Tories Likely to Be Largest Party

The Conservatives are on course to be the largest party in a hung parliament, after more than 400 election results.

Tory leader David Cameron said it was "clear that the Labour government has lost its mandate to govern."But Gordon Brown is set to start talks with the Liberal Democrats to try to remain as prime minister in a coalition, Downing Street sources have indicated.

The Lib Dem vote was up 0.9% on 2005 and Labour down 6.4% after 399 results. The Conservatives are up 3.9%.

Although Labour are set to lose over 90 MPs, Brown said he wanted to play a part in the UK "having a strong, stable and principled government."

But shadow foreign secretary William Hague says any attempt by Brown at securing a pact with Lib Dems "would be a shameless piece of politics."

And the electoral maths suggests that between them there would not be enough Labour and Lib Dem MPs to form a majority government, reports BBC News.

Despite being neck-and-neck with Labour and the Conservatives for much of the campaign, the Lib Dems have so far failed to significantly increase their vote on the 2005 general election.

Turnout is running at 65.2%, a modest increase on the 2005 general election.

A joint BBC exit poll for the BBC/ITV/Sky suggested the Conservatives would be 21 seats short of an overall majority. But results so far suggest the election is on a knife-edge and BBC Political Editor Nick Robinson said a lot will depend on David Cameron's "capacity to build a coalition."