Can someone please explain to me what will happen if there is a hung parliament?

[TheoriginalLEM]

What if no one gets a majority?

Do they all get together in a huddle and decide who is going to team up with who to form a majority govt? Strikes me that Nick (sell your soul to the devil) Clegg is in a pretty powerful position?

Or have i misunderstood?

More powerful in 2010- Clegg actually had talks with the Labour party but part of the 'deal' would be that Gordon Brown not be PM.

have a google- lots of interesting stuff about a hung parliament - especially the immediate few days after the 2010 GE

Exactly what happened last time. The key people in all the parties will try and negotiate to form a stable government. If there's really no agreement then a new election will be called.

DC will remain PM until replaced.

It kind of negates the election though doesn't it?

Not really. We decide who will represent us as a nation. If no one party represents the nation well enough then a mixed bag of compromise might be a better representation

So I've found those silly 'build a majority' things really helpful in (better) understanding what needs to happen next - try this one!

www.theguardian.com/politics/ng-interactive/2015/may/07/election-2015-interactive-coalition-builder#?lab+snp+green

Essentially they need 326 seats for a majority that can't just be ousted by a vote of no confidence. So playing with that, I made a wee majority with labour, SNP and a green to mean that even if all Tories, lib dems, DUP & UKIP voted against them they couldn't outvote them. I think! And I think that it can either be a formal coalition like the Tories and LDs did, or just a looser agreement.

As I understand it, it's traditionally the party with the most seats that gets the first chance to build a majority like that. Or the incumbent, I'm not actually sure.

We lock all 650 MPs in a room, and see who survives.

Alternatively we could have a Constitutional Crisis and you can read all about how that might happen here

oooh, i did that frostox, so does that mean that the labour party wont be able to form a majority with the lib dems as things stand at present? Interesting as he has said he wont go in with SNP

There are very clear rules that DC signed up to in 2010 and is now apparently wanting to renege on Watch for Gus O'Donnel taking to the airwaves shortly