London Lives

Nope, I don’t know quite how that happened either. The Tories (shudder) haven’t got enough seats to form a majority government and Labour and the Lib Dems together can’t manage a majority via coalition. And we enter the territory of a Hung Parliament, last seen in 1974.

Other things last seen in the UK in 1974: lots of strikes and financial austerity. So, the current political crowd are in good company. We don’t really do coalition-type things here, so at the moment there is that curious British awkwardness going on. Whatever, the election has really gripped people’s imaginations and the café this lunchtime was full of people loudly proclaiming what they thought should happen.

And the latest is that the curiously shiny-faced Tory leader David Cameron is apparently reaching out to the Lib Dems, leaving Gordon Brown out in the cold.

The Queen has gone back to Windsor and appears to be waiting for the boys to sort themselves out.

Gordon Brown was pictured looking mightily peeved on the BBC and is probably plotting to change the locks at Number 10 at this very moment.

Obviously, the crowded polling stations I mentioned yesterday weren’t good news for everyone, particularly if they didn’t manage to vote. We don’t usually do that here either. The results for local London borough elections are due, too. Let’s hope they are a bit more straightforward. Watch this space.

Right. I’ve been along to vote on the way home from work and it was crowded. This is A Good Thing.

I love voting. I vote in the General Election (of course), the local elections (also today) and the European elections. There’s something special about General Election day: people trotting off to cast their vote in all manner of places (civic halls, local schools, portakabins, caravans, castles and others on the BBC here), all designated for the same purpose.

Yes, that’s all very rosy and no doubt we could end up with more of the same (although there’s still all to play for and I don’t remember an election being this close). But there is a shared sense of getting out there, polling card in hand, nodding politely at others in the queue, then being alone to make your decision.

There’s also something splendidly low-tech about voting: paper polling-cards, lists of names, rickety wooden booths, pencils on string. This morning on the way to work, I passed cheery women outside Friends’ House (the Quaker meeting house) in Euston, which had been open as a polling station for two hours.

I’m going to have a bath now. The polls close at 22.00. I’m trying to stay up as late into the night as possible to see the results (I’ll probably be snoozing peacefully on the sofa by 01.20…). Here’s hoping not.