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IT HAS BEEN a full-on day of voting for UK citizens today, as Theresa May’s snap election comes to its final stages.
Exit polls due at 10pm will give an indication of the results we can expect, but some last-minute polls carried out before voting took place indicate a lead for the Tories.
According to the Lord Ashcroft poll, which was released today:
The final results from the Ashcroft Model shows an increase in the estimated Conservative majority compared to Tuesday’s figures. The new data is based on an updated survey conducted on Tuesday and Wednesday, which found a hardening of the Conservative vote as Tory supporters gave a higher likelihood of turning out to vote than in previous rounds. The upshot is as follows:
It estimates that the Tories will grab 373 seats, giving the Conservatives a majority of 96.
Meanwhile, the Guardian warns that people should be cautious about a Wired poll which gives Labour a 2.8 percentage point lead.
The newspaper’s own poll tracker puts the Conservatives ahead at 43.91%, and Labour at 35.93%.
The election is May’s first since taking office in July last year, after Britons voted by 52% to leave the European Union.
While it’s generally expected that the Conservatives will increase their majority, it won’t be the overwhelming win that looked certain when May first called for the election.
With part of Labour’s success in the election hinging on votes from young people, queues outside universities were notable. But as people learned from Brexit, photographs on Twitter don’t necessarily translate into game-changing polling.
May called the election three years early in a bid to strengthen her slender majority going into Brexit talks, which begin on June 19, but some polls have suggested she may end up with a hung parliament in which the Conservatives would fall short of the 326 seats needed for a majority.
Polling stations are due to close at 10pm, after which we’ll get the first exit poll results.
Unlike Ireland, the UK doesn’t have a proportional representation system. This means that it’s ‘first past the post’ – there are no transfers.
By about 1am, we can expect to have around a dozen results announced. At 2.30am, Jeremy Corbyn’s constituency of Islington North will declare, while around 4am will see Maidenhead, Theresa May’s constituency, declaring its result.
One thing that has been keeping people’s spirits up during the nailbiting day is the #dogsatpollingstations hashtag on Twitter:
- Contains reporting from - © AFP, 2017
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Gona be a disaster if May wins, for them and us.
@Barry Somers: voters have no idea what’s good for them.Their understanding is limited to Daily Mail headlines. Brexit, Trump, May – clueless idiots.
@Conor Hall: with someone as red as JC on the ticket, a Tory vote is a no-brainer.
@Squarepeg01: By your logic, the Nordic states must mini USSRs given that practically all of Corbyn’s policies are commonplace in said countries. Funnily enough they all have higher living standards, lower inequality and greater freedom of press. A mystery to stump Sherlock Holmes himself!
@Harry Whitehead:
Mystery solved: Massive oil reserves of the coast of Norway which feed the entire Nordic economy.
@Nick Allen: Right…so which massive oilfields did Sweden, Denmark, Iceland and Finland drill their cash reserves from? Norway’s he exception rather than the rule.
@Harry Whitehead:
The Nordic countries have very high taxes, I believe the top rate in Sweden is 90%, but they have very good services.
Neither the British or the Irish tax payers trust their politicians with that much tax income.
@Barry Somers: I think only for them unfortunally corbyn’s victory is very unlikely
@Harry Whitehead: at least Sweden tries to balance its socialism with one of the highest business-friendly ratings according to the world bank, and Denmark is even better. Successive govts have also been reducing their corporation tax for years, from a high of 60% in 1989 to the current rate of 22%. Corbyn wants to take the UK in thw opposite direction. Even so, Sweden’s welfare system is creaking from underfunding, despite its fairly high govt spending to GDP of 50% so we’ll see if these trends continue. Your press freedom commendation doesn’t reflect possible self censorship when it comes to reporting on issues like immigration, an issue on which Corbyn and the left in general are weak.
Would be great if the wannabe Thatcher shot herself in the foot and came out with much less of a majority than she had previously and all her dreams of untrammelled Tory power crumbled to ash…one can but dream!
@stephen kavanagh: the lab in the second picture is it?
@stephen kavanagh:
And then you fell out of the bed and woke up.
@P.J. Nolan: How did you wake up this morning?
rte at it again. They send their main news anchor all the way to London to do what? Interview another rte correspondent. Beggars belief.
Come on May
@Paddy Flynn: Why was my comment edited???
@Paddy Flynn: maybe because you have absurd views?
Hope Labour are shittting themselves here
It’s gonna be a wipe out for UK Labour
@Thaddus T Sawballs: funny how all social media is anti conservative, hard to believe they can have so much support.
The UK is a deeply rooted Conservative country. The only non Tory government in the UK for nearly 40 years was Tony Blair’s administration. That was at a time when both parties occupied the centre ground and the differences between the two were less obvious. Tony Blair’s recent meddling in the Brexit process has done nothing to help the Labour cause either as he is still a deeply unpopular figure in the UK.
@Rodan:
I would agree with most of what you said but I would change one word in the first line.
England is a deeply rooted conservative country, and the strength of SNP north of the border will make the job of removing the Tories difficult.
@P.J. Nolan: Clan Sturgeon are every bit as Tory as ‘New’ Labour. Forget all the ‘progressive’ rubbish and look at their actual track record. Scotland’s world-famous education system going downhill, mass-centralisation of public services (even Thatcher never centralised England’s police forces), plans to turn iScotland into a RoI-type corporate tax haven…
@Harry Whitehead: with a population smaller than London it made perfect sense to centralise it. Or do you think London’s met doesn’t cope being the one force?
@P.J. Nolan: Yes, point taken PJ. The Scots are no fans of the Conservatives, although the Tories would never have won outright last time if it weren’t for the Scottish abandoning Labour!
It doesn’t matter who gets in. There is no real choice for the average Joe because all political parties must operate within the FIAT currency ponzi scheme. We are economic slaves who have been brainwashed into thinking that because we can walk down the street, we are free when in reality we are nothing more than economic units, exploited on a daily basis so the elites don’t have to work for their money. Until the masses wake up to this reality, the divide between the rich and poor will continue to widen year after year. Ubuntu contributionism is the way forward.
@Super Ted:
We missed you Wally
@Super Ted:
Yawn, get the chip off your shoulder and go out there and make money if you want it
I have a hunch what’s going on here.
After the Brexit vote, May went “Brexit means Brexit” and should probably have largely left it at that. She appointed Johnson, Davis and Fox, and this seemed to a matter of ‘your mess, you clear it up’.
But she allowed herself to be pressured into a pretty disastrous campaign without the need to call an election, which she’ll likely win, but she won’t come out undamaged.
And this’ll open the door to a Tory leadership challenge. Johnson has already covertly criticized May over police numbers, and it wouldn’t surprise me if by fall, it’ll be Bojo as PM.
And I’m not sure how pleased we should be in that case, with Brexit negotiations likely turning into a complete joke.
@Mick Tobin:
May calling an election was a master stroke of shrewd politics. The next 2 years will be tough on the UK as they try to negotiate Brexit. If there was an election in a couple of years time then the Tories would have a high risk of losing it. This way she will win the election albeit maybe a few bruises but she will now have 5 years of power to try and get through the bad times and try and gain some popularity
@Nick Allen: How did May’s master stroke work out? FG/FF/Lab must be having a bad case of the trots this morning at what’s happened in the UK.
Theresa May is a nutcase and Corbyn is too far left and many of his policies and hopes aren’t realistic. Neither are a good option. It’s a rock and a hard place situation in my opinion.
@Luke: did you read Corbyns manifesto? Didn’t think so. Stop talking sh*te about “unrealistic” when you’re literally in infuriating.
@Conor Hall:
I read labour’s manifesto, not all 126 pages of it but I picked the topics that interested me.
I think Luke summed it up quite well, if labour had a leader that was at least half electable they would be romping home.
Whenever labour moved to the centre, they usually win an election.
@P.J. Nolan: And what exactly is ‘half electable’? Some anodyne Blair clone with a permanent grin and the willingness to fellate Murdoch whenever he snaps his fingers?
@Harry Whitehead:
Would you prefer May?
@Harry Whitehead:
Exactly, as proven by Blair for about 12 years. What bit of that do you not understand?
@P.J. Nolan: Blair was a conservative who adopted many of Thatcher’s policies – look at the decimation of the NHS which has been privatised in all but name.
@Nick Allen: Blair was elected again and again because he was a camera-friendly snake oil merchant who had the support of Uncle Rupert. What part of that do you not understand?
Makes no difference, different people same crap
Labour is relying on the Young vote. They won’t turn out.
@vNblxOSQ:
True.
“Find me an eighteen year old who isn’t a socialist, find me a fifty year old who isn’t a capitalist”
And older people almost all vote.
@P.J. Nolan: I’m a 50 + socialist
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