14 years after the Conservative Party took over government in the UK, the Labour Party has now won our General Election.

Yes the election votes were counted last night, and this morning, after the votes had been collected in only two results are outstanding. I guess that’s because we have about a fifth of the population of the USA and I think I’ve read that the UK would fit into Texas?

But it is remarkably speedy. Sir Kier Starmer is now Prime minister. He is already selecting his cabinet and has taken over the reins of government today. Rishi Sunak the Prime minister yesterday has left number 10 Downing Street already.

It’s so different from what we saw on January 6th 2021 in the States. No fight over the winner, maybe a few recounts, all done manually with people counting bundles of votes which were collected in from Polling stations within hours of them being cast. And how do we indicate who we want to vote for? With a pencil cross in a box next to the candidates name.

The only change recently? Having to have photo ID. Not universally appreciated as not everyone has it and you have to apply for a certificate of authenticity if you don’t have a photo driving licence or a passport. The amount of electoral fraud was only in the hundreds if I remember rightly. This was one expensive policy by the previous government that might have disenfranchised some voters yesterday.

So congratulations and hoping for a much better, less frantic, government for at least the next five years!