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DAVID CAMERON was deprived of a Commons majority by failing to secure the votes of just 16,000 people, according to an expert analysis of election results. The findings by Colin Rallings and Michael Thrasher reveal that the Tories came tantalisingly close to securing a clean victory at the polls. “Cameron came so near and yet so far,” write the directors of the elections centre at Plymouth University. “Just 16,000 extra votes for the Tories, distributed in the 19 constituencies in which the party came closest to winning, would have spared us a weekend of negotiation and speculation.” The Tories failed...

The BBC reported the confrontation based on remarks by a "very senior Lib Dem source who is involved in the negotiations with the Conservatives". The source told the BBC's Jon Sopel that during the leaders' conversation last night, the tone went "downhill" at the mention of resignation. It was claimed Mr Brown's approach was to begin "a diatribe" and "a rant" and the source said the Labour leader was "threatening in his approach to Nick Clegg". Mr Clegg was said to have came off the phone assured that it would be impossible to work with Brown because of his attitude...

There is no real difference between the 'liberal democrats' of the UK (who, like every other party which tagged 'democrat' to their name ~100 years ago was doing so to differentiate themselves from the Totalitarian Left, like 'hey, it's OK, we're not like Lenin, even though we believe a lot of the same things'. Remember that context when you see 'democrat' in a party name), and the leftist Labor party, and they will together form a leftist government. They are acting now as if they might help the Conservatives into power: they will NOT. They benefit from acting as if...

Former Cabinet member David Blunkett said his instinct was that 'we have lost the election' and suggested a union of 'anti-Conservative' forces.

LONDON -- British voters go to the polls today, and it appears likely that they will boot out the party in power for only the second time in 31 years. Margaret Thatcher's Conservatives ousted a Labor government in May 1979, and Tony Blair's "New Labor" party ousted the Conservatives in May 1997. Thatcher's party held on for 18 years and Blair's for 13 years in large part because the opposition indulged its extremes to the point of becoming unelectable. But long tenure tends to fray even the most successful party. Intra-party feuds become poisonous: The Conservatives quarreled over Thatcherism for...

The Tory leader delivered a stinging attack on Labour’s “disgraceful and negative campaigning” as he addressed a crowd of 50 supporters outside a primary school in Newtown, Montgomeryshire. At the end of his 36-hour campaign push across the UK, Mr Cameron pledged that a Conservative government would “take everyone with us: the frail, the elderly, the vulnerable, poorest – we know they need protection.” Claims from Labour that the Conservatives were planning to take payments from pensioners, benefits from families were “simply not true”. He said: “They should be ashamed of the negative campaign they are fighting.” The Tories are...

If my previous paragraph on the British election is correct — and for once I am expressing the majority view — then millions of disillusioned working-class Labour voters are about to be dumped onto the political marketplace. Which other party is most likely to succeed in winning them to its cause? The election result will hang on the answer to this question. The lazy assumption is that they will mostly end up voting Liberal Democrat because the Lib-Dems and Labour are both “center-Left” parties. The fact that this assumption is lazy does not make it wrong. Some voters undoubtedly drift...

LONDON (AFP) – The Labour party has suspended a candidate ahead of the May 6 general election, it said Monday, after he boasted about his sex life online. John Cowan, 35, was also accused of saying he "would not be happy" if his children dated a Muslim, the Sunday Telegraph newspaper said. Describing his sex life, Cowan reportedly wrote: "Why limit it to just one woman? I would prefer one for each day of the week!" He was dropped two weeks after Prime Minister Gordon Brown's Labour banned another candidate, Stuart MacLennan, from standing in a Scottish seat due to...

ROME, April 23, 2010 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Pro-life advocates in Britain are shocked at the decision by the Catholic Education Service of England and Wales (CESEW), a body of the Catholic Bishops' Conference of England and Wales, to appoint a pro-abortion former Labour MP as its new deputy director. Greg Pope, the Labour MP for the Hyndburn riding in East Lancashire since 1992, was approved unanimously for the job by the CESEW interview panel, including by Bishop Malcolm McMahon, chairman of CESEW. In a media release by CESEW, Chief Executive and Director Oona Stannard, welcomed the appointment, saying Pope's experience...

David Cameron came back stronger in the second television debate as Nick Clegg again turned in an accomplished performance and Gordon Brown appeared to trail behind the other two. Mr Cameron was more successful in engaging with the television audience than last week and repeatedly styled himself as a premier in waiting, beginning several answers with the words ‘if I were your Prime Minister...’ Mr Clegg again used the ploy of referring to ‘the old parties’, a line which inevitably seemed to lack the impact of a week ago, but also referred to Barack Obama more than once in an...

April 11, 2010 Labour Hit By Cancer Leaflet Row Chris Hastings and Maurice Chittenden LABOUR has become embroiled in a row about the use of personal data after sending cancer patients alarmist mailshots saying their lives could be at risk under a Conservative government. Cards addressed to sufferers by name warn that a Labour guarantee to see a cancer specialist within two weeks would be scrapped by the Tories. Labour claims the Conservatives would also do away with the right to be treated within 18 weeks. Cancer patients who received the personalised cards, sent with a message from a breast...

Immigration was at the centre of the election campaign today as it emerged that virtually every extra job created under Labour has gone to a foreign worker. Figures suggested an extraordinary 98.5 per cent of 1.67million new posts were taken by immigrants. The Tories seized on the revelation as evidence that the Government has totally failed to deliver its pledge of 'British jobs for British workers'.

Political leaders have headed off on the campaign trail after Prime Minister Gordon Brown announced the UK general election would be held on 6 May. He said he would seek a "clear" mandate to continue the "road to recovery", as Labour bids for a fourth term. David Cameron, whose Conservative Party has been ahead in the polls, said they offered "hope" and a "fresh start". Nick Clegg, leader of the UK's third biggest party the Liberal Democrats, said only they offered "real change".

On the day of the General Election in 1997, I warned in my Daily Mail column: 'Tony Blair might not frighten you, but if you vote Labour today you will be putting into office a bunch of people with a gut hatred of individual freedom. 'They want us all to be clients of the state. Around their Islington dinner tables they pour scorn on suburban, family values. 'Under Blair, the Labour Party has changed. But these have been changes wrought not of conviction, but of cynical expedience. How do I know this?

This royal throne of kings, this sce- pter’d isle,This Earth of majesty, this seat of Mars,This other Eden demi-paradise... This precious stone set in the silver sea...” Britain’s next Prime Minister is unlikely to indulge in such Shakespearean flights about his native land; winning the next general election on the ground — which political insiders assure us will be held in early May — will be nearer to his heart, presiding over an economy whose penury exceeds anything within historical memory will surely test to the limit his political will and intellectual resource. The next occupant of 10 Downing Street will...

DAMNING reports on the state of the National Health Service, suppressed by the government, reveal how patients’ needs have been neglected. They diagnose a blind pursuit of political and managerial targets as the root cause of a string of hospital scandals that have cost thousands of lives. The harsh verdict on the state of the NHS, after a spending splurge under Labour between 2000 and 2008, raises worrying questions about the future quality of the health service as budgets are squeezed. One report, based on the advice of almost 200 top managers and doctors, says hospitals ignored basic hygiene to...

GORDON BROWN is on course to remain prime minister after the general election as a new Sunday Times poll reveals that Labour is now just two points behind the Tories. The YouGov survey places David Cameron’s Conservatives on 37%, as against 35% for Labour — the closest gap between the parties in more than two years. It means Labour is heading for a total of 317 seats, nine short of an overall majority, with the Tories languishing on a total of just 263 MPs. Such an outcome would mean Brown could stay in office and deny Cameron the keys to...

Environment Minister says his party has been infiltrated by a fundamentalist Muslim group that wants to create an “Islamic social and political order” in Britain. The Islamic Forum of Europe (IFE) — which believes in jihad and sharia law, and wants to turn Britain and Europe into an Islamic state — has placed sympathisers in elected office and claims, correctly, to be able to achieve “mass mobilisation” of voters. Jim Fitzpatrick, the Environment Minister Speaking to The Sunday Telegraph, Jim Fitzpatrick, the Environment Minister, said the IFE had become, in effect, a secret party within Labour and other political parties....

Member of European Parliament hosts first ever Tea Party protest against taxation in U.K.

LONDON (Reuters) - The Labour party is taking a page from U.S. President Barack Obama's campaign book by contacting voters directly and encouraging word of mouth campaigning by members, its election coordinator said. Douglas Alexander said Labour, which has been clawing back some of the opposition Conservative party's commanding lead ahead of an election that must be held by June 3, has been in discussion with the Obama team for more than a year. --snip-- Revealing a new election slogan, "A future fair for all" -- due to be officially unveiled by Prime Minister Gordon Brown on Saturday -- Alexander...