Guide to Election Night 2010 brought to you by brought to you by Election Night… May 6th 2010 7am: Going to the polls The polls open on the day of the General Election at 7am and close at 10pm. A handful of seats have indicated that they will not begin counting ballots until May 7th, however it is likely most will eventually opt to count on the night. 11am: Leaders cast their vote It is expected the party leaders will cast their votes in their own constituencies around mid-morning. 10pm: Exit polls The exit poll results will be announced at 10pm, as soon as the polls have closed. In 1997 and 2001 the exit polls over estimated the Labour vote, but in 2005 the BBC/ITN poll (commissioned from NOP and Mori) got the Labour majority spot on. Given the likelihood of a close election, the results of the polls will give less of an indication of the nal result than they have in recent years. 11pm: First results The rst results should start to come in at around 11pm but keep an eye on Twitter as social media networks may get results and rumours out quicker than the traditional media. The race to declare results rst has been won in the past four elections by Sunderland South but competition to declare rst could come from the likes of Barnsley Central, who has nished the count fth in the last two elections and the other Sunderland seats. If you see lots of seats turning red in the rst few hours do not presume this represents a Labour victory. Urban seats which are typically the safe Labour seats tend to report rst giving a false impression of a Labour lead. 1am: By this time the results will be coming in thick and fast and a good number of constituencies will have declared making it possible for pundits to oer predictions for the share of the vote that each party is likely to receive. Watch out for the key seat of Hammersmith as should the Conservatives win it, it would suggest they will be the largest party in the Commons. We may also see the departure of Labour’s rst Government Minister around now as Portsmouth North is typically one of the fastest constituencies to nish its count and the Exchequer Secretary, Sarah McCarthy-Fry looks unlikely to hang on to her seat. Ed Balls also faces tough competition in the newly created seat of Morley and Outwood. Tory PPC Anthony Calvert has been campaigning hard online, could this be Balls’ Portillo moment? 2am: Results should now be in from more than half seats being contested. 4am: Results will continue to lter through during the early hours of the morning. If you are still awake, keep an eye on the seat of Cornwall North which has not completed the count until well after 4am in the last two elections. Assuming a uniform swing across the country a Tory victory here would suggest an overall Conservative majority in the Commons. Jim Knight’s seat in South Dorset is also one to watch at around this time as its result could see another Minister lose his seat. 6am: Enough seats will have been declared by this time to indicate a Conservative or Labour victory or a potential hung parliament. 8am: All of the counts that began on May 6th should be completed by 8am unless there are any recounts… PM in waiting comes back to London to meet the Queen If there is a clear winner the Queen will invite the leader of the victorious party to Buckingham Palace and ask him to form a government. Moving house… A new Prime Minister usually arrives at Downing Street with their family at around lunchtime. Friday afternoon: Last results The nal results have in the past come in from the seats in Northern Ireland, but this year they are planning to count overnight in all of their constituencies for the rst time since 1969. The Scottish seat of Argyll & Bute usually declares sometime after midday and those seats that do not start their count until the morning of May 7th will begin declaring their results around now. brought to you by Election Night… May 6th 2010 THREE-WAY MARGINALS If the Conservatives take Dumfries & Galloway and Perth & North Perthshire they will be making a WALES remarkable recovery in the Scottish political SCOTLAND landscape. But on a uniform swing between Labour and the Conservatives if Labour gain Dumfriesshire BIG NAMES AT RISK Clydesdale and Tweeddale from the Tories they will HIGH PROFILE CANDIDATES have a majority of 100. BIG BATTLES Ed Balls (Lab, Morley and Outwood) Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families, new Chippenham -Wilfred Emmanuel Jones (Con) v Duncan seat tipped to provide a potential Portillo moment and Hames (Lib Dem) unseat Brown’s right hand man. The new seat of Chippenham is notionally Lib Dem but is ODDS: Lab 4/9 weak favourite, Con 7/4, Lib Dem 66/1 seen as a must win for the Tories. 22nd on the Tory target list, but if they are unsuccessful here it could suggest that they might not be doing well enough against the Lib Dems to gain an overall majority. Barking- Nick Grin (BNP) v Margaret Hodge (Lab) Labour’s Margaret Hodge holds the seat, Grin is aiming to be elected as the BNP’s rst ever MP. Ealing Central & Acton, Watford, and Filton & Bradley Stoke are the tightest three-way marginals in the country, with all three parties within 10% of each other. If the Conservatives win Carmarthen West & South Pembrokeshire they will have more than Esther Rantzen (Ind, Luton South) doubled their seats in Wales. Standing as an anti-sleaze candidate in the seat vacated by Margaret Moran ODDS: Lab 5/2 Con 8/11 favourite, Lib Dem 7/1, Esther Rantzen 7/1 Jacqui Smith (Lab, Redditich) Former Home Secretary looks unlikely to fend o the Conservatives ODDS: Lab 4/1, Con 1/6 favourites, Lib Dem 50/1 Buckingham- John Bercow (Con, Speaker) v Nigel Poplar and Limehouse- George Galloway (Respect) v Farage (UKIP) Jim Fitzpatrick (Lab) UKIP main man Nigel Farage takes on the Speaker of the Choosing not to defend the neighbouring constituency House of Commons, left leaning Tory John Bercow of Bethnal Green & Bow, Galloway takes on environment minister Fitzpatrick in a bitter contest instead. Ben Bradshaw (Lab, Exeter) Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, a Chris Huhne (Lib Dem, Eastleigh) landslide victory could secure this scalp for the Tories Having twice failed to win his party’s leadership, Huhne ODDS: Lab 4/6 weak favourite, Con 5/4, Lib Dem 14/1 now faces a huge ght in Hampshire to retain his seat with a paper thin majority. ODDS: Lab 100/1, Con 15/8, Lib Dems 4/11 favourite Zac Goldsmith (Con, Richmond Park) The archetypal ‘Cameroon’ is aiming to take the seat from tenacious Lib Dem Susan Kramer. ODDS: Lab 100/1, Con 5/4 , Lib Dem 4/6 favourite brought to you by Election Night… May 6th 2010 Political Betting ... With many of the ocial opinion polls varying and the general feeling amongst political commentators that we may have a hung parliament come May 7th how can we accurately predict the election outcome? Some say the best poll of all is the one at the bookmakers and thanks to Blue Square, one of the UK’s online betting sites, they have provided comprehensive odds on some of the key political players in this election. With polls forecasting a much closer race, bookmakers have introduced the option of a hung parliament with current odds of 4/7. A clear victory for the Conservatives is currently pitched at 15/8 . The most worrying sign for Gordon Brown is that a clear Labour margin is oered at 16/1. (Odds provided by Blue Square April 21st 2010) Myth: All general elections have to be held on Thursdays. "It is an asteroid hitting the planet and destroying practically all life on earth." Anthony King, May 1997, Truth: The Prime Minister could choose any weekday for a asserting that the word 'landslide' was too weak to general election. However, Thursday has become the describe the scale of Labour's victory traditional day for general elections. The last general election not to be held on a Thursday was on Tuesday October 27th 1931. "I'm Lazarus!", Bob Marshall-Andrews returns to the BBC having earlier conceded defeat to nd he’d won in 2005 Myth: You have to have been born in the UK to vote in UK elections. Truth: EU and qualifying Commonwealth citizens resident in the UK can vote. "It's nice to be back." John Major 1992 Myth: The opinion polls in 1997 got the election wrong. “Smile at us, pay us, pass us, but do not quite forget Truth: The 'poll of polls' predicted the Tory share of the vote to that we are the people of England, that never have the nearest whole number, and was within the standard spoken yet.” Martin Bell quotes GK Chesterton in his margin of error for the other parties. victory speech 1997 Myth: The pundits got the election right in 1997. Truth: Of the 20 pundits on the Reuters panel of so-called “There is work to be done.” Margaret Thatcher quotes political experts, the average eve-of-poll forecast was a Airey Neave 1979 Labour majority of 92, just over half of the 179 majority on the day, and compares to the average 159 seat projection recorded by the opinion polls.