The UK has woken up this morning to the news of a

hung parliament, with the Tories being the biggest party. So what does that

mean? Well, put simply a hung parliament is one in which there is no party that

has an overall majority. A party must have more than half of the MPs in the

House of Commons.

At the time of writing 615 results of the 650 had

been declared, showing the Conservatives in the lead with

290 seats in Parliament. In order to win, 326 seats need to be gained. The

election results so far have shown that Labour currently have won 247 seats and the

Liberal Democrats just 51.

The BBC has predicted that the Tories will finish

with 306 seats, still not enough to win the majority. Labour leader Gordon Brown may

begin talks with Liberal Democrats leader Nick Clegg about the possibility of

forming a coalition in order to try and form a government. It is not known how

Clegg feels about this idea but he has admitted on the news that it had been “a

disappointing night” for his party.

Negotiations to form a government could take between

a week and 10 days. The 25th May has been marked as a key date

though as that is when the Queen’s speech is due to be given, declaring the

government’s priorities during the Parliament. The last time there was a hung

parliament was in 1974 when Ted Heath was forced to resign after failing to

form a coalition with the Liberal Democrats. Therefore you can expect the next

week to be filled with some intense negotiations as Gordon Brown tries to

remain in power and open talks with the Liberal Democrats. Should Brown be

forced to resign, then the Queen could invite David Cameron to form a

government.

In local news congratulations must go to Mark Field

the Conservative candidate for the cities of London and Westminster. Despite

our own online poll resulting in Naomi Smith as the winner it was Field who won

after receiving 19,264 of the votes. View the complete list of the results for

the cities of London and Westminster here.