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posted by CoolHand on Saturday May 09 2015, @06:58AM   Printer-friendly
from the surprised-Brits dept.

BBC News reports that the Conservatives have defied pre-election polls and all the exit polls to win an overall majority in the House of Commons. The race was thought to be much closer than the final results have shown, with many predicting either another coalition government or possibly a minority Conservative government being formed.

The Conservatives made gains in England and Wales and are forecast by the BBC to secure 331 seats in the Commons, giving them a slender majority. Sources say [Labour leader] Ed Miliband is expected to stand down after Labour was all but wiped out by the [Scottish National Party] in Scotland. [Liberal Democrat] leader Nick Clegg has already said he will quit, with his party set to be reduced from 57 to eight MPs. [United Kingdom Independence Party] leader Nigel Farage is also quitting after he failed to win Thanet South, losing by nearly 2,800 votes to the Conservatives.

The Conservatives have taken 331 of the 650 seats available. However, when Sinn Fein's continued boycott of Westminster is taken into account, along with the four seats they current hold, 324 is enough for a practical majority. An overall turnout of 66% is expected, marginally up on the previous general election in 2010.

Shortly after the results of the exit polls were revealed, Lord Ashdown, former leader of the Liberal Democrats, stated in a live interview on the BBC that he would "eat his hat" if the predicted losses for the Liberal Democrats came true. The poll showed the Lib Dems losing 45 seats - in the end they lost 47. Lord Ashdown mentioned shortly after he made the statement that he had received through Twitter ten offers of hats if he didn't have one of his own.

For those of us not familiar with UK politics, what are the views of the Conservatives we should be concerned about (if any)? How will their viewpoints affect the world political stage and/or the technology world?

 
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  • (Score: 2) by Geotti on Wednesday May 13 2015, @10:42AM

    by Geotti (1146) on Wednesday May 13 2015, @10:42AM (#182308) Journal

    Is it the reason for your job? Are you part of the misery industry?

    Quite the opposite, I'm actively working against it.

    You need to challenge your own beliefs, they have you completely fooled when you end up denying something as simple as an overflowing glass of water and your response is “keep pouring, it isn't full yet!”.

    Thank you, I challenge my beliefs regularly by taking LSD, maybe you should try that too? Just to understand all the points you got wrong while rambling about issues only tangential to the real problem.
    Otherwise, go and continue to foster the exploitative nature of our societies so dependent on foreign labour and resources, while trying to hide behind your right-wing paroles and misunderstandings.

    Feel free to sing L'Internationale as loudly as you can while you cram your manifestos in and up

    +1 funny.

    Starting Score:    1  point
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  • (Score: 2) by Yog-Yogguth on Friday May 15 2015, @04:16PM

    by Yog-Yogguth (1862) Subscriber Badge on Friday May 15 2015, @04:16PM (#183387) Journal

    You win something by using LSD as an argument in favor of slavery. Reasoning stands no chance against that level of enlightened insight.

    Meanwhile Operation Triton has been expanding under the management of the EU and they'll attempt to pick up at least some of your floating corpses.

    --
    Bite harder Ouroboros, bite! tails.boum.org/ linux USB CD secure desktop IRC *crypt tor (not endorsements (XKeyScore))
    • (Score: 2) by Geotti on Friday May 15 2015, @05:10PM

      by Geotti (1146) on Friday May 15 2015, @05:10PM (#183405) Journal

      You win something by using LSD as an argument in favor of slavery. Reasoning stands no chance against that level of enlightened insight.

      Totally. I meant it, though, LSD does help understand things that have little to do with reason and a lot with empathy and being human.

    • (Score: 2) by Geotti on Saturday May 16 2015, @02:59AM

      by Geotti (1146) on Saturday May 16 2015, @02:59AM (#183639) Journal

      Oh, just saw this [9gag.com] and couldn't not think about you. ;)