Elections!

[mongers]

Best news from the night - the BNP's vote has, as predicted by the polls, collapsed.

[Although I admire the tweet from Nick Griffin asking someone to tell him how to change the title of his twitter account so he can keep his current one.]

Second best (provisionally) - the Greens not improving their vote share.

Edit: Apparently the leading Labour candidate for the North-West thinks the destruction of the BNP is the best news as well...then she blew it by saying that the north-west had shown that they wanted the Labour party of Ed Milliband to represent them.

The figures are

Labour 3
UKIP 3
Conservative 2

[Sheilbh]

According to the BBC 30% of young voters in France voted FN

Again far-right picking up votes in old Socialist areas

Is it any wonder France's Jews are looking to leave France

That. The shooting in Belgium. Golden Dawn and Jobbik winning over 10%. Yeah it's a sad week for Europe

[Sheilbh]

So far they're actually down 1%. It's just the Lib Dem collapse is so bad they're now behind the Greens

[Agelastus]

Second best (provisionally) - the Greens not improving their vote share.

Most of the Greens that

(a) I meet
(b) I see asking questions on political shows
(c) Are active in politics

strike me as being either lunatics or unthinkingly doctrinaire in their opinions.

Take wind-power - no electricity generated by wind-power is ever part of the base load because it is too unreliable. This also means that if it generates power at the wrong time the capacity is wasted, and that it might not be available when needed. Yet Greens seem incapable of considering alternatives to the current doctrine of "Wind Power Good".

There are honourable exceptions but they are few and far between. Even the more sane ones abroad tend to throw their weight behind ideas that I fundamentally disagree with (such as Germany ditching nuclear power.)

Plus, of course, the current situation in Brighton is an excellent showcase of what happens when British Greens get into power.

Edit: And the Greens have lost an MEP...this is getting better and better. At this rate they'll make no headway at all (they were making wild claims of doubling or tripling their representation, presumably counting on the Lib Dem collapse helping them.)

[Sheilbh]

There is the desire to make the EU more efficient, and the desire to leave it / see it fall.

Europe needs the EU. But yeah it needs a laisez faire EU, not 68's lefties dream EU

So the Tory view?

And if negotiating with the French, Italians and Poles for a more efficient EU fails, then what?

[Maladict]

Okay, that makes sense. Do you have to count straight away in the Netherlands or could you have just stored the ballot boxes until tonight?

I assumed it had to be done straight away, but apparently a few municipalities have waited until today.
Not sure what that's about.

[Sheilbh]

Lib Dems win a seat!

[Agelastus]

Wow - the Lib Dems have a seat! And not from London.

Edit: And Damn, assuming London votes as expected it looks as if the Greens will lose vote-share and gain a seat. It looks like I was celebrating to soon.

[mongers]

My region elects a LidDem, a hold apparently and only just, a few less and they'd have lost the seat.

[Sheilbh]

Excluding Scotland and London:

If I were Labour I'd be very worried by that.

[Agelastus]

Excluding Scotland and London:

If I were Labour I'd be very worried by that.

That's pretty grim.

[Liep]

How do you calculate that? 24% gives 13 but 7.5% gives only 1?

[Agelastus]

How do you calculate that? 24% gives 13 but 7.5% gives only 1?

D'Hondt and the vote being regional, not national.

Mainly D'Hondt.

Edit: Oh, and the table being incomplete yet, of course.

[Sheilbh]

How do you calculate that? 24% gives 13 but 7.5% gives only 1?

The seats are allocated by region, not a national list.

But we use the D'Hondt system to work them out, which is very confusing

[Agelastus]

Erk...

Bit of a booboo there by the BBC lead.

"11 regions of England."

What a gift to the SNP. I hope they don't notice it.

Edit: I think he had an editor scream in his ear - his use of Great Britain when the camera turned back to him was very, very clear.