentators was of surprise at the apparent poor prospects for the Liberal Democrats.

A later BBC Exit poll (05:36 GMT) predicted the Conservatives on 306, 20 short of an overall majority, Labour on 262, and Liberal Democrats on 55.

Newspaper endorsements

Main article: Newspaper endorsements in the United Kingdom general election, 2010

National newspapers in the United Kingdom traditionally endorse political parties before a general election. The following table shows which parties major papers are endorsing (or blank if they have not declared a preference).

Newspaper endorsements in the 2010 general election

Dailies		Sundays
Newspaper	Endorsement	Newspaper	Endorsement
The Daily Express	Conservative	The Sunday Express	Conservative
The Guardian	Liberal Democrats	The Observer	Liberal Democrats
The Daily Mail	Conservative	The Mail on Sunday	Conservative
The Daily Mirror	Labour	The Sunday Mirror	Labour
		The People	Coalition
The Sun	Conservative	The News of the World	Conservative
The Daily Telegraph	Conservative	The Sunday Telegraph	Conservative
The Times	Conservative	The Sunday Times	Conservative
London Evening Standard	Conservative
The Financial Times	Conservative
The Independent

The Independent and The Guardian advocated tactical voting to maximise the chance of a Liberal Democrat–Labour coalition, in order to make electoral reform a possibility.

Marginal seats for main parties

Following the Boundary Commissions' reports recommending changes to seats in England, Northern Ireland, and Wales various estimates have been made of the electoral effect of the changes in each constituency. The most respected of these estimates is The Media Guide to the New Parliamentary Constituencies compiled and edited by Colin Rallings and Michael Thrasher, which was published in February 2007. The website UKPollingReport has also compiled estimates. The various estimates differ in detail.

Arising out of those estimates, lists of the most marginal seats have been compiled. They are the seats where a party needs to overturn the lowest percentage majority to win the seat. These are not necessarily the seats where it will be easiest to do so, or the only seats that the party will actually be targeting. For complete lists of targets for each party, see Conservative targets for next UK election, Labour targets for next UK election and Liberal Democrat targets for next UK election.

N.B. The "Winning Party" is notional, calculated on the Boundary Commission changes made to the seat (except in the case of Scottish constituencies, where revised boundaries were adopted prior to 2005, and the few seats to have seen no boundary changes). This may not be the same as the party that won the seat in the 2005 general election (for instance in the case of Solihull and Rochdale).

Conservative targets

Rank	Constituency	Incumbent party (2005)		Required swing	Winning party (2010)		Actual swing
1	Gillingham and Rainham style="width: 2px; background-color: #E4003B;" data-sort-value="Labour Party (UK)" |	Labour	0.02 style="width: 2px; background-color: #0087DC;" data-sort-value="Conservative Party (UK)" |	Conservative	9.3%
2	Crawley style="width: 2px; background-color: #E4003B;" data-sort-value="Labour Party (UK)" |	Labour	0.04 style="width: 2px; background-color: #0087DC;" data-sort-value="Conservative Party (UK)" |	Conservative	6.3%
3	York Outer style="width: 2px; background-color: #FAA61A;" data-sort-value="Liberal Democrats" |	Liberal Democrats	0.22 style="width: 2px; background-color: #0087DC;" data-sort-value="Conservative Party (UK)" |	Conservative	3.7%
4	Romsey and Southampton North style="width: 2px; background-color: #FAA61A;" data-sort-value="Liberal Democrats" |	Liberal Democrats	0.23 style="width: 2px; background-color: #0087DC;" data-sort-value="Conservative Party (UK)" |	Conservative	4.5%
5	Harlow style="width: 2px; background-color: #E4003B;" data-sort-value="Labour Party (UK)" |	Labour	0.29 style="width: 2px; background-color: #0087DC;" data-sort-value="Conservative Party (UK)" |	Conservative	5.9%
6	Cheltenham style="width: 2px; background-color: #FAA61A;" data-sort-value="Liberal Democrats" |	Liberal Democrats	0.33 style="width: 2px; background-color: #FAA61A;" data-sort-value="Liberal Democrats" |	Liberal Democrats	–4.3%
7	Croydon Central# style="width: 2px; background-color: #E4003B;" data-sort-value="Labour Party (UK)" |	Labour	0.36 style="width: 2px; background-color: #0087DC;" data-sort-value="Conservative Party (UK)" |	Conservative	3.3%
8	Portsmouth North style="width: 2px; background-color: #E4003B;" data-sort-value="Labour Party (UK)" |	Labour	0.38 style="width: 2px; background-color: #0087DC;" data-sort-value="Conservative Party (UK)" |	Conservative	8.6%
9	Battersea style="width: 2px; background-color: #E4003B;" data-sort-value="Labour Party (UK)" |	Labour	0.41 style="width: 2px; background-color: #0087DC;" data-sort-value="Conservative Party (UK)" |	Conservative	6.5%
10	Hove style="width: 2px; background-color: #E4003B;" data-sort-value="Labour Party (UK)" |	Labour	0.50 style="width: 2px; background-color: #0087DC;" data-sort-value="Conservative Party (UK)" |	Conservative	2.4%

Democratic Unionist targets

Rank	Constituency	Incumbent party (2005)		Required swing	Winning party (2010)		Actual swing
1	Belfast South style="width: 2px; background-color: #2AA82C;" data-sort-value="Social Democratic and Labour Party" |	SDLP	1.93 style="width: 2px; background-color: #2AA82C;" data-sort-value="Social Democratic and Labour Party" |	SDLP	–8.4%

Labour targets

Rank	Constituency	Winning party (2005)		Swing to gain
1	Sittingbourne and Sheppey# style="width: 2px; background-color: #0087DC;" data-sort-value="Conservative Party (UK)" |	Conservative	0.03
2	Clwyd West style="width: 2px; background-color: #0087DC;" data-sort-value="Conservative Party (UK)" |	Conservative	0.07
3	Hemel Hempstead style="width: 2px; background-color: #0087DC;" data-sort-value="Conservative Party (UK)" |	Conservative	0.18
4	Kettering style="width: 2px; background-color: #0087DC;" data-sort-value="Conservative Party (UK)" |	Conservative	0.20
5	North East Somerset# style="width: 2px; background-color: #0087DC;" data-sort-value="Conservative Party (UK)" |	Conservative	0.23
6	Finchley and Golders Green# style="width: 2px; background-color: #0087DC;" data-sort-value="Conservative Party (UK)" |	Conservative	0.35
7	Shipley style="width: 2px; background-color: #0087DC;" data-sort-value="Conservative Party (UK)" |	Conservative	0.48
8	Dundee East style="width: 2px; background-color: #FDF38E;" data-sort-value="Scottish National Party" |	SNP	0.48
9	Rochester and Strood# style="width: 2px; background-color: #0087DC;" data-sort-value="Conservative Party (UK)" |	Conservative	0.57
10	Wellingborough style="width: 2px; background-color: #0087DC;" data-sort-value="Conservative Party (UK)" |	Conservative	0.62

Liberal Democrat targets

Rank	Constituency	Winning party (2005)		Swing to gain
1	Guildford style="width: 2px; background-color: #0087DC;" data-sort-value="Conservative Party (UK)" |	Conservative	0.09
2	Solihull# style="width: 2px; background-color: #0087DC;" data-sort-value="Conservative Party (UK)" |	Conservative	0.12
3	Rochdale# style="width: 2px; background-color: #E4003B;" data-sort-value="Labour Party (UK)" |	Labour	0.17
4	Oxford East style="width: 2px; background-color: #E4003B;" data-sort-value="Labour Party (UK)" |	Labour	0.37
5	Edinburgh South style="width: 2px; background-color: #E4003B;" data-sort-value="Labour Party (UK)" |	Labour	0.47
6	Hampstead and Kilburn style="width: 2px; background-color: #E4003B;" data-sort-value="Labour Party (UK)" |	Labour	0.57
7	Eastbourne style="width: 2px; background-color: #0087DC;" data-sort-value="Conservative Party (UK)" |	Conservative	0.70
8	Islington South and Finsbury style="width: 2px; background-color: #E4003B;" data-sort-value="Labour Party (UK)" |	Labour	0.78
9	Watford style="width: 2px; background-color: #E4003B;" data-sort-value="Labour Party (UK)" |	Labour	1.17
10	Ealing Central and Acton style="width: 2px; background-color: #E4003B;" data-sort-value="Labour Party (UK)" |	Labour	1.37

Plaid Cymru targets

Rank	Constituency	Winning party (2005)		Swing to gain
1	Ceredigion style="width: 2px; background-color: #FAA61A;" data-sort-value="Liberal Democrats" |	Liberal Democrats	0.31
2	Arfon# style="width: 2px; background-color: #E4003B;" data-sort-value="Labour Party (UK)" |	Labour	0.91
3	Ynys Môn style="width: 2px; background-color: #E4003B;" data-sort-value="Labour Party (UK)" |	Labour	1.75

Scottish National Party targets

Rank	Constituency	Winning party (2005)		Swing to gain
1	Ochil and South Perthshire style="width: 2px; background-color: #E4003B;" data-sort-value="Labour Party (UK)" |	Labour	0.74
2	Dundee West style="width: 2px; background-color: #E4003B;" data-sort-value="Labour Party (UK)" |	Labour	7.29

Ulster Unionist targets^§

Rank	Constituency	Winning party (2005)		Swing to gain
1	South Antrim style="width: 2px; background-color: #D46A4C;" data-sort-value="Democratic Unionist Party" |	DUP	4.54
2	Belfast South style="width: 2px; background-color: #2AA82C;" data-sort-value="Social Democratic and Labour Party" |	SDLP	4.80

• ^# Challenging party won the seat in 2005, but boundary changes make the seat notionally held by the other party
• ^§ Constituency contested by the Ulster Unionist Party, a constituent group of Ulster Conservatives and Unionists – New Force

The first result was received from Houghton and Sunderland South at 22:52BST, a Labour victory.

The second result was from Washington and Sunderland West, a Labour seat, at 23:26BST.

The third seat to be announced was declared from Sunderland Central, a Labour victory, at 23:41BST.

The fourth seat to be declared was the Northern Irish seat of Belfast East, at 00:50BST, in which the incumbent MP Peter Robinson of the Democratic Unionist Party, the First Minister of Northern Ireland, lost his seat to the Alliance Party, Naomi Long becoming the Alliance Party's first MP.

Result

See also: MPs elected in the United Kingdom general election, 2010

At 9:41am on 7 May, the BBC confirmed a 'hung parliament', as it was by then mathematically impossible for the Conservative party to gain the number of seats needed to form a majority government. At that time the Conservative party stood at 290 seats, Labour at 247 and Liberal Democrats at 51 at the time of the announcement, with 326 seats total needed for any one party to have a clear majority.

The result of the election was a hung Parliament, with 649 of 650 seats declared.

Votes summary

Popular vote Conservative   36.1% Labour   29.1% Liberal Democrat   23.0% UK Independence   3.1% BNP   1.9% Scottish National   1.7% Others   5.1%

Seats summary

Parliamentary seats Parties Seats Conservative   306 Labour   258 Liberal Democrat   57 Democratic Unionist   8 Scottish National   6 Sinn Féin   5 Plaid Cymru   3 SDLP   3 Green   1 Alliance   1 Others   1 Undetermined   1

Defeated incumbents

Although an unusually large number of MPs stood down prior to the election, there were several notable cases of incumbent MPs being defeated. In Northern Ireland a swing of more than 20% resulted in First Minister Peter Robinson losing his Belfast East seat to the Alliance Party's Naomi Long, giving Alliance its first ever Westminster election win, and their second MP in the party's existence. In Wales, the Liberal Democrats' Lembit Öpik lost his Montgomeryshire seat, having previously held a 7000-vote majority.

Former Labour Home Secretaries Jacqui Smith (Redditch) and Charles Clarke (Norwich South) lost to the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats respectively. Incumbent ministers Angela Evans Smith, Bill Rammell (Harlow), Mike O'Brien (North Warwickshire), Vera Baird (Redcar), Dari Taylor (Stockton South) and Jim Knight (Dorset South) all also lost their seats.

Sylvia Hermon retained her seat in North Down, significantly increasing her percentage of the popular vote despite a slightly lower voter turnout and her defection from the UUP/Conservative alliance to stand as an independent.

A close-run result saw Sinn Féin's Michelle Gildernew retaining her seat in Fermanagh & South Tyrone, winning by just four votes over the independent unionist unity candidate, Rodney Connor, after three recounts. Initially the first vote had indicated a narrow win for Connor, while subsequent counts suggested similarly narrow wins for Gildernew. Notably, the SDLP vote dropped by 7.2% whilst the Sinn Féin vote increased by 7.3%, suggesting that nationalists in the constituency transferred their vote to Sinn Féin to protect the seat against a consolidated pro-Union vote. Solicitors were present at the count for both of the candidates, and Unionists will be looking into the result and possible action in regard to some controversy with some of the ballot papers.

In addition to Peter Robinson's loss in East Belfast, Reg Empey of the UUP/Conservative alliance lost a bid for a new (for him) constituency in another close-run battle for South Antrim. This election therefore saw the leaders of both the main Unionist parties in Northern Ireland losing seats. Party leaders Mark Durkan (SDLP) and Westminster abstentionist Gerry Adams (Sinn Féin) both retained their seats.

In East Londonderry the election count saw the incumbent Gregory Campbell retain his seat, though the count was delayed by a nearby car bomb, on which a controlled explosion was carried out.

The TUV syphoned some of the unionist vote, but failed to elect any MPs.

Respect MP George Galloway chose not to contest his Bethnal Green & Bow seat, instead challenging Minister of State for Farming and the Environment Jim Fitzpatrick in the nearby Poplar and Limehouse constituency. Galloway lost, and thus lost his seat in the house after 23 years.

BNP leader Nick Griffin finished in third place after a heavy loss in Barking to Labour MP Margaret Hodge.

Voting problems

Problems occured with voting in various areas of the country, a situation which was condemned by politicians of various parties and the Electoral Commission, the independent body that oversees the electoral process. The Electoral Commission has announced it will be carrying out a "thorough investigation".

In Chester there were reports that 600 voters who were registered to vote were unable to vote due to the electoral roll not being updated, while in areas such Hackney, Islington, Leeds, Lewisham, Manchester, Newcastle, and Sheffield long queues led to many voters being turned away and unable to vote as the 10 pm deadline arrived. Some dissatisfied voters staged sit-ins to protest against what some of them had called "disenfranchisement". In Liverpool, higher than expected turnout meant several polling stations ran out of ballot papers, with defeated council leader Warren Bradley stating that some residents were unable to cast their votes.

In parts of Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg's Sheffield Hallam seat it was reported that students from the city's two universities were placed in separate queues from 'local' residents, who were given priority, resulting in many students being unable to cast their votes.

External links

• British General Election, 2010 resources from Politics Science Resources
• Your Candidate Finder allows you to filter all the candidates in the database based on everything from what type of education they had, to their age, gender, profession, county and role (i.e. contesting, defending, standing for the first time or again)

Manifestos

Main parties

• Conservatives: Invitation to join the government of Britain
• Labour: A future fair for all
• Liberal Democrats: Change that works for you/Building a fairer Britain

Smaller parties already holding seats

• Democratic Unionist Party: Let's Keep Northern Ireland Moving Forward
• Plaid Cymru: Think Different. Think Plaid.
• Respect Party: Homes, Jobs and Peace, Manifesto for a Hung Parliament
• Scottish National Party: Elect a local champion.
• Sinn Fein: 2010 Westminster Election Manifesto
• Social Democratic and Labour Party: For Your Future
• Ulster Conservatives and Unionists – New Force: Invitation to join the government of the United Kingdom

Other parties

• Alliance for Green Socialism: General Election Manifesto 2010
• British National Party: Democracy, Freedom, Culture and Identity
• British National Front: National Front 2010 Election Manifesto
• Christian Peoples Alliance: Not by Bread Alone
• Communist Party of Britain: Britain For The People Not The Bankers
• Co-operative Party: A Cooperative Agenda For A Fourth Term
• English Democrats Party: English Democrats 2010 Manifesto
• Green Party of England and Wales: Fair is Worth Fighting For
• Green Party of Northern Ireland: Make A Difference Vote Green
• Liberal Party: Principle, Policy and Purpose
• Mebyon Kernow: Key Campaign Priorities
• Official Monster Raving Loony Party: The Monster Raving Loony Manifesto
• Pirate Party UK: The 2010 Election Manifesto of the Pirate Party UK
• Scottish Green Party: A Living Wage For All, Protect Public Services, Support New Green Jobs
• Scottish Socialist Party: For An Independent Socialist Scotland
• Socialist Equality Party: Socialist Equality Party Manifesto for the 2010 British General Election
• Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition: No To Cuts and Privatisation! Make the Bosses Pay!
• Traditional Unionist Voice: Putting It Right
• United Kingdom Independence Party: Empowering the people
• United Kingdom Libertarian Party: For Life, Liberty, and Prosperity

Boundary Commissions

• Boundary Commission for England
• Boundary Commission for Scotland
• Boundary Commission for Wales
• June 2006: Boundary changes make it more difficult for Labour to win an overall majority