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By Joey Jones, Deputy Political Editor :: Follow the election results live on skynews.com, our mobile apps and on Sky News TV from 10pm. Voters are going to the polls across the country to decide who will form the next government. Polling stations opened at 7am and close at 10pm in the United Kingdom's 650 constituencies.

The title of this post is the headline of the "Daily Express" newspaper in the UK today, its owner supports the United Kingdom Independence Party. Under the headline: "Farage and UKIP boosted by 'very strong' late surge" "Labour and SNP would be absolutely disastrous for us all" The article starts: "The UK Independence Party is poised to 'significantly and perhaps dramatically' beat poll predictions thanks to a late surge in patriotism, it said last night. Amid warnings of the risks from Labour and the SNP, millions go to vote today in what looks like being the tightest election for generations....

A vote for Ukip is a 'suicide note' for Eurosceptics who want Britain to leave the European Union, Iain Duncan Smith has warned. The Tory Work and Pensions Secretary said only the Conservatives can deliver a referendum on the EU. He claimed support for Ukip would only help put Labour in power, with Ed Miliband refusing to give the British people a say on severing ties with Brussels.

He has put a campaign against excessive rent rises at the centre of his election campaign. And as this newly unearthed footage shows, Ed Miliband has form when it comes to protests against private landlords... Labour leader Ed Miliband -- who called himself 'Ted' at university -- led a 'rent strike' when he was a student 24 years ago, archive footage revealed today The clip, from the Spring of 1991, went undiscovered in the archives of ITV Meridian because of Mr Miliband's name change. He is interviewed in his grey jumper and sports a pudding bowl haircut, but the nasal...

Voting for UKIP is like writing a “suicide note” which will “not be forgiven” if it denies Britain the chance to vote on whether to remain a member of the EU, Iain Duncan Smith warns today. In a heartfelt intervention just 48 hours before polling day, the former Conservative leader urges those considering voting UKIP not to jeopardise a decades-long campaign he has waged to change Britain’s relationship with Brussels. • Latest election polls for May 5 The Work and Pensions Secretary describes a vote for Ukip as “unfathomable” as it risks allowing a weak minority Labour government – backed...

LONDON -- They called it "Question Time," borrowing the term from the prime minister's weekly appearance in the House of Commons, but this was surprisingly and refreshingly different. On Thursday, the three main candidates for prime minister -- David Cameron, Ed Miliband and Nick Clegg -- one by one appeared before an audience of voters at the Leeds Town Hall where for a half-hour voters asked them informed, pointed and detailed questions. The host, the BBC's David Dimbleby, called for questions and occasionally followed up, but mostly voters drove the program. Two of the candidates were called liars right to...

Back in the 1970's I remember watching actor Michael Caine explain that he was 'a socialist' but British taxes were just too high for upper income people like himself. In 2010 Caine was supporting the "New Tory" Conservative Party of David Cameron, a less rigid party ready to spend money on the welfare state. Now five years later Cameron's record leading a coalition government with the Liberal Democrat Party includes these highlights. 1. Doubling the country's national debt 2. Cutting police and fire budgets five to ten percent 3. Cutting defense spending leaving the RAF defending the Falkland Islands with...

The poll showed Labour support was on 34 percent, Conservative support on 31 percent and support for the anti-European Union UK Independence Party was at 17 percent.

Next week, Britain votes in its first general election in five years. Some aspects of its politics will be familiar to Americans. Polls show voters are dissatisfied with politicians of both parties, cynical about whether they will keep their promises and closely divided between two major parties, which have been in existence for more than 100 years. But there are differences as well, in contrast to decades when British and American politics seemed to move in tandem -- the 1980s of Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher, the 1990s of Bill Clinton's New Democrats and Tony Blair's New Labour. The most...

A British Muslim politician is on the receiving end of things after she told her social media followers that she would never support Labour leader Ed Miliband because he is “a Jew.” A few years ago, something like this quite simply could not have happened. That was back when anti-Semites understood that society didn’t want to have anything to do with them. So what did they do? They hid, pretending they were open-minded and tolerant. In the last couple of years, however, everything has changed — in Europe, at least. Now, European anti-Semites — most of them Muslim immigrants or...

The U.K. government wants BP to still stand for “British Petroleum.” The Financial Times reported that Downing Street would do all it could to block a takeover of BP. Weakened and shrunken down due to the massive, and still rising, toll stemming from the Deepwater Horizon disaster, BP could become a takeover target from one of the larger oil majors out there. Rumors have been swirling in recent weeks that perhaps ExxonMobil or Chevron could be eyeing the British oil giant, so much so that BP’s CEO Bob Dudley had to publicly dispel any notion that his company is for...

HSBC, Europe’s biggest bank, has ordered a review into whether it should move its headquarters out of Britain and potentially back to its former home in Hong Kong, threatening London’s reputation as a global hub for finance and investment. The announcement from HSBC, founded in Asia but a key part of the British establishment, prompted a warm response from Hong Kong, where it is revered as “The Bank”, and silence from the British government. The commitment to the review comes less than two weeks before British parliamentary elections on May 7 and poses challenges for both Prime Minister David Cameron...

When reports emerged that a dog had allegedly been poisoned at Crufts, David Cameron appeared to be extremely worried that a similar fate might befall the Downing Street cat, Larry. Talking to Heart FM, the Prime Minister promised to ‘double the security around him and make sure he’s ok’. But this morning Larry looked far from ‘ok’ when police sniffer dog Bailey turned up on his doorstep. Perhaps the PM has more important things to think about – or perhaps police security is what Cameron had in mind to waylay any attempts on his cat’s life. But needless to say,...

One of the messages the EU heads of state and government are expected to deliver at their extraordinary summit today (23 April) is that the Union cannot absorb any more mass arrivals of migrants, as they risk undermining it economically, and destroying it politically. The meeting will take place today at 1600, following public outrage after 900 migrants died on Sunday, when their boat sank on its way to Europe from Libya. Diplomats said that the summit will come up with four main messages. The first is that the EU is ready to save lives. Indeed, leaders are likely to...

A member of the House of Lords has said the Republic of Ireland should consider rejoining the Commonwealth. Lord Diljit Rana said Ireland needs to have a “rational and serious debate” that must not be “governed by historical distortion, but rather recognize the truth of today and recognize that the Republic of Ireland has much to offer and lots to receive.” […] Ireland left the British Commonwealth in 1949 under the terms of the Republic of Ireland Act. Lord Rana said there would be no disadvantage to the Republic joining the Commonwealth and that the economics benefits of being a...

A large international conference of Holocaust deniers recently took place in the heart of London, Britain's Daily Mail reported on Saturday. "This is the biggest and most significant meeting of Holocaust deniers that Britain has ever seen. It is a very worrying development," the paper quoted Gerry Gable, an expert on the extreme Right who aided the news outlet's undercover investigation of the event, as saying. The event was held under a veil of secrecy at London's Grosvenor Hotel in a room draped with the Union Flag. A spokesman for the hotel said the room booking was made online and...

Sixteen EU states have said products made by Israeli settlers should be marked in shops so that European consumers can decide whether to boycott them. The group - which includes France, Italy, Spain, and the UK - made the appeal in a letter to EU foreign relations chief Federica Mogherini on Monday (13 April). They said “EU-wide guideline on the labelling of settlement produce/products … is an important step in the full implementation of EU longstanding policy in relation to the preservation of the two-state solution”.

THE BBC has backed down and given Ukip leader Nigel Farage his own TV slot to answer audience questions after an Express.co.uk investigation discovered Thursday's debate was a political fix. He will take audience questions in a 30-minute programme called Election 2015: Ask Nigel Farage. The discussion, held in Birmingham, will air after the News at 10 and will be chaired by journalist Jo Coburn. It will be held at the same time as a Question Time special featuring the Tory, Labour and Liberal Democrat leaders who will take turns answering questions from the same audience in Leeds. A Ukip...

There was a "debate" between political parties in the United Kingdom Thursday night with five leaders on the stage from the leading parties that aren't in power. PM David Cameron only wanted to participate in one debate so this format was concocted by the BBC as an alternative to an all party debate. Also excluded, Cameron's partner party in government, the Liberal Democrats. Labour leader Ed Miliband was joined by UKIP leader Nigel Farage, Scottish National Party leader Nicola Sturgeon, Welsh nationalist leader Leanne Wood and Green Party leader Natalie Bennett. Sturgeon, Wood and Bennett whose main differences with Miliband...

Nigel Farage has been accused of "insulting" the audience of the final election debate by saying they had failed to understand the issues and were too left wing. During heated debate over the shortage of affordable housing in the UK, the UKIP leader said that "even by the standards of the BBC", the audience was too far left. He said: "There is a total lack of comprehension amongst this panel and the audience, which is a remarkable audience even by the left-wing standards of the BBC." The UKIP leader was jeered as he was told by Ed Miliband that it...