Speaker Bercow warns that financial markets may be unsettled if counting of General Election votes is delayed until the Friday

Comments

[Vulture]

He's right - the City and indeed the whole world will be on tenterhooks hoping against hope that Nigel Farage has succeeded in ousting this preposterous little berk in Buckingham.

[Ken Stevens]

This is a matter for the government, not for the Speaker. His job is to run parliament, not the economy.

[ds9074]

I am fully in support of election night counting. However the argument about uncertainty of who would be running the country on the Friday is not really valid. If there is to be a change of government, I was under the impression that the old government remains in place until the Prime Minister resigns and the Queen asks someone else to form a government. Additionally the permanent civil service is still there on the Friday just as it was on the Thursday.

[Yet Another Anon]

The way things are looking, the morning after results begin to come out, it will still not be clear whether anyone has a majority, who should be called to attempt to form a government, results in undeclared seats could go a very different way, obviously there will still be a Prime Minister in Gordon Brown, but there will be ministers who no longer have seats - either because they were leaving the House of Commons or had lost seats, and obviously until it becomes clear how things have gone he cannot proceed to form a government, or decide that he cannot, the monarch is left waiting until enough results are in (which could be all results) that a decision can be taken on who to call, the process of forming a government is setback a day, possibly in a situation in which it takes weeks for an agreement and maybe even that is an interim agreement pending a fresh election which it may be hoped will resolve things.

With maybe half the results out it may well look like one party is on course for a majority, or that it is on course for a hung parliament, speculation on what the final result will be will be rife including in the markets, it may well be that when all the results are out it is clear who will form a government and there may be a whole day of needless panic over the prospect of there being no one able to impliment neccessary budget balancing measures.

Local Authorities interests in this are mainly local and short term, if a few do it the chances of the economy being affected is small and so those that do it may well benefit from a budget saving, if lots appear to be going to do it then they may well take the attitude that they may as well do it on the grounds that they will still be hit by any economic effects of uncertainty on the markets and may as well at least save the money by avoiding paying extra for bringing people in out of normal office hours.

[Yet Another Anon]

It will cause a lot of distraction in people doing other things as well, a lot of people will not be focusing on their work or everyday life because of worry about the final picture, and of course there is the security of the ballot boxes, surely if they aren't spending more on the security to cover the added time that they are simply waiting then the chances of interference is greatly increased and even with extra security is increased anyway.