UK faces hung parliament after night of drama
Ravi Chandiramani
Friday, May 7, 2010
The UK faces its first hung parliament since 1974, with the Conservatives on course to win the most seats but falling short of an overall majority.
While the make-up of the next government is uncertain, the election results have thrown up a host of unpredictable results with a huge variety of vote swings across the country.
Veteran pollster Peter Kellner said on the BBC's election coverage: "Local factors are kicking in like I've never seen before."
Children's Secretary Ed Balls survived a huge scare in the Morley and Outwood constituency, clinging on by just 1,110 votes. Balls claimed the Conservatives had been denied a national mandate to bring cuts to public services.
But the Tories' "decapitation strategy" of trying to unseat prominent Labour figures worked elsewhere. Former Home Secretary Jacqui Smith, responsible for large parts of New Labour's "Respect" agenda to tackle anti-social behaviour, lost her Redditch seat resoundingly. Another former Home Secretary, Charles Clarke, lost Norwich South to the Lib Dems.
The Tories failed to capture key target seat Hammersmith from Labour in west London, where Shaun Bailey, the black youth worker and founder of youth charity My Generation, was standing. BBC political editor Nick Robinson said: "Shaun Bailey was a symbol for the Conservatives of the renewed, modernised party. The Tories will be very upset that he hasn't won."
Philippa Stroud, director of the Centre for Social Justice and an architect of the Conservatives' family policy, also failed to capture the marginal seat of Sutton and Cheam, with the Liberal Democrats holding on.
But there was success for others from the children and youth sector. Lisa Nandy, policy adviser at The Children's Society, won Wigan for Labour and Kate Green, former chief executive of Child Poverty Action Group, won Stretford and Urmston, the seat held previously by ex-children's minister Beverley Hughes.
ChildLine founder Esther Rantzen, meanwhile, polled a paltry 1,872 votes in Luton South, where she was standing as an independent candidate.