Britain's close election: what happens next

The Conservatives look marginally more likely to win the largest number of parliamentary seats, but the way the country is carved up electorally means they would need to be several points ahead of Labour in voting share to be confident of securing an overall majority. Further complicating the arithmetic are the facts that the Scottish National Party (SNP) is poised to trounce Labour north of the border while the anti-EU UK Independence Party will take a lot of Conservative votes in England. With