The outspoken Ukip candidate Nigel Farage managed to upstage an entire general election today when he was injured in a plane crash during an election day stunt.
After a tightly contested month-long campaign, polling booths opened across the country at 7am and there was anecdotal evidence of a high turnout as the main party leaders cast their votes. Polling will end at 10pm.
First to vote was the Tory leader David Cameron, who opinion polls suggest could overturn 13 years of Labour rule and grab the keys to No 10. Mr Cameron and his wife Samantha voted in Witney, Oxfordshire, although their arrival was delayed by more than two hours after pranksters scaled the roof of the polling station and displayed a huge banner mocking the candidate's Eton education.
Gordon Brown voted next in North Queensferry, with his wife Sarah, with the Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg then casting his vote in Sheffield, accompanied by his wife Miriam González Durántez — who cannot vote for her husband because she is a Spanish citizen.
The focus of the news crews was already elsewhere, however, after an early morning plane crash involving Mr Farage, the MEP and former Ukip leader.
Mr Farage, who is standing in the Buckingham constituency, was the passenger in a Polish-built light aircraft towing a “Vote for your country — Vote Ukip” banner when it plunged to the ground at an airfield in Northamptonshire during a photo-shoot.
The single-engined PZL-104 Wilga broke up on impact and Mr Farage was dragged from under its wreckage by his media relations man and a passer-by. He was bloodied and dazed but managed to walk away from the scene and was taken to hospital in Banbury.
The extent of his injuries was unclear: Ukip said initially that he had suffered "minor head injuries" but it later emerged that he was drifting in and out of consciousness and could also have broken ribs.
The pilot of the plane was cut from its wreckage and taken for treatment at a trauma unit in Coventry. He is believed to have suffered leg and back injuries but remained conscious throughout.
A series of election-eve opinion polls gave Mr Cameron's Conservatives a clear lead over Labour and the Liberal Democrats but suggested that they could fall tantalisingly short of an overall majority and would have to form some kind of minority administration.
A Populus poll for The Times put the Tories on 37 per cent with Labour on 28 and the Lib Dems on 27, representing a 6-point swing to the Conservatives. Given the number of three-way contests, the pollsters face an almost impossible task projecting final results but the Populus figures point to the Tories winning an extra 91 seats but falling 25 seats short of a majority.
After a frenetic final 48 hours of campaigning, which saw them criss-cross the country in a whirlwind of rallies and constituency visits, all three main party leaders last night issued appeals to activists to help get the vote out today.
Mr Cameron told cheering supporters in Bristol that it was time for the Tories to “win for Britain”, urging them: “Vote for change. Vote Conservative. Vote to give this country the hope, the optimism and the change we need. Together, we can build a better, stronger country.”
Mr Brown returned to Scotland, where he rounded off his campaign at a rally in Dumfries with a plea to wavering voters: “At this moment of risk to our economy, at this moment of decision for our country, I ask you to come home to Labour.”
And Mr Clegg addressed a crowd of hundreds of people on the steps of Sheffield City Hall with an appeal for voters to “aim higher, don’t settle for second best”.
Much will depend on performance in individual constituencies, particularly the 100 or so Labour/Conservative marginals that hold the key to tonight’s result and where the fiercest battles have been fought.
Party strategists believe that an unusually large number of voters will only make their minds up when they get into the polling booths, adding an additional layer of uncertainty to the result.
If the Lib Dems suffer a last-minute “third party squeeze”, with voters gravitating to the two larger parties, it could even have the effect of handing the balance of power to the Welsh and Scottish nationalists or the Northern Irish parties.
Boris Johnson, the Mayor of London, was in typically optimistic mood as he cast his vote in Islington, predicting a "strong Conservative victory".
“If you haven’t voted yet, vote Tory,” he shouted out to reporters as he arrived by bicycle at his polling station.
"Walking around London yesterday and today, I feel very strongly that the swing is on and the public are in the mood for change. I think when people look at the risk of a hung Parliament and the possibility of endless deal-making, and jiggery-pokery between politicians, I think that people in the end are going to want to give the country a new start.”
Source:The Times
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