United Kingdom general election, 2010

• Labour: 258
• Otherwise:. 28
• LibDems: 57
• Tories: 307

The UK general election on 6 May 2010, there were, almost to the day exactly five years after the elections of 5 May 2005 instead. This election date put the British Prime Minister Gordon Brown laid on April 6, 2010. For the Labour Party, which was leading the ruling party for three election periods, stepped to the incumbent since 2007, Prime Minister Gordon Brown, for the Conservative Party ( " Tories "), David Cameron. The Liberal Democrats were represented by their top candidate Nick Clegg. As a result, the Conservatives gained votes and constituency mandates should strongly and were strongest power in the House. However, they missed the target absolute majority of seats. On 11 May 2010, Gordon Brown resigned from his position as Prime Minister and David Cameron was appointed by the Queen as Prime Minister. He formed a coalition with the Liberal Democrats under Nick Clegg. This was the first coalition in the UK for generations. For the first time since the general election of February 1974, there was a so-called Hung parliament.

Selection mode

The elections were held on May 6, 2010 or the previous elections by the relative majority rule in 649 individual constituencies instead. In the English constituency of Thirsk and Malton the election took place only on 27 May 2010, as the local candidate of the UK Independence Party had died shortly before the election date. Since the last election four constituencies were added, all of which are in England. The candidate with the highest number of votes wins ( first-past -the -post ), a second ballot there is not. This choice favors large mass parties such as the Conservatives and Labour and regional parties such as the Scottish National Party and Plaid Cymru. Medium mass parties such as the Liberal Democrats and smaller parties without pronounced regional priorities were discriminated against in the last election, however.

Realignment of constituency boundaries

Since the last elections in 2005, the constituencies were redrawn according to proposals of the Boundary Commissions in England, Wales and Northern Ireland to take population changes into account. A total of four constituencies are added, the number of seats increased from 646 to 650 All four new constituencies are located in England, which thus came to pass on 533 constituencies. Northern Ireland kept further 18 constituencies whose boundaries were but slightly modified to some extent. The number of Welsh constituencies remained unchanged at 40, but in some cases significantly altered constituency boundaries. The boundaries of the 59 Scottish constituencies were newly established in 2004, so that now was no change. The 533 English constituencies reported on average 69,400 voters on ( Minimum: 56,000 in the constituency of Wirral West, Maximum: 103,500 voters in the constituency Isle of Wight ), the 18 Northern Ireland constituencies had on average 61,300 voters ( Minimum: 55,000 in the constituency of Belfast West, Maximum: 72,800 voters in the constituency of North Antrim ), the 59 Scottish constituencies had on average 67,700 voters ( minimum: 21,800 in the constituency Na h- Eileanan of Iar, maximum: 78,700 voters in the constituency of Linlithgow and East Falkirk ) and the 40 Welsh constituencies had on average 55,600 voters ( minimum: 43,000 in the constituency of Arfon, maximum: 68,200 voters in the constituency of Vale of Glamorgan ). Thus, the " border areas" Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, a total of slightly over-represented.

Constituencies of the top candidates

Gordon Brown joined in his native Scotland Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath constituency on ( Fife ). Even David Cameron and Nick Clegg went into their traditional constituencies (since 2001 and 2005 respectively ) into the race: Cameron in Witney ( Oxfordshire ), Clegg in Sheffield Hallam ( southwestern Sheffield, South Yorkshire ).

David Cameron, top candidate of the Conservative

Nick Clegg, top candidate of the Liberal Democrats

Forecasts before the election

In virtually all polls since 2008 the Conservatives were against Labour. Since the announcement of the election date, a clear increase of the Liberal Democrats has signed in the polls, so this is now about the same, at least lie with Labour. The relative majority voting system makes accurate forecasts of future majorities in the House of particularly difficult, as even small changes in the majority of constituencies can have serious shifts seat in parliament result.

Electioneering

Both the Conservatives and Labour sought to significantly seat majority in the House. If the seat majority is only scarce, it is likely that the government is losing the majority in the course of the legislative term, because over time, again and again -elections in some constituencies ( byelections ) take place due to the departure of a seat holder, which often then in favor of the opposition candidates go out. Following the logic of simple electoral system, the major parties focused heavily on the constituencies where the votes distance between the top two candidates was low at the last general election. In the last election, there were a total of 31 constituencies where the votes relative distance between the first two candidates was less than 1 %.

Some parties competed only in certain regions, the Scottish National Party in Scotland only, only Plaid Cymru in Wales and Sinn Fein, the Social Democratic and Labour Party ( SDLP ), the Alliance Party of Northern Ireland and the Ulster Unionist Party only in Northern Ireland. The Respect Party, a left-wing split from Labour, which had won in the last elections a London constituency, represented only candidates in England and Wales. In a total of three major public debates on the three candidate Gordon Brown, David Cameron and Nick Clegg competed against each other. For all candidates was the economic crisis and how to overcome the focus. Prime Minister Gordon Brown emphasized his economic competence and decisive action that would have made it, that the banking crisis was not passed in a general recession. David Cameron pointed out that a failed economic policy would have led to the crisis, the Labour government threw waste from public funds, stressing that Britain would join under his leadership never the euro zone. Nick Clegg called for a fundamental restructuring of the banking system and the control system to which Labour had not been in the situation and the Conservatives were unwilling.

Results

Statewide Results

Turnout was 65.1%, significantly higher than in the 2005 election ( 61.4 %).

Results by different parts of the country

England

In England, the Conservatives won 298 of 533 absolute majority of electoral districts ( 55.9 %). The Liberal Democrats won 24.2 % hardly less votes than Labour ( 28.1 %), but only 8.1 % of the English seats were due to the electoral law. A surprise was the victory of Caroline Lucas, the Green party leader of the Party of England and Wales, against the Labour candidate in the English constituency of Brighton Pavilion. In the constituency of Thirsk and Malton was only elected on 27 May 2010 as the candidate of the United Kingdom Independence Party had died shortly before the election date. The constituency was won by a large majority by the Conservative candidate Anne McIntosh.

Scotland

The election results in Scotland differed significantly from those in England. In Scotland, the Conservatives won 18.9 % of the vote and only one of the 59 constituencies. With respect to the obtained constituencies, there was ( also unlike England) no difference at all compared to the last general election. The Labour Party was even able to commit to something votes and remained with the gain of more than 2/3 of the constituencies the dominant political force in Scotland. It sure was the fact that the Labour chairman and former Prime Minister Gordon Brown is a Scot, played a role. The Liberal Democrats gained 11 seats in parliament reached with also a result that was higher than their national average. The leader of the Scottish National Party Alex Salmond spoke of the " best result of the SNP since the 1970s ."

Wales

In Wales, the Labour Party remained the dominant party and won with 26 seats more than half of all Welsh constituencies. However, they suffered significant losses of votes and seats in comparison to the election five years ago. The Conservatives were able to gain five seats and thus their Welsh MPs in Westminster more than double. In the three constituencies Arfon, Dwyfor Meirionnydd and Carmarthen East & Dinefwr candidates won the regional Welsh party Plaid Cymru choice. The party leader of Plaid Cymru Ieuan Wyn Jones said she was disappointed and criticized the exclusion of his party (and the SNP) of the televised debates of the major party leaders who have contributed to the fact that his party would not have won more seats.

Northern Ireland

The most significant results in Northern Ireland were the loss of the East Belfast constituency by Peter Robinson (DUP ) to the candidate of the Alliance Naomi Long. The election result in the constituency of Fermanagh South Tyrone could be decided against the Unionist candidate Rodney Connor due to the scarce output after three-fold counting of votes in favor of Michelle Gildernew ( Sinn Fein ). The constituency of North Down won by a large margin the party independent candidate Sylvia Hermon, who was a few weeks earlier resigned from the Ulster Unionist Party. Striking was the significantly lower overall turnout as opposed to choice 5 years ago.

The elections were largely on track without major incident. As scandal was, however, felt that a number of 100 eligible voters did not come in different constituencies to cast their vote because they had to stand in long queues outside polling stations and the polling stations closed on time before they had their turn. In the constituency Liverpool Wavertree missing in some polling stations ballot after the voter turnout failed unexpectedly high, so that at least one polling station had to be temporarily closed, had been brought in to a new ballot. The counting of some constituencies lasted until the afternoon of the following day. The knappeste result was found in the Northern Ireland constituency of Fermanagh and South Tyrone, the seat, the previous owner of Michelle Gildernew of Sinn Féin with all four voices could defend majority ( 21,304 against 21,300 ).

After the announcement of the first preliminary results were first reactions of the party leaders. Nick Clegg described the result as a " disappointment ", David Cameron has said that Labour had lost the mandate and announced formation of a government under his leadership. Prime Minister Gordon Brown expressed his pride that he had won the constituency in Scotland Fife for the seventh time in a row and was proud of the performance of Labour. Leading Labour politicians like Peter Mandelson rejected the resignation Browns with the comment that Cameron had received " no mandate ".

Analysis of voter movements: the Swing

In suburban and rural constituencies, there was a strong movement of Labour voters towards the Conservatives. However, many urban centers and Scottish constituencies showed little change. The following maps show the voters movements ( Swing) from Labour to the Conservatives, the Liberal Democrats to the Conservatives and Labour to the Liberal Democrats.

Coalition negotiations

First speculation about possible coalitions showed two scenarios: a coalition government of Conservatives, Democratic Unionist Party and Independent Unionists under Cameron on one side or a coalition of Labour, Liberal Democrats and Northern Irish SDLP and Alliance Party under Brown on the other side. In both scenarios, the coalitions would, however, had no absolute majority. On the day after the election, David Cameron announced that he would begin talks with the Liberal Democrats on the formation of a possible coalition government or the toleration of a conservative minority government. The Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg said that in view of the election results were the Conservatives to form a government as the first to try the right. Prime Minister Brown said he respected the position of Clegg that this would first negotiate with the Conservatives. However, if these negotiations not be successful, he would be willing to Clegg to speak about the points at which there would be possibilities of agreement. As a central point in all the coalition negotiations, the demand of the Liberal Democrats crystallized after amending the current relative majority voting system in the direction of proportional representation from, a claim that has been rejected by both the Conservatives and Labour.

Resignation of Gordon Brown and David Cameron's appointment as Prime Minister

On 11 May, Gordon Brown announced his resignation from the office of the Prime Minister and Labour leader. Prior to the negotiations between Labour and the Liberal Democrats to form a coalition government had failed. Then the Queen appointed the new Prime Minister David Cameron and commissioned him with the new government. In the following days, the coalition cabinet headed by David Cameron formed.