UK exit polls show conservatives and Cameron to stay in power

UPDATE: Britain’s Conservative Party has won enough seats in Parliament for Prime Minister David Cameron to remain in power, according to exit polls. The Conservatives are predicted to secure 316 seats to the Labour Party’s 239, a much sturdier victory than predicted. Before today’s election, many polls showed the race was too-close-to-call.

To keep their chosen prime minister in office, the conservatives would need 10 more seats, which they are expected to garner by forming a coalition with the smaller Liberal-Democrat Party. If the exit polls prove accurate, the Labor Party will have lost 17 seats in parliament.

OUR EARLIER STORY (12:30 p.m. EDT): Voters in the United Kingdom are deciding today who gets to live at No. 10 Downing St. in London, the residence of the prime minister. Current Prime Minister David Cameron and his Conservative Party are trying to hang on to control of the government against Ed Miliband of the Labour Party. The pollsters are saying the race is a nail-biter and could go either way.

Pundits have accused the conservative Cameron of acting blasé, as if he didn’t really want to win. But his speeches in the past few days have been marked with animation and enthusiasm.

“Whether that sudden engagement will push through to the public again, it’s impossible to judge,” said Professor Tony Travers of the London School of Economics. “Not much evidence of it in the polls so far.”

Gideon Skinner of the Ipsos MORI Social Research Institute said Cameron’s personality traits are an advantage, “particularly those relating to being seen as prime ministerial. So being seen, for example, as having sound judgment, or being a capable leader, or being good in a crisis, on those types of image ratings, David Cameron has the lead.”

Cameron’s coalition government led Britain out of its equivalent of the Great Recession. His Conservative Party is basing its campaign around the idea of continuing that economic recovery. Miliband, the son of a Marxist professor, based his campaign on preserving benefits for working class Britons.

“This party is determined to raise the living standards of working people in our country,” Miliband said.

But Nile Gardiner at The Heritage Foundation believes Britons will focus on David Cameron’s track record.

“Over the past five years under the Conservative-led coalition government, you have seen a reversal of a lot of the damaging economic policies that were implemented by the Labour government of Gordon Brown and, of course, Tony Blair before Brown,” Gardiner said. Cameron has maintained a policy of austerity, reining in government spending, attacking the national debt and restoring Britain’s competitiveness. But Cameron’s austerity program has given the Labour Party an issue that some observers think could carry it to victory.

“They’re claiming that the government cuts introduced by David Cameron have been counterproductive. The Labour Party is offering a very different kind of vision, one that’s based more upon very heavy government spending, raising taxes,” Gardiner said.

The race was still too close to call on Election Day, which likely means the winning party will have to join in a coalition with one of the other smaller parties to form a government in Britain’s parliamentary system. Historically, the victorious party in Britain almost always won a majority of seats.

“It’s quite unusual, in fact, to have a coalition government in Britain, but I would expect you are going to see another coalition government emerging,” Gardiner said. The big question, of course, is whether or not David Cameron remains as prime minister in one of the closest-fought British elections of modern times.

Listen to Jim Henry’s report on the United Kingdom’s election on The World and Everything in It.