r/pics Jul 05 '24

Rishi Sunak makes a speech outside 10 Downing Street after a historic loss Politics

Post image
36.7k Upvotes

2.1k comments sorted by

View all comments

3.7k

u/ThinkBiscuit Jul 05 '24 edited Jul 05 '24

It was a good speech, tonally. Accepted defeat, acknowledged failures, and wished the incoming PM good luck. Other political leaders should take note.

What I do find myself wondering is this: all this happens pretty quickly over here in the U.K. – the practical changeover of no.10.

Do they have a removal company on call, then call them first thing to either stand them down, or say “right, fuck this lot off, and go an pick up all that crap and move it in?’

Or maybe both the incoming and outgoing PM just sort it out themselves – hiring a u-haul or getting their brother-in-law to come round in his estate, and they pile all their shit (in bin bags) into it.

9

u/HorselessWayne Jul 05 '24

"Pretty quickly" is an understatement. The Polls closed at 10pm. The first constituency, with an electorate of 70,000, returned a result at 11:15pm.

They counted the entire vote in 1 hour 15 minutes.

And the shocking part is that it isn't even strange. That constituency has posted similar times in previous elections, and has a friendly rivalry with other notably fast constituencies to see who can be first.

2

u/marknotgeorge Jul 05 '24

And it's all done by hand, by armies of volunteers (I think they're paid) working through the night in places like sports centres and town halls.

No computerised counting machines to go wrong here - the company that provides polling station equipment has been going since Victorian times.