India News and Travel Times Provides India-centric and other News and Features

Britain is likely to go to the polls within 12 months, political experts have predicted. According to The Telegraph, the cost of another ballot will run into tens of millions of pounds. The cost of a general election for the parties, however, is estimated to run to about 40 million pounds in total and most would want to avoid going to the polls if possible. It quoted Dr Richard Toye, a historian at Exeter University, as saying: "I'd bet on an election in October or November this year." According to bookies Betfair, the chances of a second election by the end of 2010 have gone up from 28 per cent to 38 per cent during the course of Friday, as political betters started to lay money on a Conservative-led alliance falling apart and David Cameron going to voters again to win an outright majority. The last time Britain elected a hung parliament, in February 1974, it resulted in a second election in October of that year, eight months later. Dr David Butler of Nuffield College, Oxford, one of the country's leading election experts, said there was likely be another election very soon, "because I don't see the compromises that are necessary for a coalition." Historically, no minority government has lasted much more than two years. The hung parliament of 1974 lasted for eight months, while the hung parliament of 1923 lasted for less than a year.

UK will go to polls again within a year: Experts