UK election live: 5.30am Labour clinging onto power without legitimacy

Gordon Brown has flown back to London.

However, Conservatives now have a higher proportion of seats and the vote than Labour, by a long margin.

The Conservatives have a higher proportion of the vote, and with a higher turnout, than Labour in 2005 got.

BBC predicting Conservatives will be 20 short of a majority, but even Labour and the Liberal Democrats together would be short.

Possible combinations:

Conservative-Liberal Democrat

Conservative-DUP, Alliance, independent, SNP, PC

Labour-Liberal Democrat-SNP, PC, SDLP

In other words, unless Nick Clegg does a deal with David Cameron, it will be Ulster, Welsh and Scottish parties that will decide who the PM will be.

UK election live: 5am the birds are singing and..

ITV predicting Conservatives 23 seats short of majority.

So far..

Conservatives - 224 seats, 36.7% of vote

Labour - 168 seats, 27.4% of vote (record low since 1920s)

Libdem - 36 seats, 22.6% of vote

Notable LibDem losses like Oxford West to Conservatives.

Labour would find it difficult to govern given how far behind it is, as it would need the LibDems, SNP and Plaid Cymru, with independents or some Ulster MPs.

Conservatives only need Lib Dems or most of the others...

UK election live: 5am the birds ares

UK election live: reaching those goalposts

The Conservatives need to win a net 166 seats to govern.

So far of the top targets:

- 45 have been won;

- 16 have been lost;

- rest are still to be declared.

The Liberal Democrats were hoping for at least a 5% gain.

So far of the 30 targets:

- 1 has been won;

- 16 have been lost;

- rest are still to be declared.

Oh and leftwing Education Minister Ed Balls has been re-elected, just...

UK election live: Ministers start to fall

Jacqui Smith, former home secretary and star culprit on parliamentary expenses

Shahid Malik, Local Government Secretary

Particularly satisfying to see them gone.... hopefully more to come

UK election live: "Seats to watch" update 2

Rochdale - "Bigotgate" did not cost Labour this seat, because the Liberal Democrats (which were second) lost votes along with Labour.

Ochil and South Perthshire - SNP's number one target to win from Labour. SNP lost 2.3% of the vote, Labour gained 6.5%. A bloody nose for the Scottish nationalists.

Carmarthan West and Pembrokeshire South - Key Plaid Cymru target for Labour. Went Conservative with 9.8% gain. Losses from Labour, LibDem and Plaid Cymru.

Also notable that TV personality Esther Rantzen got a derisory result in Luton South on an independent ticket.

UK election live: 4am roundup

Half of seats declared:

Conservative 159 seats - 35.8% of vote

Labour 124 - 27.2% of vote

Liberal Democrats 24 - 22.2% of vote

Other 25

overall 5.1% swing Labour to Conservative.

Liberal Democrats only up by 1%

UK election live: Rochdale stays Labour

Gordon Brown's gaffe in Rochdale with Mrs "what about the Eastern Europeans" Duffy hasn't cost him. It remains, barely, a Labour seat. Although disturbingly it would appear the Labour vote lost went to the fascist National Front, with the Liberal Democrat vote collapsing into the Conservatives.

Rochdale held because the Liberal Democrats misfired, I suspect because of the policy of granting illegal migrants amnesty doesn't play well in seats where the National Front can attract 1 in 20 votes.

UK election live: "Seats to watch" update

Guildford - LibDem's number one target, Conservative in 2005, has seen 9.9% swing TO Conservatives. The Liberal Democrat bubble has burst.

Dundee East - Labour number one target against SNP. Saw Labour lose 2.9%, small increase to SNP, but Conservatives picked up rest. Stays SNP.

Hastings and Rye - Threshold between Labour majority and plurality. Won by Conservatives with 3.3% swing.

more to come as results appear.

UK election live: How to watch seats

The best way to see how the parties are going with targets appears to be on the BBC:

Here shows the seats the Conservatives have targeted to get a majority AND how they are doing.

This shows the same for the Liberal Democrats

LibDems have won ONE target seat.

Labour so far swung 6.1% to Conservative, but also Lib Dems have swung 0.6% to Conservatives.

BUT, at 34% at this stage, it is a GOOD result for the Conservatives. 28% for Labour is not.

UK election live: Nationalists not done well

Both Plaid Cymru (Welsh nationalists) and the SNP (Scottish nationalists) hoped to do well from discontent with Labour in their traditionally Labour nations.

They haven't. Plaid Cymru's single seat won from Labour hides how the Conservatives have picked up several seats from Labour. The SNP has won none of its target seats.

They both campaigned on protecting their nations from austerity if they were needed to keep either major party in power. Perhaps Welsh and Scottish voters, both experiencing coalitions with the nationalist parties, aren't that enamoured about the prospect of that writ large!

UK election live: Too early for anyone to claim anything

Tory landslide? Not yet.

Liberal Democrat gains? None so far. LibDems have lost a seat to the Conservatives

Labour can hold on? hard to say

A string of Tory gains, but Labour still ahead on total vote share and seats.... but long night ahead

UK election live: Labour thinks it can govern with LibDems

Far too early to say, but Labour Ministers are all saying that they can govern with the LibDems in a coalition.

Funny how the LibDems have not been asked what they think of this. However, it does look like Labour has scared the children into turning out for them.

UK election live: LibDems must be disappointed

Lib Dems hold onto their seats, but not picking up targets so far. The bubble seems to have clearly burst. A key target, Guildford saw a swing from LibDems to Tories.

Conservatives starting to pick up seats, but fail to pick up Tooting which was critical.

So far, modest gains by Conservatives, although Labour safe seats see big loss of votes to Conservatives

UK election live: Conservative confidence growing

Kingswood - first Tory win from Labour.

Torbay - Tory target, LibDems hold. Looks like Labour voters are going LibDem where Labour cannot win.

Report that Gordon Brown will seek to form a coalition if there is a hung parliament

That stubbornness will mean it is a long long night.

Labour has lost three seats so far, it is still far too soon to call it.

UK election: Northern Ireland trickles in

Alliance wins Belfast East, first time a non-sectarian party has won a seat. NI First Minister loses his seat (DUP). Is Northern Ireland moving away from the sectarian bullshit?

Just safe Labour and LibDem seats otherwise, but clear swing to Conservatives from both Labour and LibDems. Lib Dems can't be too pleased yet. Labour cautiously optimistic, as will be the Conservatives.

UK election live:Less swing in marginals

12:15am - Three safe Labour seats still.

Average 10% swing against Labour, only 6% to Conservatives, 4% to minor parties (UKIP and BNP).

Not enough to make Conservatives confident at all.

UK election: live blogging

So it is 11.28pm BST and there are only two results (safe Labour seats) and a silly exit poll which has little validity because, quite simply, so many have engaged in postal voters.

However, there has been a swing to the Conservatives in both seats. Over 8% in one and 11% in the other.

Could this mean a Tory majority?

Libertarian Party UK publishes manifesto - work in progress

Indeed, but the Libertarian Party UK is young, and needs to grow and mature.

The manifesto was published a couple of days ago, but at least it has been done.

It's not perfect, I for one cannot argue for armed neutrality whilst being a member of NATO. It is quite contradictory. Membership of NATO means an attack on a NATO member is an attack on you. Planning shouldn't be a policy, and it should be about private property rights, and the transport policy is too complicated.

but it IS better than the one I read a few months ago. Albeit a bit too long. Still, light years ahead of the others, and something to build upon further.

Given the appalling state of the competition, it is hard to criticise at this stage, but the UK electoral cycle is up to five years. Enough time to really provide a platform for disenchanted small government liberal Conservatives (who aren't obsessed with the EU) to escape to perhaps?

Bureaucrats prepare austerity plans for the UK

Whatever party wins the UK elections, the Treasury has prepared plans to cut spending drastically according to The Times.

In order to preserve the UK's credit rating, drastic measures are needed:

"Options drawn up by the Treasury and the Department for Work and Pensions in the past few weeks include means-testing child benefit, cutting disability and housing benefits and freezing all payments in cash terms. Freezing benefits for one year would save £4 billion while freezing them for a whole parliament would save £24 billion in the fifth year alone. "

Welfare is the priority, why? Because it is the single largest item of spending at £200 billion per annum. Yes you read right. The state spends £3300 in welfare per man, woman and child every year, which means it taxes about £5000 per adult to pay for the income of others.

The opportunities are enormous:

"Spending on social security benefits has shot up from £93 billion in 1997-98 to nearly £170 billion this year because of a growing number of elderly people, increased payments to lone parents and working families, and rising unemployment....Billions could be saved by means-testing child benefit, which goes to 7.5 million families at a cost of more than £11.7 billion. Officials are also looking at cuts to disability living allowance, which costs £11.3 billion, as well as setting housing benefit, which costs more than £20 billion, at a much lower level."

Do any of the main parties have half the courage to do any of this?