Alastair Thompson blogs: 1am - At the
end of the night tonight the MP count is National 59
: Labour 43 : Green 8 : ACT 5 : Maori 5 : Progressive 1
:United Future 1 - in a 122 seat Parliament. The
Government elect block looks likely to lose one more seat to
the Greens on special
votes (of which there are 240,000), after which
National, ACT and United will have 64 MPs - two votes over
the 62 majority required. United's Peter Dunne has indicated
his concerns around working with Roger Douglas already.
Clearly the new opposition are also alarmed at the return of
Roger. All of which begs a few questions: While this is an
electoral landslide in MMP terms, is it a mandate for
radical change? More
>>