Michael Crick: It’s officially too late to stand for Parliament

Ballot papers in the 2010 general election

Michael sends this update from Portsmouth where he is filming for tonight’s show.

If you were hoping to stand in in the 2015 General Election, and haven’t got your nomination papers in yet, then forget it. It’s too late.  Nominations closed at 4pm, and councils are already busy checking all the names of the candidates and the people nominating them, to check they are in order.

It’s expected there will be a record number of candidates in 2015 – more than 4,000.  The Conservatives, Labour and the Liberal Democrats are trying to fight all 632 seats in Britain, while Ukip and the Greens will fight almost every seat.  That will account for more than 3,200 candidates.  The Nationalists in Scotland and Wales, and all the parties in Northern Ireland will be another 200.  Then there are smaller parties such as Respect, the BNP, the English Democrats, National Heath Action and TUSC, plus at least 300 independents.

It’s a far cry from elections in the early 1950s when many seats, perhaps most seats, only had two candidates – Conservative and Labour.

But with so many people running for Parliament, there a greater chance that some constituency elections will have to be re-run.  If any candidate dies between now and 7 May, then the whole contest has to be rerun in that seat, no matter how insignificant the candidate is.  That’s happened twice in recent years, and we may easily get one or two examples in 2015.