The UK general election 2010 results are in. Below is a table of results for all political parties that gained at least one parliamentary constituency.

What a complete surprise that the Liberal Democrat rise in the polls did not equate even to a significant increase in the share of the popular vote and actually resulted in a 5 seats loss!

General Election 2010 Results

   Political Party MPs + - Net Total Votes % Swing
   Conservative Party 306 100 3 +97 10,706,647 36.1 +3.8
   Labour Party 258 3 94 -91 8,604,358 29.0 -6.2
   Liberal Democrat Party 57 8 13 -5 6,827,938 23.0 +1.0
   UKIP 0 0 0 0 917,832 3.1 +0.9
   BNP 0 0 0 0 563,743 1.9 +1.2
   SNP 6 0 0 0 491,386 1.7 +0.1
   Green Party 1 1 0 +1 285,616 1.0 -0.1
   Sinn Féin Party 5 0 0 0 171,942 0.6 -0.1
   DUP 8 0 1 -1 168,216 0.6 -0.3
   Plaid Cymru Party 3 1 0 +1 165,394 0.6 -0.1
   SDLP 3 0 0 0 110,970 0.4 -0.1
   Conservatives and Unionists 0 0 1 -1 102,361 0.3 -0.1
   Alliance Party 1 1 0 +1 42,762 0.1 0.0
   Respect Party 0 0 1 -1 33,251 0.1 -0.1
   Independent – Sylvia Hermon 1 1 0 +1 21,181 0.1 na
   Health Concern Party 0 0 1 -1 16,150 0.1 0.0
   Blaenau Gwent People’s Voice 0 0 1 -1 6,458 0.0 -0.1
   Other Parties 0 0 0 0 247,711 1.2 -

There was a 65.1% turnout with 29,653,638 votes cast.

Above are all the parties that have MPs or lost MPs, plus UKIP and the BNP due to their interest.

Will a Hung Parliament Lead to a Coalition Government?

So we are in hung parliament territory with the Conservative party 20 MPs short of the magic 326 seats outright majority government. The keys to number 10 Downing Street so close, but yet so far away :-)

Since Sinn Féin never takes it’s seats in the UK parliament (refuse to swear allegiance to the Queen) it can be argued the magic number is half of 645 seats or 323 seats.

There’s also one constituency still to be decided via a by-election because one of the main parties candidates died after the general election was called.

Will the Conservatives just 17 seats short of forming a majority government try to form a coalition government with the Lib Dems (giving them a clear majority), form a coalition government with some of the other 23 MPs from the various slammer parties (highly unlikely, but you never know) or form a minority government and make deals with the Lib Dems (and/or others) to not vote against the minority Conservative government on important policy matters??

Or maybe Labour will pull together a rag tag coalition between them, the Lib Dems and some of the smaller parties in an attempt to form a majority government?

A Labour/Lib Dem coalition gives them 315 MPs, just 8 MPs short of forming a majority government (if we discount Sinn Féin of course). Labour can count on the 3 MPs from the SDLP leaving a potential multi-party coalition government 5 MPs short, maybe the 6 SNP MPs will be part of the new coalition government bringing us past the magic 323 seats to form a government?

And what about our 1st ever Green MP, Caroline Lucas (well done Greens, 1st ever Green MP anywhere in the world elected in a first past the post electoral voting system!), could we see Caroline Lucas as Climate Change minister in a multi-party coalition, who knows :-)

What an interesting week awaits us!