Being a self-confessed election junky, I took some interest in the UK election results.

Interesting to note the differences with Australia … first past the post voting, non-compulsory voting, midweek poll and late closing. I don’t believe in compulsory voting, but first past the post throws up some odd results and should change.

There’s a seat in Belfast where the two unionist parties slogged it out, polling about 8000 votes each, allowing the nationalist SDLP candidate to win the seat with 10,000 votes!

The Liberal Democrats were big winners and big losers. With 22 percent of the vote you’d expect them to hold more than 60 seats out of 646, but they don’t.

It seems that Britain is moving towards the European multi-party model and away from the "them or us" Labor v Conservative system that historically existed there and still does in Australia.

I’m all for diversity in politics and would like to see Australia have stronger minor parties.

And the result? Clearly Blair talk a hammering over Iraq. His case for war was weaker than George Bush’s and his role was more prominent than John Howard’s. He was also the only left-wing leader of the coalition and therefore was more vulnerable to attacks from his own side.

Domestic issues appear to have been a secondary consideration. But as I heard some commentators say on BBC Radio, it would have been unheard of 20 years ago to predict three terms in a row for Labor, and that’s what they’ve achieved.