The initial exit polls have been published just as the polls closed. They show the Torys on somehting well over 300, Labour on 255 and the Lib Dems getting somewhere in the mid-60’s

If the Tories were much above 300 seats in the House of Commons they could pretty much get business done with the help of the Ulster Unionists and perhaps a few other deals.

If they end up with a figure closer to 300 the Lib Dems and Labour might fell they are in a position to say “Hold on, you’ve no mandate”

Starting at 22:00 British Summer Time the BBC is streaming their election coverage online. Additional live coverage on BBC Radio 4.

BBC One – http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/shared/election2010/liveevent/

Radio 4 – http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio/

Any general election day is something of a celebration of democracy: this one feels a little different, for only the second time in the last thirty years we may see a change of government. As I wrote a few weeks ago, this feel different from 1997, the mood is a lot darker and there is not the feeling of better days to come that was had when Tony Blair and New Labour swept the Conservatives from power so comprehensively.

The electorate once again has the chance to remind those who end up in Westminster just who their ultimate boss is. It’s not the whips or the party grandees, it’s the electorate they have been courting so determinedly for the last few weeks.

I think we all understand the country is in trouble. Gordon Brown and Alistair Darling have actually seen the books and if it’s as bad as we’ve been led to believe it may be the country is faced with the biggest peace time deficit ever.

Whenever the next Prime Minister is will have to face the debt that’s been run up and make a large number of tough decisions. As a country we have tried to mitigate the recession by spending money the country did not have. This money has to be paid back.

In Greece we can see what happens when a government and people live so far beyond their means. There has been a nationwide social breakdown followed by strikes, arson, rioting and today deaths. While I don’ believe that Britain could head down the same path as Greece, but if the government does not reduce it’s spending to match it’s income then massive social problems await.

Blair and Labour were elected in ’97 with a mandate to fix public services and that took money. This increase in public spending was affordable as long as the economy kept growing at a pace that supported it.

When it stopped growing a couple of years ago swift, and potentially unpopular action was required. To be frank, I think Brown bottled it, with worried too much about being reelected rather than doing the right thing for the country

This election is unlike any other. In 1979 the country was feeling the pain, we were in the aftermath of the winter of discontent and inflation was rampant. It was obvious to all that the economy needed to be sorted and it turns out Thatcher was willing to risk her popularity and was the person to do it.

War and a Labour party that was all but unelectable aided her subsequent election wins, but the wins in the 80’ were based upon an economy made possible by the difficult choices and occasionally painful policies her government followed when they first came to power.

I also believe the same policies divided the country in a way never seem before. There were those who made fortunes off her policies, and a huge subclass that were left behind. Her government squandered billions of North Sea oil money and billions more raised by selling publicly owned companies.

The problems with the economy today are less immediate to most people, the power is there and rubbish does not lay uncollected in the street. The tough decisions were put off by Gordon Brown, but they are still there to be made.

The Australian government did the right thing, they made unpopular decisions and decided to live with the results. It hurt, and is still hurting, but the country will come out of the recession in better shape because of it. Whoever is living in Number 10 next week will have to make hard, painful and unpopular decisions. I hope they do the right thing for the country, not the right things for the polls.

One thing I don’t understand is that if Labour has identified 6 Billion in efficiency savings, why have they waited until now to implement them. They have seen the state of borrowing and if they truly waited until the election to roll out these savings it’s truly criminal to waste billions in taxpayers money.

Labour has had something of a deathbed conversion to a principal of Proportional Representation. An idea that the Lib Dems have held dear for many elections.

This election has become more than who leads, but also something of a referendum on PR and its merits. The Lib Dems have waged a very intense and successful campaign over the last month; a significant amount of credit for this must go to Nick Clegg.

I think the Liberal Democrats and their growth as a true contender over the last month reflect an overwhelming national mood for real change. Business as usual for has left a country full of disenfranchised voters who are tired of the old politics and the professional politicians who see an election as a career more rather than the opportunity to better the world for the people they represent.

Proportional representation will not fix that, but it will give the UK something important: a parliament that is a true reflection of one of the most vibrant and diverse countries on earth. I think this election has shown that the two-party system is unrepresentative of the country and perhaps it’s time is done.

David Cameron promises a different version of Conservative Government than offered in the past. I think he deserves credit for moving to the political center ground and going some distance to making the Tory’s electable, a feat so many other leaders have failed to do. He has forced the party to become accept diversity; reject the Thatcherism that the party grandees embrace so surely. These are the people who have kept the Conservatives on the opposition benches for the last 134 years.

However his message that it’s going to be different has not been conveyed very well. There are contradictions and very little detail, the manifesto and promises sit there with little information to convey what it really means. He is message on people taking more responsibility for their lives and choices is an interesting argument against “big government”, but high among his policies is getting rid of the Human Rights Act. The one thing the people have to protect themselves.

In another contradiction the Cameron talks of “united and equal” taxation, while advocating inheritance tax cuts for the wealthy. At the same time the party plans to continue the recovery with both austerity and spending pledges at the same time.

In a two party world the other choice would be embracing five more years of Labour government under Gordon Brown. There is no question that Labour have achieved much in the last three terms, the saving of the NHS, investment in education and a minimum wage are huge items of agenda the party delivered.

Hand in hand with revitalizing these services, we were promised reform. The inefficiency still exists and has grown in the last few years with all sorts of Quangos and legions of managers in the NHS. If Brown says they can find 6 Billion in savings this year, why have they not done it already? Politicians the world over forget whose money it is they are spending.

In this campaign Brown has failed to inspire me with a vision for the future or provided an argument for giving Labour another chance.

For many the second biggest issue on the table is the ongoing wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. This was maybe the most important foreign policy call of the past sixty years. Labour lied, the Tories backed them and both were catastrophically wrong.

The Liberal Democrats have become a significant factor in this election and when this is all said and done there is every chance they become that party that makes, or breaks a minority government through a formal pact.

The party has traditional appealed to the working middle classes. Labours record on defeating poverty and being a spokesman for the working class remains unmatched, but for me they, and in particular Gordon Brown has not done enough. The Lib Dems are philosophically closer to Labour than Cameron and the Tories, but could they work with a Labour party led by Brown?

After decades of being on the outside of the two-party political system and not being heard, Nick Clegg and the Lib Dem center message has been heard very clearly in a way I’ve not seem in my lifetime. Today both Labour and the Conservatives must be second guessing the decision to invite Nick Clegg to the debates.

Today was an emotional day, it’s the first birthday since mum succumbed to breast cancer and she has been on my mind a lot. Today I got a card from dad, he wrote in the card

“Happy Birthday. We are very proud to have you as a son”

This has been a rough day, this evening after I opened the card was especially tough.

Most of us don’t get very far in life without experiencing the death of someone we love. Now I’m in my 40’s people seem to be kicking off at an increasing rate. In the last decade friends have passed, lost spouses, been killed in car crashes and died of cancer. It’s quite the toll when I think about it. I’ve gone to more funerals than I wanted to and probably fewer than I should have.

I lost the last of my grandparents 18 months ago. Other than my parents my grandfather was the person I was closest too in my family. He lived a wonderful life, lived it on his terms, showed unconditional love and his house was usually the first place I’d visit when I arrived in England for a visit.

My father, brother and myself are all non-believers (despite the best efforts of a few friends and colleagues) and I do think that perhaps we could have learned something from the life instructions that religion can offer. A good argument could be made that most religion really started out as a way of trying to understand death a little and maybe make sense out of the loss of a beloved.

When Mum passed after a long illness I was devastated. I had nowhere to put my pain, no place to show it other than maybe in the shower or in the car. People would ask, “How are you doing?” and I would reply that I was fine and not want to make any more of it than that. I learned to welcome small talk so I could skip describing my grief.

The reality is this has been life-altering. We recover, we get over the initial pain but life is not quite the same. Often it’s the little things that bring it back. One of the more constant reminders is when I call my parents house and dad answers the phone. For the last 25 years dad  almost never picked up, mum always answered with the cheerful and slightly surprised sounding “Oh hello David” before launching in to what ever family gossip of drama she felt I needed to know. I call dad most days and there is a part of me that still expects mum to be on the other end with her distinctive opening.

After watching mum fight cancer for three years before finally succumbing I discovered we must give grief its time and place, and that period may be so much longer than most of us are comfortable with in a world that moves with the pace of this one today.

Sitting talking to a friend of mine tonight, it has been a very long afternoon and evening.

We race cars against each other and have done for a long time; we talked of what makes racing so special for those who get it.

I don’t think I’ve ever slept well the night before a race. No matter if it was a minor club road rally or a round of the European Rally championship, not being able to sleep was there every time.

The restlessness was down to one thing, fear. I’ve done close to 300 races as a competitor and it’s always been there.

Sport is made special in part because of that fear.

It’s not the fear of physically hurting ourselves if we mess up and send the car into the trees; both of us accept that as part of the sport. Same with playing rugby, everyone who runs out on a Sunday afternoon up accepts that sprains and dislocated shoulders come with the territory.

It’s the fear of being put to the test, and finding ourselves falling short of what we could do. Not exactly a fear of failure, it’s a lot more than that. It’s more the test itself.

I love racing, it’s the precision mixed with brute force. The rush is addictive and the people almost universally wonderful. The top three or four most satisfying and memorable events for me are not the championship clinchers or the wins, they are the days where I believe that car went about as fast as it could with my mediocre talent.

In the Maine Forest Rally in 2002 we came away as fastest two-wheel drive car and a huge class win. Same event the following year and we crashed out, but the race itself was far more memorable. In 03 that car went as fast as it could over one particular stage, we left nothing behind and were totally committed. As close to perfect as we could be, and that was more satisfying than winning.

This may not make total sense, but the fear that keeps me awake is more than straight failure, racing is good at forcing you to deal with failure. It’s more the fear of the process, of the test itself and being found wanting.

Every time I was getting ready for the start, pulling on the race suit and thinking about the day ahead I’d look for a reason to not start. I never actually took an excuse not to start, but it’s been there every time.

Occasionally it would go well and I’d get a glimpse of what greatness in a car looked like. There would be a corner or two that I’d go as fast as it was possible to go, occasionally it would be for more than a corner or two. In Maine it was for an entire 8-mile stage.

It’s a feeling of reaching that far beyond the ordinary, and that moment of personal satisfaction is made all the better for the fear of the test.

“What I’m interested in is the big poll on 6 May, when people really have to choose five more years of Gordon Brown – the uncertainty, the bickering, the haggling of a hung parliament – or a decisive clean break with the Conservatives.”  David Cameroon

Is it really as simple as that? Perhaps it is, but a hung parliament could potentially force debate and compromise. With a huge Labour majority these are things that have been missing for the last 13 years.

After the Labour landslide victories in the ’97 (179 seat majority) and ’01 (167 seat majority) general elections there was no requirement for Labour to worry what the opposition had to say. The last election in 2005 was not quite as overwhelming a victory, giving Labour a still substantial 66 seat majority.

For the last 13 years Labour had a very comfortable working majority, with the loyalty to the party rather than the electorate it’s meant unpopular legislation can still be railroaded through in comfort with the minimum of debate. There have been once or twice that the party whips have had to do a little work, but the MP’s understand where their loyalty lay.

The opposition is relegated to a rather noisy, but ultimately inconsequential role.

There is no check and balance to the government and they are allowed to operate with relative impunity.

Looking back to 2001 and 2002, having a 167 seat majority when some very controversial laws and motions were being revised (extended detention without charge, ID cards and the war in Iraq) meant that the wants and desires of the electorate were not necessarily considered.

Looking at it in a rather simplistic way I do think that a functional pack made up of a couple of the current parties could be a good thing for government and would certainly add a check to the system that has been missing since the tine Conservative majority of the mid 90’s. A Labour-Lib Dem pact (anti-Conservative more than anything else) seems the obvious alignment. The Lib Dems are philosophically a lot closer to Labour than the Cameron and the Conservatives. To give some additional credit to Nick Clegg, he’s done a rather good job in differentiating the party from the big two during the last year and taking a lot of the ground in the political center Under the leadership of Paddy Ashdown and Charles Kennedy the party seemed a little further to the left than today.

It’s been an interesting week in the UK, Lib Dem Nick Clegg clearly won the first debate.

For me this was because he used straightforward language and stayed away from the forced sloganeering that permeates politics. He did not have anything really new to say, but was consistent and it was not exactly the venue for spontaneous announcements. However Gordon Brown may have given Nick Clegg his new slogan: “I agree with Nick”. The PM used this seven times during the first debate.

A poll published today put the Lib Dems in the lead with 33 per cent, one point ahead of the Conservatives and with Labour trailing on 26 per cent. This polling suggests that a hung Parliament is increasingly likely and that the role of the Lib Dems would be to make a pact with one of the major parties to form government.

Philosophically Labour seems like the natural partners and it’s very possible that Labour is actively working towards that end.

Clegg seems to have found some additional confidence and has made some strong statements. He’s plenty of time to get this wrong, but so far I’m impressed.

“The general election campaign is starting to come to life for the simple reason that a growing number of people are starting – and it is only a start – to believe, starting to hope, that we can do something different this time,”

“That the old tired choices that they have been given by the old parties of the past no longer need to govern the way in which we run politics in the future. I think that is tremendously exciting.”

The system

I was asked about the difference between the British and US systems, they are both “first-past-the-post” with a couple of important differences. In the UK, it’s one winner – one seat. The party with the most seats in the House of Commons forms government.

In America the winner of each state usually wins all of that state’s electoral votes, but those votes are distributed in proportion to the population (yes a couple of states divide the electoral votes, but lets ignore that). There is proportionality built into the system that’s missing from the House of Commons.

However, the biggest difference between the British and American election systems is that in the U.S., people vote for a leader. In the U.K. people vote for parties. The party then appoints their leader and the electorate has no say in that. If the party has the largest number of seats then their leader becomes the Prime Minister.

This is why Tony Blair was replaced by Gordon Brown with no election taking place. Blair stood down as party leader and was replaced by Brown. The electorate was not consulted (nor was it required) as it was an internal party appointment.

I think most people have a happy place; one of mine is the North Downs in southern England. A couple of weeks ago among all the pressure and emotion I made a couple of hours for myself to walk along the North Downs Way near Guildford from Newlands Corner over St Martha and back the long way. It’s couple of hours with a decent amount of up and down.

While I was out walking I noticed the daffodils were making an appearance. This means it’s spring.

The changing of the seasons means different things to different people. For me spring brings hope of the summer to come, change from the grey winter to the bright sunshine and inspiration for the future.

I’ve never needed the spring the way I do this year.

It’s hard to explain and I’m still working through a lot of things. I am not ready to put all here just yet.

For the last however many years I’ve held a lot of resentment and anger deep down, and it’s time to let go. The last few weeks have been hard, really emotional and its felt very raw.

It’s got to the point where it was part of everything I did; it took away from me and the people in my life. It’s time for change, Time to let go of the anger and resentment, and it’s time once again to be the person I know I can be.

I’ve started to make the changes to make things right, I need to rediscover faith in myself, in my decisions and start to believe in who I am once again. With that I can be myself and give myself to the important people in my life.

While walking over the Downs I felt the warmth of spring, and it felt really, really good.

A lot of people (me, Jackie Stewart, Eddie Jordan and all of my more informed racing friends) though Lewis Hamilton was going to crush Jenson Button this year.

So far that’s not happened and I started looking through the results of the first four races and was rather surprised. I accept its early days, we are not even a quarter of the way through the championship and the weather has certainly played a part in mixing things up a bit. None the less it’s rather interesting to have a quick glance down the results.

Bahrain

Race – Hamilton 3rd, Button 7th

Qualifying – Hamilton 4^th, Button 8th

Practice – Button 5^th, Hamilton 6th

Australia

Race – Button 1^st, Hamilton 6th

Qualifying – Button 4^th, Hamilton 11th

Practice – Button 4^th, Hamilton 7th

Malaysia

Race – Hamilton 6^th, Button 8th

Qualifying – Button 17^th, Hamilton 20th

Practice – Hamilton 1st, Button 3rd

China

Race – Button 1^st, Hamilton 2^nd (fastest lap)

Qualifying – Button 5^th, Hamilton 6th

Practice – Button 1^st, Hamilton 3^rd

Coming into the year it was though by many that Button was a good race driver, but ultimately Lewis Hamilton was quicker over a single lap, and that’s not been the case.

This is going to be pretty simplistic as I don’t have the energy to really break the numbers down and pull out my stats text books (there are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics) to prove my point, but here we go.

First is the faster over a single lap argument that has been all over a couple of blogs by Hamilton supporters to prove he’s the best.

Combining qualifying and practice Button was faster than Hamilton 75% of the time (6 out if 8).

Personally I feel practice is a little irrelevant. With the limited testing this year it’s a chance to try a few things out and get some laps on the car, but it is head-to-head data and we can’t ignore it totally.

Looking at qualifying only we see the following “average grid position” from each driver.

Button – 8.5 (ignoring Malaysia – 5.6)

Hamilton – 10.25 (ignoring Malaysia – 7)

Button has on average out qualified Hamilton by almost two (1.75) grid places over the four races. Take out the deeply weather affected Malaysian GP grid and it’s a little better for Hamilton, he’s “only” beaten by an average of 1.4 grid positions.

Being subjective for a moment, Buttons two wins have come in part because he reacted to the conditions better and produced a great race strategy. This has become more important with the heavier fuel loads and making tires last. Reacting to the conditions earlier today in Shanghai led to an early swap to slicks and then a decisive change to intermediates saved him a couple of stops over Hamilton. Those two stops were the difference between the top and second step on the podium.

No question Hamilton’s drive through the field was terrific, especially the battle with Vettel as they climbed though the field together. However Buttons win would have been far more dominating had he not been forced to relinquish a substantial lead to the safety car.

I still think that Hamilton is potentially quicker than Button over a single lap, but qualifying and practice have not supported that assumption. I’d like to revisit the numbers in a few races and see what’s going on then.

Today the one important stat is the race for the drivers’ championship, and there Button leads Hamilton 60 to 49 with lots more racing to go.