2010 United Kingdom general election, Contesting parties, Main parties
All three main parties went into the general election having changed leaders since 2005. 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.


2010 United Kingdom general election, Contesting parties, Main parties
The prospect of a coalition or minority government was being considered well before polling day. Gordon Brown made comments about the possibility of a coalition in January 2010. In 2009, it was reported that senior civil servants were to meet with the Liberal Democrats to discuss their policies, an indication of how seriously the prospect of a hung parliament was being taken. Nick Clegg and Menzies Campbell had 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.


2010 United Kingdom general election, Contesting parties, Other parties
Other parties with representation at Westminster after the previous general election included the Scottish National Party, with six parliamentary seats, Plaid Cymru from Wales with three seats, and Respect – The Unity Coalition and Health Concern, each of which held one parliamentary seat in England. Since that election, the SNP had won the 2007 Scottish Parliament elections and gained control of 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, although Plaid Cymru increased their share of the vote and formed a coalition government with Labour.


2010 United Kingdom general election, Contesting parties, Other parties
In 2009 the Ulster Unionist Party and the Conservative Party announced they had formed an electoral alliance whereby the two parties would field joint candidates for future elections under the banner of "Ulster Conservatives and Unionists – New Force". However, this caused the sole UUP MP Lady Sylvia Hermon to resign from the party on 25 March 2010, leaving them with no representation at Westminster for the first time in their history.


2010 United Kingdom general election, Contesting parties, Other parties
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 UK 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 on becoming an MP.


2010 United Kingdom general election, Contesting parties, Other parties
Farage was replaced in an election by party members by Lord Pearson of Rannoch, 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.


2010 United Kingdom general election, Contesting parties, Other parties
In addition, a new loose coalition, Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition (TUSC), contested a general election for the first time. TUSC was a grouping of left wing parties that participated in the 2009 European Parliament elections under the name of No2EU; members included 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 ran 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 did not run candidates against left wing Labour or Respect candidates.


2010 United Kingdom 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" and voters in the North of Scotland as "teuchters", and insulting politicians such as Cameron, Clegg, John Bercow and Diane Abbott.


2010 United Kingdom general election, Campaign, April
The UKIP candidate for Thirsk and Malton—John Boakes—died, causing the election in the constituency to be postponed until 27 May.


2010 United Kingdom general election, Campaign, April
Philip Lardner, the Conservative candidate for North Ayrshire and Arran, was suspended from the party for comments he made about homosexuality on his website, describing it as not "normal behaviour". Andrew Fulton, the chairman 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 still appeared as a Conservative candidate because it was too late to remove his name from the ballot paper.


2010 United Kingdom general election, Campaign, April
A total of 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."


2010 United Kingdom general election, Campaign, April
The SNP attempted but failed to ban the broadcast of the final party leaders' debate in Scotland, in a court action. 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".


2010 United Kingdom general election, Campaign, April
The leader of the UK 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.


2010 United Kingdom general election, Campaign, April
The Labour candidate for Bristol East and former MP Kerry McCarthy revealed information about postal votes cast in the constituency on Twitter. Avon and Somerset Police said they were "looking into a possible alleged breach of electoral law". Bristol City Council stated: "This is a criminal matter and [it] will be for the police to decide what action to take."


2010 United Kingdom general election, Campaign, April
The former Prime Minister Tony Blair returned to the campaign trail for Labour, visiting a polyclinic in Harrow West, after a troubled Labour campaign.


2010 United Kingdom general election, Campaign, April
Postal voters in the marginal Vale of Glamorgan constituency had to be issued with new ballot papers after mistakenly being told they did not have to sign applications for postal votes.


2010 United Kingdom general election, Campaign, April
A group of entrepreneurs warned on the dangers of a Labour-Liberal coalition in an open letter to The Times on 29 April.


2010 United Kingdom general election, Campaign, April, Bigotgate
Gordon Brown, while in his Prime Ministerial Car on 28 April, privately described a 65-year-old woman and lifelong Labour voter, Gillian Duffy, from Rochdale, Greater Manchester, a Labour-Liberal Democrat marginal seat, as a "bigoted woman". She had asked him about vulnerable people supposedly not receiving benefits because immigrants were receiving them, adding: "You can't say anything about the immigrants because you're saying that you're ... but all these eastern Europeans what are coming in, where are they flocking from?" He replied: "A million people have come from Europe but a million British people have gone into Europe." Brown's conversation with his communications director Justin Forsyth (JF) went:


2010 United Kingdom general election, Campaign, April, Bigotgate
Brown's remarks were recorded by a Sky News microphone he was still wearing, and widely broadcast. It was later said that Brown had misheard Duffy and thought she had asked, "where are they fucking from?" Soon after the incident, Brown talked to Jeremy Vine live on BBC Radio 2 where he publicly apologised to Duffy. American comedian Jon Stewart commented that the clip showed the moment when Brown's "political career leaves his body". Subsequently, Brown visited her house for 43 minutes in order to apologise in person.


2010 United Kingdom general election, Campaign, April, Bigotgate
Upon emerging, he described himself as a "penitent sinner", while Duffy refused to speak to the press and would not 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 incident was subsequently dubbed "Bigotgate", which was later added to the Collins English Dictionary. Despite this, Labour went on to gain the Rochdale seat from the Liberal Democrats, one of the few gains they made in the election.


2010 United Kingdom general election, Campaign, 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 send correct versions by hand.


2010 United Kingdom general election, Campaign, May
The Metropolitan Police launched an investigation in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets. The Times reported on 2 May that the investigation had revealed some names on the register were fictitious, with a late surge in applications to be added to the electoral register (before 20 April deadline) leading to 5,000 additions without time for full checks. In terms of the outcome of the borough's two seats, the narrower majority in any event exceeded 5,000 votes in Poplar and Limehouse, at 6,030 votes.


2010 United Kingdom general election, Campaign, May
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 in the campaign.


2010 United Kingdom general election, Campaign, May
A Conservative Party activist in Peterborough was arrested after alleged postal voting fraud, calling into question 150 postal votes.


2010 United Kingdom general election, Campaign, May
Simon Bennett resigned as the head of the British National Party's online operation then redirected its website to his own on which he attacked the party's leadership.


2010 United Kingdom general election, Campaign, May
On the morning of polling day, 6 May, the former and later leader of UKIP, Nigel Farage, standing in Buckingham against the Speaker, was injured when a light banner-towing aircraft in which he was a passenger crashed near Brackley, Northamptonshire.


2010 United Kingdom general election, Campaign, May
Groups of voters waiting in queues at 10 pm were locked out of polling stations in Sheffield Hallam, Manchester and Leeds; and police said one London polling station was open until 10.30 pm, which triggered a national review of polling station requirements led by the Electoral Commission.


2010 United Kingdom general election, Campaign, May
The counts for the Foyle and East Londonderry constituencies were suspended because of a security alert around 11 pm after a car was abandoned outside the counting centre, causing a bomb scare.


2010 United Kingdom general election, Debates
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 broadcast on prime time television, 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.


2010 United Kingdom general election, Debates
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 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 28 April.


2010 United Kingdom general election, Opinion polls
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.


2010 United Kingdom general election, Opinion polls
Immediately following the previous general election, Labour 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.


2010 United Kingdom general election, Opinion polls
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.


2010 United Kingdom general election, Opinion polls
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.


2010 United Kingdom general election, Opinion polls
Conservative;   Labour;   Liberal Democrats;   OtherGraph of poll results since 2005


2010 United Kingdom general election, Opinion polls
From 15 April 2010, following the first televised debate of the party leaders, polling data changed dramatically, with the Lib Dem vote proportion rising to 28–33%, and the Conservative vote proportion falling. In some polls, the Liberal Democrats took the lead from the Conservatives. Under UNS projections, this made a hung parliament highly probable, if Lib Dem performance had persisted.


2010 United Kingdom general election, Opinion polls
The following graph shows ComRes poll results recorded over the period 11 April – 6 May 2010, including annotations of the three TV debates:


2010 United Kingdom general election, Opinion polls
After the second debate on 22 April the polls, on average, placed the Conservatives in the lead on 33%, the Liberal Democrats in second on 30% and Labour in third on 28%. If these polls had reflected the election day results on a uniform swing nationwide, Labour would have had the most seats in a hung Parliament.


2010 United Kingdom general election, Opinion polls, Exit poll
At 22:00 on election day, coinciding with the closure of the polls, the results of an exit poll completed by GfK NOP and Ipsos MORI on behalf of the BBC, Sky and ITV news services was announced. Data were gathered from individuals at 130 polling stations around the country.


2010 United Kingdom general election, Opinion polls, Exit poll
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 between 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.


2010 United Kingdom general election, Opinion polls, Exit poll
Initial reaction to the exit poll by various commentators was of surprise at the apparent poor prospects for the Liberal Democrats because it was at odds with many opinion polls undertaken in the previous weeks. The actual results showed that the exit poll was a good predictor.


2010 United Kingdom general election, Opinion polls, Exit poll
A later BBC Exit poll (05:36 BST) predicted the Conservatives on 306, 20 short of an overall majority, Labour on 262, and Liberal Democrats on 55.


2010 United Kingdom general election, Endorsements
National newspapers in England traditionally endorse political parties before a general election. The following table shows which parties the major papers endorsed.


2010 United Kingdom general election, Endorsements
The Independent and The Guardian advocated tactical voting to maximise the chance of a Liberal Democrat/Labour coalition to make electoral reform including of the House of Lords and introduction of domestic proportional representation more likely.


2010 United Kingdom general election, Results
Turnout nationally was 65%, a rise from the 61% turnout in the 2005 general election.


2010 United Kingdom general election, Results
On 27 May 2010 the Conservatives won the final seat of Thirsk and Malton, thus giving them 306 seats. The election in that constituency had been delayed because of the death of the UKIP candidate.


2010 United Kingdom general election, Results, Election petitions
Two results were also challenged by defeated candidates through election petitions – Fermanagh and South Tyrone, and Oldham East and Saddleworth.


2010 United Kingdom general election, Results, Election petitions, Fermanagh and South Tyrone
The defeated Unionist 'Unity' candidate, Rodney Connor, lodged a petition against the successful Sinn Féin candidate, Michelle Gildernew, in Fermanagh and South Tyrone, alleging irregularities in the counting of the votes had affected the result. Gildernew had won with a plurality of four votes. However, the court found that there were only three ballot papers which could not be accounted for, and even if they were all votes for Connor, Gildernew would have had a plurality of one. The election was therefore upheld.


2010 United Kingdom general election, Results, Election petitions, Oldham East and Saddleworth
On 28 May 2010, the defeated Liberal Democrat candidate Elwyn Watkins lodged a petition against the election of Phil Woolas (Labour) in Oldham East and Saddleworth constituency. The petition challenged leaflets issued by Woolas's campaign as having contained false statements of fact concerning Watkins' personal character, which is an illegal practice under section 106 of the Representation of the People Act 1983. The statements attempted to link Watkins with Muslim extremists and death threats to Woolas, accused him of reneging on a promise to live in the constituency, and implied that his campaign was funded by illegal foreign political donations.


2010 United Kingdom general election, Results, Election petitions, Oldham East and Saddleworth
During the court case a number of emails between Woolas and his campaign team emerged. In one, Woolas's agent, Joe Fitzpatrick, emailed Woolas and campaign adviser Steven Green, to say: "Things are not going as well as I had hoped ... we need to think about our first attack leaflet." A reply from Fitzpatrick said: "If we don't get the white vote angry he's gone." The court hearing finished on 17 September 2010, with the judges reserving their judgement until 5 November 2010.


2010 United Kingdom general election, Results, Election petitions, Oldham East and Saddleworth
On that day Woolas was found to have breached section 106 of the Representation of the People Act 1983 in relation to three of the four statements complained about, and the judges ruled that his election was void. Phil Woolas applied for a judicial review into the ruling, stating that "this election petition raised fundamental issues about the freedom to question and criticise politicians" and that it "will inevitably chill political speech". He succeeded in overturning the finding in respect of one of the three statements but the main findings of the election court judgment were upheld. A by-election on 13 January 2011 resulted in the election of Debbie Abrahams (Labour).


2010 United Kingdom general election, Analysis
At 9:41 on 7 May, the BBC confirmed a hung parliament. The Conservatives stood at 290 seats, Labour at 247 and Liberal Democrats at 51. One constituency seat (Thirsk and Malton) was contested on 27 May because of the death of the UKIP candidate and was won by the Conservative Party, whilst another seat (Oldham East and Saddleworth) later had its result declared void; Labour won the resulting by-election.


2010 United Kingdom general election, Analysis
The result showed an overall 5.1% swing from Labour to the Conservatives, the third largest national swing achieved in a General Election since 1945 and similar to the 5.3% swing achieved by the Conservative leader Margaret Thatcher in 1979. The 97 net seat gains made by the Conservatives outdid their previous best gains total in 1950, when they gained 85. Labour's loss of 91 seats was worse than their previous greatest loss of seats, when they lost 77 seats in 1970.


2010 United Kingdom general election, Analysis
Of the 532 seats contested in England (a final seat, Thirsk and Malton, was contested on 27 May), the Conservatives won 298 seats and an absolute majority of 61 seats over all other parties combined, securing an average swing of 5.6% from Labour. Labour did poorly in many Southern areas, notably in the Eastern Region where they won only two of their 14 seats from 2005: Luton North and Luton South. Labour did, however, gain two seats: Bethnal Green and Bow and Chesterfield. The Conservatives made 95 of their gains in England, but they also suffered three losses, all to the Liberal Democrats. For the Liberal Democrats, their eight gains were overshadowed by their 12 losses – one to Labour and 11 to the Conservatives.


2010 United Kingdom general election, Analysis
None of Scotland's 59 seats changed hands and all were held by the same party that had won them at the 2005 election, with Labour regaining the two seats they had lost in by-elections since 2005. There was a swing to Labour from the Conservatives of 0.8% (with Labour increasing its share of the vote by 2.5% and the Conservatives increasing by just 0.9%) The Conservatives finished with just a single MP representing a Scottish constituency.


2010 United Kingdom general election, Analysis
Of the 40 seats contested in Wales, the Conservatives more than doubled their seats from three to eight, taking one from the Liberal Democrats and four from Labour. Welsh nationalist party Plaid Cymru's number of seats was reduced from three to two on the new seat boundaries, but they managed to gain one seat, Arfon, from Labour. Labour did, however, regain Blaenau Gwent, which had once been Labour's safest seat in Wales until it had been taken by an Independent, Peter Law, in 2005. Overall, Labour made a net loss of 4 seats but remained the biggest party, with 26.


2010 United Kingdom general election, Analysis
There were 18 seats contested in Northern Ireland. Both Irish nationalist parties, Sinn Féin and the Social Democratic and Labour Party (SDLP), held their seats. The unionist Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) and Ulster Unionist Party (UUP) (the latter in an electoral pact with the Conservatives), lost one seat each. This left the nationalist parties unchanged with eight seats, the main unionist parties with eight seats (all DUP), the Alliance with one seat and an independent unionist with one seat. It is the first time since the partition of Ireland that unionist parties failed to secure a majority of Northern Ireland's Westminster seats in a general election, and also the first time Sinn Féin obtained the largest share of the vote in Northern Ireland at a general election.


2010 United Kingdom general election, Demographics, Candidate demographics
The election resulted in an increase in the number of MPs from ethnic minorities from 14 to 27, including the first black and Asian female Conservative MPs, Helen Grant and Priti Patel, and the first female Muslim MPs, Rushanara Ali, Shabana Mahmood and Yasmin Qureshi. This means that 4.2% of MPs are from an ethnic minority—in the 2001 Census, it was reported that ethnic minorities comprised 7.9% of the population. The number of female MPs rose to 141, an increase from 19.5% to 21.7% of all MPs, and the highest ever total; the number of female Conservative MPs rose from 18 (8.6% of all Conservatives) to 48 (15.7%).


2010 United Kingdom general election, Demographics, Northern Ireland
In Northern Ireland a swing of more than 20% resulted in DUP First Minister Peter Robinson losing his Belfast East seat to the Alliance Party's Naomi Long, giving Alliance its first elected MP in Westminster.


2010 United Kingdom general election, Demographics, Northern Ireland
Sir Reg Empey, leader of the UUP/Conservative alliance (UCUNF), standing for the first time in South Antrim, lost to the DUP incumbent William McCrea. Thus both leaders of the main Unionist parties failed to win seats while the UUP for the first time had no MPs at Westminster. A few days after the election, Empey announced that he would resign before the party conference, triggering a leadership election.


2010 United Kingdom general election, Demographics, Northern Ireland
Sylvia Hermon, Lady Hermon retained her seat in North Down, significantly increasing her percentage of the vote despite a slightly lower turnout and her defection from the UUP/Conservative alliance to stand as an independent.


2010 United Kingdom general election, Demographics, Northern Ireland
New SDLP leader Margaret Ritchie, succeeding Eddie McGrady MP, won against Sinn Féin's Caitriona Ruane in South Down. All of the Sinn Féin and SDLP incumbents held their seats, although Sinn Féin's Michelle Gildernew retained her seat in Fermanagh & South Tyrone by only four votes over the Independent Unionist Unity candidate, Rodney Connor, after three recounts.


2010 United Kingdom general election, Effect of the expenses scandal
Many of the MPs who were most prominently caught up in the scandal decided, or were ordered, not to stand for re-election in 2010. Among them were Margaret Moran, Elliot Morley, David Chaytor, Nicholas and Ann Winterton, Derek Conway, John Gummer, Douglas Hogg, Anthony Steen, Peter Viggers, Julie Kirkbride and her husband Andrew MacKay.


2010 United Kingdom general election, Effect of the expenses scandal
Where sitting MPs did stand for re-election after their expenses claims were criticised, there were some notable losses. Former Home Secretary Jacqui Smith lost her marginal Redditch seat, which showed a large 9.2% swing to the Conservatives. Smith had claimed expenses on a large family home in Redditch by declaring her house-share with her sister in London as her main home, which had been described as "near fraudulent" by the former chairman of the committee on Standards in Public life, although she had only been ordered to apologise rather than repay the money.


2010 United Kingdom general election, Effect of the expenses scandal
Former Home Office minister Tony McNulty lost Harrow East to the Conservatives on an 8% swing, after repaying over £13,000 claimed on a second home, occupied by his parents, which was 8 miles away from his primary residence. Ann Keen lost Brentford and Isleworth on a 6% swing, but her husband Alan Keen retained Feltham and Heston. The couple were criticised for claiming for a second home in central London while rarely staying in their nearby constituency home.


2010 United Kingdom general election, Effect of the expenses scandal
Shahid Malik lost his Dewsbury seat on a 5.9% swing to the Conservatives. Malik had been required to repay some of his expense claims and, at the time of the election, was under investigation for other claims. David Heathcoat-Amory was one of only two sitting Conservatives to be defeated when he lost Wells to the Liberal Democrats by 800 votes. Heathcoat-Amory was criticised for claiming manure on expenses. Phil Hope, who repaid over £40,000 in expenses, was defeated in his Corby constituency although the swing was lower than the national average at 3.3%.


2010 United Kingdom general election, Effect of the expenses scandal
Hazel Blears, who had paid more than £13,000 to cover capital gains tax which she had avoided by "flipping" the designation of her main residence, suffered a large drop in her vote in Salford and Eccles, but was still comfortably re-elected; a 'Hazel must go' candidate won only 1.8%. Conversely, Brian Jenkins lost his Tamworth seat on a large 9.5% swing despite being described as a "saint" by The Daily Telegraph on account of his low expenses.


2010 United Kingdom general election, Effect of the expenses scandal
Predictions of a rise in the number of successful Independents in the election as a result of the 2009 expenses scandal failed to materialise. Independents supported by the Jury Team or the Independent Network, support networks who both attempted to select and promote high quality Independents who had signed up for the so-called Nolan Principles of public life, set out in the Committee on Standards in Public Life, failed to have any significant impact. Broadcaster Esther Rantzen gathered a great deal of publicity for her campaign in Luton South constituency where the former MP Margaret Moran had stood down, but ended up losing her deposit in 4th place with 4.4% of the vote; the winner was Moran's successor as Labour candidate.


2010 United Kingdom general election, Effect of the expenses scandal
There was also a high-profile campaign over expenses directed against Speaker John Bercow, who had 'flipped' his designation of second home. An imperfectly observed convention states that the major parties do not oppose the Speaker seeking re-election; Bercow faced two main opponents in Buckingham. Independent former Member of the European Parliament John Stevens, standing on the Buckinghamshire Campaign for Democracy ticket, campaigned with a man dressed in a dolphin costume whom he called 'Flipper' and polled second with 21.4%. Former leader of the UK Independence Party Nigel Farage also fought the seat but came third in the vote with 17.4%. Bercow won with 47.3%.


2010 United Kingdom general election, Voting problems
Problems occurred with voting at 27 polling places in 16 constituencies, and affected approximately 1,200 people. This situation was condemned by politicians of various parties. Jenny Watson, chair of the Electoral Commission, the independent body that oversees the electoral process, was forced on to television to defend preparations and procedures. The Electoral Commission announced it would be carrying out a "thorough investigation". Under the law in force at the 2010 election, voters had to have been handed their ballots by the 10 pm deadline; people who were waiting in queues to vote at 10 pm were not allowed to vote.


2010 United Kingdom general election, Voting problems
In Chester there were reports that 600 registered voters were unable to vote because the electoral roll had not been updated, while in 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 Wyre and Preston North, a 14-year-old boy cast a vote after being sent a polling card.


2010 United Kingdom general election, Voting problems
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.


2010 United Kingdom general election, Voting problems
Because of closure of United Kingdom airspace as a result of the Iceland volcanic eruption, potential expat voters in New Zealand were denied a vote when postal voting papers arrived too late to be returned to the UK, although Australian broadcaster SBS suggested that given the extremely tight timetabling of overseas votes, there is very little chance that voting papers [for voters outside Europe] will be received, let alone returned, in time to be counted.


2010 United Kingdom general election, Post-election government formation
When it became clear that no party would achieve an overall majority, the three main party leaders made public statements offering to discuss the options for forming the next government with the other parties.


2010 United Kingdom general election, Post-election government formation
On 11 May 2010, as coalition talks between the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats seemed to be drawing to a successful conclusion, Gordon Brown announced that he was resigning as Prime Minister and also as Labour leader. He then left Downing Street, accompanied by his wife and children, driving to Buckingham Palace where he tendered his resignation to the Queen and advised her to call for David Cameron. Cameron became Prime Minister one hour after the Queen accepted Brown's resignation. In his first address outside 10 Downing Street, he announced his intention to form a coalition government, the first since the Second World War, with the Liberal Democrats. As one of his first moves, Cameron appointed Nick Clegg as Deputy Prime Minister.


2010 United Kingdom general election, Post-election government formation
Just after midnight on 12 May 2010, the Liberal Democrats emerged from a meeting of their Parliamentary party and Federal Executive to announce that the coalition deal had been "approved overwhelmingly", meaning that David Cameron would lead a coalition government of Conservatives and Liberal Democrats.


2010 United Kingdom general election, Post-election government formation
Later that day, the two parties jointly published the Conservative–Liberal Democrat coalition agreement specifying the terms of the coalition deal.


2010 United Kingdom general election, Post-election government formation
A film of the election was made by candidate and filmmaker John Walsh entitled ToryBoy The Movie, exploring the candidate's selection process and the work that goes into an election campaign. One of the film's subjects, the British Labour Party MP Sir Stuart Bell, was later described as "Britain's laziest MP". The film received cinema releases in 2011 and again ahead of the 2015 general election.


2010 United Kingdom general election, Party political and administration costs
UK parties spent £31.1m on the campaign of which Conservatives spent 53%, the Labour Party spent 25% and the Liberal Democrats 15%. Figures from returning officers show that the average administration cost per constituency was £173,846 meaning the average cost per vote was £3.81.


2010 United Kingdom general election debates
The United Kingdom general election debates of 2010 consisted of a series of three leaders' debates between the leaders of the three main parties contesting the 2010 United Kingdom general election: Gordon Brown, Prime Minister and leader of the Labour Party; David Cameron, Leader of the Opposition and Conservative Party; and Nick Clegg, leader of the third largest political party in the UK, the Liberal Democrats. They were the first such debates to be broadcast live in the run-up to a UK election.


2010 United Kingdom general election debates
The debates ran without a break for 90 minutes and were broadcast weekly by ITV, BSkyB and the BBC over three successive Thursday evenings starting on 15 April. They were moderated by Alastair Stewart, Adam Boulton and David Dimbleby respectively. The first half of each debate focused on a particular theme (domestic, international and economic affairs), before general issues were discussed. The questions were not disclosed to the leaders before the debate.


2010 United Kingdom general election debates
In addition to the leaders' debates, on 29 March, the three main parties' financial spokesmen participated in a debate focusing on the economy, with the Chancellor of the Exchequer Alistair Darling debating with the Shadow Chancellor George Osborne and Liberal Democrats' Treasury spokesman Vince Cable on Channel 4. Debates also took place between 19 April and 5 May, a series of debates also took place on the BBC political TV series The Daily Politics, between members of the incumbent Labour Cabinet and their Conservative, Liberal Democrat counterparts and representatives from the Green Party, the Scottish National Party, Plaid Cymru and the UK Independence Party.


2010 United Kingdom general election debates
Debates were also held in Scotland and Wales and Northern Ireland, due to the devolved nature of various aspects of government in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. In Scotland and Wales, representatives of three main parties were joined by respective nationalist party representatives who stand MPs only in Scotland and Wales, while in Northern Ireland, due to the main parties having no seats, debates were held between the four largest Northern Irish parties. The arrangements for the UK-wide leaders debates were criticised for being restricted to the main UK parties excluding other national minor parties and nationalist parties in Scotland and Wales, for covering many domestic matters which are devolved from Westminster, and also for being held in three locations solely in England.


2010 United Kingdom general election debates, History
A proposal for leaders debates was first mooted at the 1964 general election when Harold Wilson challenged then Prime Minister Alec Douglas-Home to an election debate. Home rejected the proposal on the grounds that: "You'll get a sort of Top of the Pops contest. You'll then get the best actor as leader of the country and the actor will be prompted by a scriptwriter." Wilson himself rejected Ted Heath's proposal for debates, worried about the unpredictability of such a debate and not wishing to give Heath exposure as a potential Prime Minister.


2010 United Kingdom general election debates, History
In 1979, Jim Callaghan became the first incumbent Prime Minister to agree to a debate but the idea was rejected by Margaret Thatcher on the grounds that presidential-style debates were alien to Britain. The proposed 1979 debates were put forward by former Labour MP turned broadcaster Brian Walden and would have been produced by LWT and shown on ITV on 22 & 29 April 1979.


2010 United Kingdom general election debates, History
While Callaghan had immediately accepted Walden's proposal, Thatcher decided to "wait a few days before replying", with some of her advisers concerned that she had more to lose from such debates, fearing that it would lead to a "presidential-style 'Her or me' campaign" which would see policy issues become of less important. At the insistence of the Liberals, their leader David Steel was also invited to take part in the debates, and accepted the offer. However on 3 April, Mrs Thatcher wrote to LWT to decline the offer to take part, saying that the election was for a government, not a president, which meant that the debates did not go ahead.


2010 United Kingdom general election debates, History
Both Thatcher and her successor as Prime Minister, John Major, rejected Labour leader Neil Kinnock's debate proposal, with Major commenting that "every party politician that expects to lose tries that trick of debates and every politician who expects to win says no."


2010 United Kingdom general election debates, History
However at the 1997 general election, Major then called for similar debates, which did not take place as the political parties and the broadcasters could not agree on a format acceptable to all sides in the time available. Since 1997, Prime Minister Tony Blair and his successor Gordon Brown had argued that the weekly Prime minister's questions in the House of Commons was sufficient. For the 2001 general election Tony Blair turned down a debate with William Hague. On 28 April 2005, Tony Blair, Michael Howard and Charles Kennedy took part in a special edition of the BBC's Question Time, although they did not debate directly, and were questioned individually by host David Dimbleby.


2010 United Kingdom general election debates, History
The idea of holding leaders debates for the 2010 election was first supported by David Cameron and Nick Clegg, with Gordon Brown later agreeing. In 2009, Sky News began a campaign for leaders debates which was followed by a joint proposal from the BBC, ITV and BSkyB to stage three live election debates between leaders of the three main political parties, one debate for each broadcaster.


2010 United Kingdom general election debates, History
On 21 December 2009, agreement was reached between the three main parties and the three broadcasters, BBC, ITV and BSkyB, on the key principles behind holding live election debates for the 2010 election campaign. On 1 March 2010 a set of 76 detailed rules for the leaders debates were announced.


2010 United Kingdom general election debates, Leaders' debates, Principles and rules
The December 2009 key principles agreed were that the three main party leaders would appear together in three separate live television debates, and be given equal treatment. The debates would be held during three weeks of the election campaign, or over two weeks if there was less than four weeks between the election being called and polling day. Each broadcaster would produce one debate using the same format, ITV first from the North West, Sky from the South/South West, and finally the BBC from the Midlands.


2010 United Kingdom general election debates, Leaders' debates, Principles and rules
Broadcasts would be between 85 and 90 minutes in duration with half focused on a specific theme. There would be no commercial breaks and each debate would take place in peak time. ITV was required to make their transmission available simultaneously online and to radio, and to other television broadcasters immediately after the programme, while BSkyB and the BBC were to make their programmes available to other broadcasters simultaneously.


2010 United Kingdom general election debates, Leaders' debates, Principles and rules
In March 2010, 76 separate rules governing the programmes were published, along with the names of the members of the three editorial panels which would be selecting audience questions for each broadcaster. The rules specified how the audience was to be selected and presented on television, what role the audience would play in the debate, the structure of the programme, the role of the moderator and the layout of the set. In addition, it specified the three themes and their order: Domestic affairs, International affairs and Economic affairs, drawn by lots by the broadcasters.


2010 United Kingdom general election debates, Leaders' debates, Audience and question selection
The audience for each debate is made up of around 200 people selected by polling company ICM mainly from within a 30-mile radius of the venue and a broadly demographic cross section of the country. The audience is selected to ensure that at least 80% declare a voting intent, with the final selection to ensure a ratio of 7:7:5 between Labour, Conservative and Liberal Democrat voters and also including those showing a voting preference for minor parties.


2010 United Kingdom general election debates, Leaders' debates, Audience and question selection
Each broadcaster's selection panel pre-select the debate questions from suggestions made by the ICM selected audience, as well as selecting a maximum of four questions from suggestions submitted by the general public from around the UK submitted by email and read out by the moderator, or read out in person as an extra audience member. In selecting questions, the panel take into account factors such as the prominence of certain issues in the campaign, the distinctiveness of the different parties' policies on election issues, voters' interest and issues relevant to the role of the Prime Minister.


2010 United Kingdom general election debates, Leaders' debates, Programme format
The leaders open the programme with a one-minute statement, and close with a one-and-a-half-minute speech, with the questions asked in between. The first part covers the theme subject and in the second half on any other subject. For both the themed and unthemed sections, the pre-selected questions are asked by the audience member, without deviation, and answered by each leader in turn for one minute each. They then have an additional minute in turn to respond to each other's answer.


2010 United Kingdom general election debates, Leaders' debates, Programme format
At the programme editor's discretion, following each question, there is a maximum of four minutes of free debate between the leaders. No audience applause is allowed during the programme. In the themed half of the debate, audience members can ask a maximum of three questions on each sub-theme, while in the unthemed portion, a maximum of two questions are allowed on the same subject.


2010 United Kingdom general election debates, Leaders' debates, First Election Debate: domestic affairs
Instant polling after the first debate showed Nick Clegg as the winner, with most showing David Cameron came second and Gordon Brown last:


2010 United Kingdom general election debates, Leaders' debates, First Election Debate: domestic affairs
Average viewing figures for the debate were 9.4 million, with a peak of 10.3 million, equivalent to a share of the audience of 37%. The BARB produced audience figures indicated that the total television audience for the event on ITV was 9,679,000 viewers. The debates caused a large, immediate, and unexpected impact on opinion polls in favour of the Liberal Democrats, leading to many headlines regarding a 'Yellow Surge'.


2010 United Kingdom general election debates, Leaders' debates, First Election Debate: domestic affairs
Commenting on the debates, the leaders of three minor parties who were not invited to participate were disparaging. SNP Leader Alex Salmond said, "You had three Westminster politicians who agree with each other on 99% of issues, and therefore the debate couldn't really come alive because of that convergence on the things that matter, and also, of course, because the audience weren't allowed to really participate."


2010 United Kingdom general election debates, Leaders' debates, First Election Debate: domestic affairs
Former UK Independence Party leader Nigel Farage said there was not a "single memorable phrase" in the entire debate and Plaid Cymru leader Ieuan Wyn Jones said: "In what was a very sterile debate, not once did we hear the word Wales mentioned by any of the leaders. Indeed much of what they said was irrelevant to our communities."


2010 United Kingdom general election debates, Leaders' debates, First Election Debate: domestic affairs
Both Gordon Brown and David Cameron agreed that Nick Clegg did well in the debate. Brown said Clegg had been "introducing himself in many ways to the public, in a mass way, for the first time. I think he'll be rightly pleased with his performance. I think at the end of the day... when all the dust settles, when people start sort of examining what are the policies, I don't think people know much about Liberal policies, and I think they do know more about our policies". He said he had "enjoyed" the debate, adding: "I think it's part of the debate we should have in Britain. I think it's energised the campaign."


2010 United Kingdom general election debates, Leaders' debates, First Election Debate: domestic affairs
Cameron said, "I think he had a good debate but I must say I just enjoyed being able to talk to people at home, to address the questions that I think are the big questions at this election like immigration and the economy and crime." His colleague Michael Gove told Sky News that Clegg could "play the role of the sparky and feisty outsider."


2010 United Kingdom general election debates, Leaders' debates, First Election Debate: domestic affairs
Clegg said it had been an "important moment in this campaign" while one of his predecessors, Lord Ashdown, said the debate was "potentially a game changer." BBC political editor Nick Robinson said the emergence of Clegg as a serious player would be the most significant development. He added that, amid predictions of a hung parliament in which Clegg's party could hold the balance of power, the Lib Dems would be "wooed, attacked and scrutinised with renewed vigour." The body language expert for Sky News Dr. Peter Collet revealed that Clegg had been the strongest as he looked down the lens, he also revealed that Cameron had been weaker than suspected as he stepped away from his podium.


2010 United Kingdom general election debates, Leaders' debates, Sky News Debate: international affairs
Prior to the debate, several hundred demonstrators gathered close to the Arnolfini, including anti-capitalist groups, Palestine groups and some English Defence League members. Between six and nine demonstrators were arrested before the debate for public order offences, as demonstrators clashed with Avon and Somerset Police with shields and horse-mounted officers.


2010 United Kingdom general election debates, Leaders' debates, Sky News Debate: international affairs
Authorities had tried unsuccessfully to keep the location of the debate secret from the public before the broadcast, however three days before the event, security barriers had already been put up outside the venue, with around a dozen television production staff on site. Bristol City Council attached notices to the security barriers giving advice of traffic restrictions in the Bristol Harbour area.


2010 United Kingdom general election debates, Leaders' debates, Sky News Debate: international affairs
Polling after the Sky News Debate declared Nick Clegg and David Cameron the joint winners in the polls, with all three leaders considerably closer than the previous debate.


2010 United Kingdom general election debates, Leaders' debates, Sky News Debate: international affairs
The total viewing figures for the debate were 4 million, with 2.1 million viewers watching the Sky News coverage. The viewing figures produced by BARB showed that the viewing figures for the debate were 2,212,000 viewers watching it on Sky News, 584,000 on Sky3 and 1,388,000 watching it on BBC News.


2010 United Kingdom general election debates, Leaders' debates, Sky News Debate: international affairs
Nick Clegg said of the debate, "I thought it went well. I enjoyed it a lot", while David Cameron commented "It was great, there were some very good questions. I enjoyed it. The main thing is the people will decide. I hope they will vote for change on May 6 and we can do something to change our country."


2010 United Kingdom general election debates, Leaders' debates, Prime Ministerial Debate: economic affairs
The final round of the first ever televised leaders' debates, hosted by the BBC, was held in the Great Hall of Birmingham University on 29 April 2010. The background to the debate was overshadowed a day before by a remark made by Gordon Brown in private, while being driven away after canvassing in Rochdale, when he met retired council worker Gillian Duffy. In the remark, caught by a lapel microphone, Brown said that "...she was just a sort of bigoted woman who said she used to be Labour". At the beginning of the debate, Brown mentioned the gaffe by saying "There's a lot to this job and as you saw yesterday I don't get all of it right."


2010 United Kingdom general election debates, Leaders' debates, Prime Ministerial Debate: economic affairs
The snap polls after the debate showed David Cameron as the winner of the debate, with most showing Nick Clegg in second, one showing Cameron and Clegg tied for first, and one showing Brown in second.


2010 United Kingdom general election debates, Leaders' debates, Prime Ministerial Debate: economic affairs
The viewing figures produced by BARB showed that the total viewing audience was 8,596,000 viewers, with 7,428,000 viewers watching it live on BBC One, 618,000 on BBC News, 337,000 on Sky News and 213,000 on BBC HD.


2010 United Kingdom general election debates, Leaders' debates, Prime Ministerial Debate: economic affairs
Gary Gibbon, political editor for Channel 4 News, has questioned the methods employed by YouGov and ComRes. YouGov "tend to include more prosperous voters, more broadsheet readers, older voters, who are slightly more Conservative and sometimes more male-dominated than the voting population as a whole." While ComRes polled people who expressed their voting preference as 35 per cent Conservative, 24 per cent Labour and 36 per cent Liberal Democrat. "And here's how those same people voted on the instant poll on who performed best in the debate: 35 per cent Cameron, 26 per cent Brown and 33 per cent Clegg." Therefore, the result showed that, compared with their previous voting intention, after the debate Clegg had lost 3%, Brown had gained 2%, and Cameron's support was unchanged.


2010 United Kingdom general election debates, Leaders' debates, Prime Ministerial Debate: economic affairs
In the analysis of psephologist John Curtice, "... ComRes found that 73 per cent of Conservative supporters reckoned Mr Cameron had won, 64 per cent of Liberal Democrats thought Mr Clegg had won, and 68 per cent of Labour supporters thought Mr Brown had won."


2010 United Kingdom general election debates, Leaders' debates, Prime Ministerial Debate: economic affairs
About uncommitted voters, Curtice wrote, "Among this group it appears it was Mr Clegg who scored a narrow victory. On average, across the four polls that have published the necessary details, 34 per cent thought Mr Clegg did best, while Mr Cameron's score of 27 per cent was even lower than Mr Brown's 28 per cent."


2010 United Kingdom general election debates, Ask the Chancellors debate
Ask the Chancellors, also known as the Battle of the Chancellors, was a debate between the parties' financial spokesmen, Alistair Darling (the incumbent Chancellor of the Exchequer), George Osborne (Conservative) and Vince Cable (Liberal Democrats) took place on Monday 29 March on Channel 4. Lasting for 60 minutes, it featured the three men taking questions from a studio audience. This debate was chaired by ITN's Channel 4 News presenter and journalist Krishnan Guru-Murthy.


2010 United Kingdom general election debates, Ask the Chancellors debate
The viewing figures for the debate were 1.8 million, 7.7% share of the television audience, rising to 2.1 million in the final 10 minutes of the debate. A spokeswoman for Channel 4 was said to be "really pleased" with the figures.


2010 United Kingdom general election debates, Ask the Chancellors debate
An online poll conducted by Channel 4 after the debate, gave Cable 36% support, with Darling and Osborne both with 32%.


2010 United Kingdom general election debates, Daily Politics debates
The Daily Politics, a BBC political TV series, held a series of debates between members of the incumbent Labour Cabinet and their Conservative and Liberal Democrat equivalents. Starting on Monday 19 April, there were nine debates held on Mondays, Tuesdays and Wednesdays for the three weeks before 6 May. Andrew Neil acted as moderator, along with a specialist BBC correspondent.


2010 United Kingdom general election debates, National debates of Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales, Exclusion controversy
Other parties criticised the decision to hold television debates, the Scottish National Party (SNP) which forms the devolved Scottish Government, had insisted that as the leading political party in Scotland in the latest opinion poll, it should be included in any debate broadcast in Scotland, adding "The broadcasters would do well to recall the debacle experienced by the BBC’s Panorama programme in 1995, when they were forced not to broadcast an interview with the Prime Minister in Scotland because it breached the rules of impartiality during a Scottish local election." On 22 December 2009, the UK Independence Party (UKIP) leader, Lord Pearson stated that his party should be included because it "would be wrong for UKIP, which came second in the last test of national political opinion, to be excluded from these debates."


2010 United Kingdom general election debates, National debates of Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales, Exclusion controversy
The SNP had threatened to prevent any such debates being screened in Scotland should its leader not be included. On 25 April they announced that they now planned to raise the £50,000 that would allow them to proceed with legal action over the third and final Prime Ministerial debate on BBC One on Thursday, despite the fact that the SNP had mounted no legal challenge to either ITV or Sky Television for their decision to not include the SNP.


2010 United Kingdom general election debates, National debates of Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales, Exclusion controversy
The party said it was not trying to stop the final broadcast, but that it wanted an SNP politician included "for balance". The party's leader, Alex Salmond said it would be "unacceptable" for the SNP to be excluded from the debate, and sought "guarantees of inclusion from the broadcasters, given their inescapable duty to ensure fairness and impartiality in election-related coverage in Scotland" in the buildup to the general election. The party used the Freedom of Information Act to determine whether the BBC could have broken its own rules.


2010 United Kingdom general election debates, National debates of Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales, Exclusion controversy
Salmond said it is entirely unacceptable to Scotland as well as to the SNP for the broadcasters to exclude the party that forms the Scottish Government and leading in Westminster election polls. The legal challenge duly went ahead at the Court of Session in Edinburgh. Despite earlier reassurances by the SNP that it was not trying to stop the broadcast, it sought an 'interim interdict' to prevent the debate being broadcast without the participation of the SNP.


2010 United Kingdom general election debates, National debates of Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales, Exclusion controversy
However, on 28 April 2010, the Court of Session dismissed the SNP's complaint, and refused to prevent the BBC from broadcasting the third debate in Scotland, on the grounds that the SNP had left the bringing of the case "far too late", had not contested the broadcasting of the first two debates by ITV and Sky Television, and that the third debate would in any case be broadcast by Sky on satellite across the UK, which a Scottish court had no power to block. The judge, Lady Smith, further ordered the SNP to pay the BBC's legal expenses. The SNP's political opponents described the SNP's contesting of the case as a "stunt".


2010 United Kingdom general election debates, National debates of Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales, Exclusion controversy
However, there were Scottish debates dealing with specifically devolved issues which Salmond had accepted the invitation to attend along the other parties within the Scottish Parliament on Sky TV. Whilst Salmond declining to attend those held on the BBC and ITV, Angus Robertson agreed to take his place in these debates.


2010 United Kingdom general election debates, National debates of Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales, Exclusion controversy
UKIP, which is a smaller party, but came second in the 2009 European elections, complained about having been denied a chance to appear in the televised debates. TV companies agreed the deal based on which parties were standing across Great Britain and already have existing seats in the House of Commons. The Green Party, UKIP, the SNP and Plaid Cymru all protested.


2010 United Kingdom general election debates, National debates of Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales, Exclusion controversy
On the announcement of the UK party leader debates, it was also announced there would be separate debates between the main parties of Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales. The BBC would broadcast these on their respective BBC national region channels, BBC Scotland, BBC Northern Ireland and BBC Wales, and across the UK on the BBC News Channel.


2010 United Kingdom general election debates, National debates of Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales, Debates in Northern Ireland
In Northern Ireland, neither Labour or the Liberal Democrats stand for election, while the Conservatives in Northern Ireland have no seats (although they are allied to the Ulster Unionist Party), either in the Northern Ireland Assembly or Westminster. Therefore, the two Northern Ireland debates were held between representatives of the four main Northern Ireland parties:


2010 United Kingdom general election debates, National debates of Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales, Debates in Scotland
Note that these are the Scottish representatives of the respective parties in Westminster, rather than the leaders of the parties in Scotland, who campaign for seats in the Scottish Parliament, namely the leader of the Scottish Labour Party – Iain Gray MSP and leader of the Scottish Liberal Democrats – Tavish Scott MSP and leader of the Scottish Conservative Party – Annabel Goldie MSP, although the leader of the Scottish National Party and First Minister of Scotland – Alex Salmond MP MSP took part in the Sky News debate.


2010 United Kingdom general election debates, National debates of Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales, Debates in Wales
The Welsh debates featured a mixture of Welsh party representatives in Westminster for Labour and Conservatives, and party representatives at the National Assembly for Wales for the Liberal Democrats, Plaid Cymru and the Conservatives, with Nick Bourne in the BBC debate only, with debates occurring between:


2010 United Kingdom general election debates, National debates of Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales, Debates in Wales
Note that Carwyn Jones AM, is the First Minister for Wales in the National Assembly for Wales and the leader of Welsh Labour.


2010 United Kingdom general election in England
These are the results of the 2010 United Kingdom general election in England. The election was held on 6 May 2010 and all 533 seats in England were contested. The Conservative Party achieved a complete majority of English seats, but fared less well in Scotland and Wales, so a coalition government was subsequently formed between the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats.


2010 United Kingdom general election in England, Regional results
Regional vote shares and changes are sourced from the BBC.


2010 United Kingdom general election in Northern Ireland
The 2010 United Kingdom general election in Northern Ireland occurred on 6 May 2010 and all 18 seats in Northern Ireland were contested. 1,169,184 people were eligible to vote, up 29,191 from the 2005 general election. 57.99% of eligible voters turned out, down 5.5 percentage points from the last general election.


2010 United Kingdom general election in Northern Ireland
The election saw Sinn Féin win the most votes at a Westminster election for the first time and saw the Democratic Unionist Party win the most seats. The Ulster Unionist Party fought the election as allies of the UK Conservative Party, under the banner of Ulster Conservatives and Unionists - New Force. The UUP failed to win any seats for the first time in over 100 years.


2010 United Kingdom general election in Northern Ireland
The election also resulted in the cross community Alliance Party of Northern Ireland gaining its first elected Member of Parliament at the expense of DUP leader, Peter Robinson. The election also marked the first time since the Troubles that the counts in the eighteen constituencies were held overnight, at the same time as in the rest of the United Kingdom instead of the Friday afternoon.


2010 United Kingdom general election in Northern Ireland, Background
Northern Ireland has a distinct regional political scene compared to the rest of the United Kingdom. The major mainland UK political entities maintain a nominal presence in the country and local parties campaign to represent Northern Irish issues. Politics is mainly split on unionist and nationalist divides, with those wanting to remain part of the United Kingdom on one side and those wanting to unite with the Republic of Ireland on the other. Cross community parties do exist, but have not gained as much political support.


2010 United Kingdom general election in Northern Ireland, Background
In May 2007, the major political parties agreed to the St Andrews Agreement allowing the reformation of a devolved government at Stormont. The DUP's Ian Paisley became First Minister, sharing power with Sinn Féin's Martin McGuinness, in a move Paisley had previously stated would never happen. A year later, Paisley stood down as DUP leader and was replaced by his deputy, Peter Robinson.


2010 United Kingdom general election in Northern Ireland, Background
In the run up to the 2010 elections, Robinson suffered a series of personal setbacks. Prior to and during the MP expenses scandal in 2009, questions were asked about his family's remunerations and expenses. The following year, his wife and Strangford MP, Iris was involved in a political scandal. This led to her resignation as MP and Strangford MLA, and eventual political retirement. Robinson himself temporarily stood down as First Minister to deal with the personal and legal implications.


2010 United Kingdom general election in Northern Ireland, Background
Following the general election in 2005, the UUP elected Reg Empey to replace David Trimble as leader. Trimble himself was appointed as a member of the House of Lords and would eventually defect to the Conservatives in 2007. In 2009, the UUP formed an alliance with the Conservatives to contest the 2009 European elections and maintained that pact for the 2010 elections. The UUP's sole MP, Sylvia Hermon chose not to enter under that grouping and instead stood in the election as an independent for North Down.


2010 United Kingdom general election in Northern Ireland, Background
In September 2009, SDLP leader, Mark Durkan decided to stand down to focus on his parliamentary duties. The proceeding leadership contest saw South Down MLA, Margaret Ritchie emerge as leader. In February 2010, Eddie McGrady announced that he would not stand for another term as MP for South Down.


2010 United Kingdom general election in Northern Ireland, Background
The devolution of policing and justice powers to Northern Ireland culminated in the acceptance of the Police Service of Northern Ireland by Sinn Féin and Alliance leader, David Ford being proposed as Minister of Justice. Ford was named as Justice Minister, the first since 1972, shortly before the 2010 election after receiving cross–party support.


2010 United Kingdom general election in Northern Ireland, Background
Sinn Féin maintained its policy of abstentionism at Westminister in 2010; refusing to recognise the legitimacy of British government in Ireland.


2010 United Kingdom general election in Northern Ireland, Election constituencies
Northern Ireland returned eighteen members of parliament to House of Commons, one for each of its 18 parliamentary constituencies.


2010 United Kingdom general election in Northern Ireland, Results
Party seats remained the same as the previous Westminister election in Northern Ireland, with the exception of East Belfast and North Down. The Alliance caused a surprise upset by taking East Belfast from the DUP. The UUP lost its only MP in North Down.


2010 United Kingdom general election in Northern Ireland, Results, Unionist
The DUP retained all but one of its seats. Ian Paisley Jr regained his father's seat in North Antrim and Jim Shannon kept the party's Strangford seat. Sammy Wilson retained his seat in East Antrim, William McCrea maintained his seat in South Antrim and Jeffrey Donaldson kept his seat in Lagan Valley. Both Nigel Dodds and Gregory Campbell retained their seats in North Belfast and East Londonderry respectively.


2010 United Kingdom general election in Northern Ireland, Results, Unionist
The UCU-NF did not make any gains. Sylvia Hermon managed to retain her seat in North Down as an independent, meaning that the UUP had no parliamentary representation for the first time in more than 100 years. UUP leader, Reg Empey was unsuccessful in his attempt at the seat for South Antrim and his party's electoral performance led to his resignation announcement as leader.


2010 United Kingdom general election in Northern Ireland, Results, Unionist
The newly founded Traditional Unionist Voice stood 10 candidates and polled 26,300 votes among them. Leader Jim Allister stood in North Antrim and came second despite predictions that he would gain the seat.


2010 United Kingdom general election in Northern Ireland, Results, Nationalist
The Northern Irish electorate cast the most votes for Sinn Féin, which managed to hold its five seats but did not see any additional seat gains. Sinn Féin leader, Gerry Adams successfully defended his seat in West Belfast, as did deputy First Minister, Martin McGuinness in Mid Ulster. Both Pat Doherty and Conor Murphy retained their seats in West Tyrone and Newry and Armagh respectively. Michelle Gildernew narrowly saved her seat in Fermanagh and South Tyrone. After a third recount she won by just 4 votes, following a strong showing by independent unionist Rodney Connor, making the seat the most marginal in the UK.


2010 United Kingdom general election in Northern Ireland, Results, Nationalist
The SDLP maintained three seats at Westminister. SDLP leader, Margaret Ritchie regained her party's seat in South Down. Both Mark Durkan and Alasdair McDonnell kept their seats in Foyle and South Belfast respectively.


2010 United Kingdom general election in Northern Ireland, Results, Others
The Alliance gained its first elected MP by taking East Belfast. Alliance deputy leader, Naomi Long defeated the incumbent MP, DUP leader Peter Robinson.


2010 United Kingdom general election in Northern Ireland, MPs elected
Italics indicates a new member and/or party representing the seat. Bold indicates an MP who did not complete a full term.


2010 United Kingdom general election in Scotland
These are the results of the 2010 United Kingdom general election in Scotland. The election was held on 6 May 2010 and all 59 seats in Scotland were contested. The election result in Scotland was unusual in that there wasn't any change of seats from the 2005 general election, although the Labour Party took back two seats that it had lost in by-elections. This was the last general election at which the Labour Party won a majority of seats and plurality of votes in Scotland.


2010 United Kingdom general election in Scotland, Contesting parties
Since 2005, the Scottish National Party had come first in the 2007 Scottish Parliament election as well as the 2009 European election. They had also won the Glasgow East by-election in 2008, which was one of the safest Labour seats in the UK. This boosted the party's confidence and the party's leader Alex Salmond set the ambitious target of 20 seats in the general election. Salmond himself was standing down as an MP because he wanted to focus more on his job as First Minister of Scotland. In the election, the party only increased their share of the vote by 2.3% and had their number of seats reduced to six after being overwhelmingly defeated in the Glasgow East constituency.


2010 United Kingdom general election in Scotland, Contesting parties
The Scottish Labour Party had held the majority of seats in Scotland in every general election since the 1960s. This is usually attributed to the North-South divide in British politics, where Scotland and the North of England tend to return mostly Labour MP's whereas the South of England tends to vote mostly for the Conservatives. Many prominent government officials were representing Scottish constituencies, such as the Prime Minister Gordon Brown and the Chancellor Alistair Darling. In the election, the Labour Party in Scotland increased its share of the vote by 2.5% and re-gained the Glasgow East and Dunfermline and West Fife constituencies giving them 41 out of 59 seats in Scotland.


2010 United Kingdom general election in Scotland, Contesting parties
The Scottish Conservative Party had not held the majority of Scottish seats in a general election since 1955 and it lost all eleven of its seats in the election of 1997. Since 2001, the party had only held one Westminster seat in Scotland. In 2005, following the re-organisation of Scottish constituencies, that seat was Dumfriesshire, Clydesdale and Tweeddale, a mostly rural constituency near the Scottish borders. However, the party had 11 target seats within Scotland for the election and party officials such as William Hague had predicted a 'Tory breakthrough' for Scotland. Following the election, the Conservative vote in Scotland increased by roughly 1% but with only the 1 seat being retained.


2010 United Kingdom general election in Scotland, Contesting parties
During the 2005 election, the Scottish Liberal Democrats achieved 11 Scottish seats in Westminster and saw this figure increased to 12 following the Dunfermline and West Fife by-election in 2006. Two former Liberal Democrat leaders, Charles Kennedy and Menzies Campbell represent Scottish constituencies. In the election, the Liberal Democrat vote fell in Scotland and the party was once again left with 11 seats.


2010 United Kingdom general election in Scotland, Contesting parties
Minor parties such as the UK Independence Party, the British National Party and the Scottish Green Party all contested more Scottish seats than they did in the 2005 election. The Socialist Workers Party and Solidarity (a splinter group of the Scottish Socialists) took part in the Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition for the election. The Scottish Socialist Party had contested all of the Scottish constituencies in 2005 but because of party splits, it fielded only 10 candidates for the 2010 election.


2010 United Kingdom general election in Scotland, Contesting parties
If proportional representation had been used, and hypothetically there was no change in voter behaviour, then the Labour Party would have had 25 seats, the SNP would have had 12, the Liberal Democrats would have had 11 and the Conservatives would have had 10.


2010 United Kingdom general election in Scotland, Scottish Leader's debates
In correspondence with the main Leader's debates, featuring David Cameron, Gordon Brown and Nick Clegg, three televised debates were broadcast with representatives from the four main parties in Scotland. The first debate was broadcast on STV on 20 April, the second on Sky News on 25 April and the third on BBC One Scotland on 2 May.


2010 United Kingdom general election in Scotland, Overall results
1 Philip Lardner, the Conservative candidate for North Ayrshire and Arran was disowned by the Conservative Party for comments he posted on his website, calling homosexuality 'abnormal'. It was too late for him to be replaced and he still read as the Scottish Conservative & Unionist Party candidate on the ballot paper.


2010 United Kingdom general election in Wales
These are the results of the 2010 United Kingdom general election in Wales. The election was held on 6 May 2010, and all 40 parliamentary seats in Wales were contested. The Labour Party remained the party with the most seats in Wales, however it suffered a net loss of 4 seats and its share of the vote dropped by 6.5%. The Conservatives increased their number of seats by 5 and the Liberal Democrats and Plaid Cymru saw little change both in the number of seats and share of the vote.


2010 United Kingdom government formation
The events surrounding the formation of the United Kingdom's government in 2010 took place between 7 May and 12 May 2010, following the 2010 general election, which failed to produce an overall majority for any of the country's two main political parties. The election, held on 6 May, resulted in the first hung parliament in the UK in 36 years, sparking a series of negotiations which would form the second  coalition government since the Second World War.


2010 United Kingdom government formation
The governing Labour administration led by Gordon Brown was defeated in the election and lost its overall majority after 13 years in office, but continued in office in an acting capacity until a government could be formed. The opposition Conservative Party led by David Cameron won the largest number of seats in the new Parliament, but fell short of the number required to secure an overall majority. Consequently, senior figures from both parties embarked on a series of make-or-break meetings with representatives from the Liberal Democrats led by Nick Clegg, aimed at forming a coalition government.


2010 United Kingdom government formation
As leader of the third largest party, Clegg had announced that the Liberal Democrats would enter talks with whichever party held the greater number of seats. A series of meetings with the Conservatives began shortly after the hung parliament was announced, and continued over the weekend after the election. Negotiations were also held with the Labour Party.


2010 United Kingdom government formation
The Scottish National Party signalled its willingness to join Labour and the Liberal Democrats and other minor parties in government as part of a progressive rainbow coalition, but it quickly became clear that Gordon Brown's continued presence as Prime Minister was seen as a major obstacle to formulating a Labour–Liberal Democrat deal.


2010 United Kingdom government formation
Although Brown relinquished his role as Labour leader on 10 May, the party failed to reach an agreement with the Liberal Democrats; the latter instead struck a deal with the Conservatives the following day. Brown resigned as Prime Minister and Labour Leader on the evening of 11 May, and the Conservative–Liberal Democrat Coalition government led by David Cameron took office shortly thereafter.


2010 United Kingdom government formation
The Liberal Democrats emerged from a meeting of their Parliamentary party and Federal Executive to announce that the coalition deal had been "approved overwhelmingly" shortly after midnight on 12 May, and later the same day the two parties published the Conservative – Liberal Democrat coalition agreement setting out the terms of their deal. While Cameron became Prime Minister, Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg was appointed as Deputy Prime Minister.


2010 United Kingdom government formation, Background
The Labour Party came into government under the leadership of Tony Blair in May 1997 after the electoral wipeout of the Conservative government, led by John Major; this ended 18 years of Conservative rule. Having secured a landslide victory with 418 seats in the House of Commons, the party had a working majority of 179 seats, and went on to win the 2001 and 2005 elections.


2010 United Kingdom government formation, Background
During its first term in office Blair's government introduced many popular policies, including legislation to establish a national minimum wage, reducing the length of hospital waiting lists, and devolving lawmaking powers to Scotland and Wales. Blair also played a key role in the Northern Ireland peace process. But his decision to commit British troops to the 2003 invasion of Iraq turned public opinion against him and lost him the support of some of his own MPs. When Blair stepped down as Prime Minister in June 2007 he was succeeded by his Chancellor, Gordon Brown.


2010 United Kingdom government formation, Background
Blair's decade-long premiership had been a time of economic boom for the United Kingdom, but Brown's tenure as Prime Minister was dominated by the global recession of the latter part of the 2000s. Although commentators perceived Brown to have made some good decisions during the economic crisis, such as providing financial aid to several UK banks which found themselves in difficulty, the recapitalisation of the banks lead to a massive rise national debt as the private debt accumulated by the banks became public. He was also viewed by the media as someone who lacked interpersonal skills. Another major event that occurred during Brown's time in government was the 2009 scandal involving MPs expenses, which damaged the public's trust in politicians.


2010 United Kingdom government formation, Background
By April 2010 almost five years had passed since the previous general election (held on 5 May 2005), requiring a fresh election to take place. On 6 April 2010 Brown went to Buckingham Palace to ask the Queen to dissolve Parliament on 12 April in preparation for a general election. In a live press conference at Downing Street, Brown announced the election would be held on 6 May. The time between the announcement of the election and the dissolution of Parliament, known as wash-up, was to allow for the handling of any unfinished legislative business before the Parliamentary session's conclusion.


2010 United Kingdom government formation, Background
Labour campaigned to secure a fourth consecutive term in office and to restore support lost since 1997, while the Conservative Party sought to gain a dominant position in British 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 possibly hold the balance of power in a hung parliament.


2010 United Kingdom government formation, Background
After the televised debates between the three leaders – the first of their type during an election campaign in the United Kingdom – their poll ratings had risen to the point where many considered the possibility of a Liberal Democrat role in Government. While Cameron and Clegg were generally well received by the viewers of the three debates, Brown's performance was considered to have been less successful.


2010 United Kingdom government formation, Background
Brown's image was further harmed when he privately described Gillian Duffy, a 65-year-old pensioner, as a "bigoted woman" after she raised the issue of benefits and immigration with him during a campaign trip to Rochdale, Greater Manchester. His remarks were recorded by a Sky News microphone he was still wearing as he was driven away from the visit, and were widely broadcast.


2010 United Kingdom government formation, Background
Polls just before election day showed a slight swing from the Liberal Democrats back to Labour and the Conservatives, with most 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 (SNP), encouraged by its victory in the 2007 Scottish parliament elections, set itself a target of returning 20 MPs and hoped to find itself holding a balance of power. Equally, Plaid Cymru sought gains in Wales.


2010 United Kingdom government formation, Background
In Northern Ireland the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) aimed to maintain or increase its number of seats, having been the fourth largest party in the House of Commons. Smaller parties which had had successes at local elections and the 2009 European elections (UK Independence Party, Green Party, British National Party) aimed to extend their representation to seats in the House of Commons.


2010 United Kingdom government formation, The election
The general election was held on Thursday 6 May 2010 and saw an increase in voter turnout from 61% in 2005 to 65% in 2010. Throughout the day GfK NOP and Ipsos MORI conducted an exit poll on behalf of the BBC, Sky and ITV news services – the results of which were announced as the polls closed at 10:00 pm. Data gathered from individuals at 130 polling stations around the country suggested a hung parliament, with an initial estimate that the Conservative Party would achieve 307 seats – 19 seats short of a controlling majority.


2010 United Kingdom government formation, The election
This deficit was later adjusted to 21 seats. The distribution of seats was initially predicted to be 307 to the Conservatives, 255 to Labour, 59 to the Liberal Democrats and 29 to the other parties, but these figures were later updated with a minor adjustment in Labour's favour. The apparently poor prospects for the Liberal Democrats were a surprise to commentators, as many previous opinion polls had indicated they would receive more seats. A later BBC exit poll published at 5:36 am on Friday 7 May predicted the Conservatives on 306, 20 short of an overall majority, with Labour on 262, and the Liberal Democrats on 55.


2010 United Kingdom government formation, The election
At 9:41am on 7 May, the BBC confirmed a "hung parliament", as it was by then impossible for the Conservative party to gain the number of seats needed to form a majority government. 326 seats were required for a technical majority, but only 323 were necessary for a practical majority, as the five Sinn Féin MPs were expected to boycott the House of Commons. At that time the Conservatives stood at 290 seats, Labour at 247 and Liberal Democrats at 51. The final results put the Conservatives on 306 seats, Labour on 258, and the Liberal Democrats on 57.


2010 United Kingdom government formation, The election
Of the 532 seats contested in England, the Conservatives won an absolute majority of 61 seats and secured an average swing of 5.6% from Labour. The last seat to be elected, Thirsk and Malton, was contested on 27 May because one of the candidates died. All of Scotland's 59 seats were won by the parties that won them at the 2005 election, with Labour regaining the two seats they lost in by-elections since 2005. Labour increased its share of the vote by 2.5% and the Conservatives by 0.9%, giving a swing from the Conservatives to Labour of 0.8%. The Conservatives won only one Scottish constituency, while the SNP – which had hoped to increase its share of seats from seven to 20 – failed to make any headway.


2010 United Kingdom government formation, The election
40 seats were contested in Wales, where the Conservative share rose from three seats to eight, taking one from the Liberal Democrats and four from Labour. Welsh nationalist party Plaid Cymru gained one extra seat, Arfon, from Labour. Overall, Labour lost four seats but remained the biggest party in Wales with 26 seats. 18 seats were contested in Northern Ireland, where both Irish nationalist parties, Sinn Féin and the SDLP, held their seats, the unionist UUP (in an electoral pact with the Conservatives) lost their only seat and the DUP lost a seat.


2010 United Kingdom government formation, The election
This left the nationalist parties with eight seats, the unionist parties with eight seats (all DUP), the Alliance Party with one seat and an independent unionist with one seat. It was the first time since the Partition of Ireland that unionist parties had failed to secure a majority of Northern Ireland's Westminster seats in a general election.


2010 United Kingdom government formation, Initial statements and negotiations
With no single party having achieved an overall majority, the 2010 general election resulted in the first hung parliament since 1974. When it became clear that no party would achieve the outright majority needed to form the next government, the three main party leaders made public statements offering to discuss the options for putting together an administration with the other parties. Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg called on Prime Minister Gordon Brown and Conservative leader David Cameron to act "in the national interest and not out of narrow party political advantage".


2010 United Kingdom government formation, Initial statements and negotiations
However, having stated before the election that the party with the most seats should have the initial say on forming a government, Clegg announced his intention to begin talks with the Conservative Party. Speaking outside the Liberal Democrat headquarters he said: "It is now for the Conservative Party to prove that it is capable of seeking to govern in the national interest."


2010 United Kingdom government formation, Initial statements and negotiations
Brown said he intended to play his part in securing "a stable, strong and principled government", and indicated his willingness to speak with both Clegg and Cameron on how to achieve this, saying: "What we have seen are no ordinary election results." But shortly after, Cameron held a press conference at which he invited the Liberal Democrats to talks, saying: "I want to make a big, open and comprehensive offer to the Liberal Democrats. I want us to work together in tackling our country's big and urgent problems - the debt crisis, our deep social problems and our broken political system."


2010 United Kingdom government formation, Initial statements and negotiations
Under the constitutional rules governing protocol in the event of a hung parliament, Brown, as the sitting Prime Minister, would remain in office until a new government could be formed, a process which could continue without resolution until the State Opening of Parliament, which was scheduled for 25 May. On Brown's instructions, Cabinet Secretary Sir Gus O'Donnell had updated the protocol for dealing with a hung parliament earlier in the year. Following confirmation that no party had achieved an overall majority, Brown authorised O'Donnell to begin the process. Four-member teams of civil servants were sent to liaise with the main political parties to facilitate negotiations.


2010 United Kingdom government formation, Initial statements and negotiations
Cameron's willingness to hold talks with the Liberal Democrats was interpreted by BBC News political editor Nick Robinson as hinting at the possibility that Liberal Democrat MPs could serve as part of a Cabinet. On the afternoon of 7 May, Cameron and Clegg spoke by telephone and had what the BBC reported as a "very constructive" conversation. By that evening exploratory talks between teams of senior representatives from the Liberal Democrats and Conservatives had begun. The Liberal Democrats team consisted of Chris Huhne, Danny Alexander, Andrew Stunell and David Laws, while George Osborne, William Hague, Oliver Letwin and Ed Llewellyn made up the Conservative team.


2010 United Kingdom government formation, Further talks
By the morning of Saturday 8 May, talks between the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats were fully underway. A 70-minute meeting at Admiralty House in Westminster was described by both parties as being "constructive and amicable", and another meeting was scheduled for the following day. At a private meeting that evening, Cameron and Clegg held the first of a series of talks to discuss the negotiations. Members of the Liberal Democrat Parliamentary Party had earlier met at Local Government House to discuss the coalition talks.


2010 United Kingdom government formation, Further talks
One of the chief issues that the Liberal Democrats wished to address in any coalition agreement was that of electoral reform, and as Party members debated the negotiations, a 1,000 strong crowd of protesters from the pressure group 38 Degrees gathered outside. Amid chants of "Fair votes now" and "We want to speak to Nick", Clegg briefly left the meeting to accept a petition and told the protesters, "Reforming politics is one of the reasons I went into politics." After the meeting, a Liberal Democrats negotiator, David Laws, said members had "endorsed in full" the strategy outlined by Clegg that the Conservatives should have first choice in negotiations on forming a government. Clegg also met with the party's federal executive, which also endorsed Clegg's decision.


2010 United Kingdom government formation, Further talks
8 May 2010 was the 65th anniversary of VE Day – which marked the victory of the Allied Forces over Nazi Germany and the end of the Second World War in Europe – and celebrations were held to mark the occasion. The leaders of all three parties attended a ceremony at the Cenotaph in Whitehall. After the ceremony, Brown flew to his family home in Scotland, but remained ready to negotiate with the Liberal Democrats if no deal with the Conservatives was reached.


2010 United Kingdom government formation, Further talks
Labour denied reports of a heated telephone conversation between Brown and Clegg, and support among Brown's Cabinet colleagues remained strong, but one backbencher, John Mann, urged Brown to step aside as Labour leader before the party conference in September, arguing that Brown's continued leadership "rules out the credibility of a Lib/Lab pact".


2010 United Kingdom government formation, Negotiations continue
On Sunday 9 May, senior negotiators from the Liberal Democrats and Conservatives embarked on six hours of talks at the Cabinet Office, which were described as "very positive and productive". William Hague emerged from the discussions to say, "The issues that we have covered have included political reform, economic issues and reduction of the deficit, banking reform, civil liberties, environmental issues. So, we've had good discussions about all of those areas. We are agreed that a central part of any agreement that we make will be economic stability and the reduction of the budget deficit, but each negotiating team is now going to report to our party leaders."


2010 United Kingdom government formation, Negotiations continue
As the negotiations were taking place, Gordon Brown returned to Downing Street and held a meeting with Nick Clegg at the Foreign Office for talks. A Downing Street spokesman later confirmed the talks, together with the previous evening's telephone conversation between Brown and Clegg, which was described as "an amicable discussion." However, Paddy Ashdown – a previous Liberal Democrat leader – offered a different view of the Brown-Clegg conference call, telling the BBC it "was a diatribe, a rant, and that Gordon Brown was threatening in his approach to Nick Clegg." Following the success of the talks between their two parties, Clegg and Cameron held a second round of face-to-face discussions at Westminster that evening, lasting 45 minutes.


2010 United Kingdom government formation, Negotiations continue
While negotiations continued to form the next administration, the business of government continued with the previous incumbents. In this respect Chancellor Alistair Darling flew to Brussels to attend a meeting of European finance ministers. In London, Brown held meetings with Business Secretary Peter Mandelson, his deputy leader Harriet Harman, Secretary of State for Energy Ed Miliband and Tony Blair's former special adviser Alastair Campbell. Brown also sent an email to party activists in which he thanked them for their work during the election campaign.


2010 United Kingdom government formation, Negotiations continue
It concluded "The past few days have seen us enter a political landscape not considered possible a few short weeks ago - with the outcome of the election leading to no single party able to form a majority government. My duty as prime minister has been to seek to resolve this situation." Several senior Labour backbenchers, including MP George Howarth called on Brown to step down.


2010 United Kingdom government formation, Labour enters the picture
Monday 10 May saw another day of talks between the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats, but at a meeting with his MPs, Nick Clegg was urged to give assurances over offers which were being made by David Cameron's team. They also wished him to continue negotiations with Labour. During the day it emerged that senior Labour and Liberal Democrat representatives had held discussions about forming a coalition, but that one of the barriers to this was the continued presence of Gordon Brown as Prime Minister.


2010 United Kingdom government formation, Labour enters the picture
At 5:00 pm that afternoon Brown announced that he would step down as Labour leader by September. In a statement he said that he intended to "[A]sk the Labour Party to set in train the processes needed for its own leadership election." The statement went on to say, "I would hope that it would be completed in time for the new leader to be in post by the time of the Labour Party conference. I will play no part in that contest, I will back no individual candidate."


2010 United Kingdom government formation, Labour enters the picture
He also urged any prospective candidates for the position to wait until coalition negotiations were complete before announcing their candidacy. Following this announcement, formal talks began between Labour and the Liberal Democrats, with Labour's negotiating team consisting of Peter Mandelson, Harriet Harman, Andrew Adonis, Ed Miliband and Ed Balls. However, many in Labour felt that a coalition with the Liberal Democrats was an unrealistic prospect since it would still fall short of the 326 seats needed to form a majority government, with 315 seats to the Conservatives' 306.