House Jacob Rees-Mogg, future Health Secretary Matt Hancock and future Shadow Secretary of State for Northern Ireland Owen Smith. Background On 6 April 2010, the prime minister, Gordon Brown, visited Buckingham Palace for a meeting with the Queen to ask permission to dissolve Parliament on 12 April, confirming in a live press conference in Downing Street, as had long been speculated, that the election would be held on 6 May, five years since the previous election on 5 May 2005. The election took place on 6 May in 649 constituencies across the United Kingdom, under the first-past-the-post system, for seats in the House of Commons. Voting in the Thirsk and Malton constituency was postponed for three weeks because of the death of a candidate. The governing Labour Party campaigned to secure a fourth consecutive term in office, and to restore support lost since 2001. The Conservative Party sought to gain a dominant position in British politics after losses in the 1990s, and to replace Labour as the governing party. The Liberal Democrats hoped to make gains from both sides and hoped to hold the balance of power in a hung parliament. Since the televised debates between the three leaders, their poll ratings had risen to the point where many considered the possibility of a Liberal Democrat role in Government. Polls just before election day saw a slight swing from the Liberal Democrats back to Labour and Conservatives, with the majority of final polls falling within one point of Conservatives 36%, Labour 29%, Liberal Democrats 23%. However, record numbers of undecided voters raised uncertainty about the outcome. The Scottish National Party, encouraged by their victory in the 2007 Scottish parliament elections, set itself a target of 20 MPs and was hoping to find itself holding a balance of power. Equally, Plaid Cymru sought gains in Wales. Smaller parties which had had successes at local elections and the 2009 European elections (UK Independence Party, Green Party, British National Party) looked to extend their representation to seats in the House of Commons. The Democratic Unionist Party looked to maintain, if not extend, its number of seats, having been the fourth-largest party in the House of Commons. Key dates The key dates were: MPs declining re-election This election had an unusually high number of MPs choosing not to seek re-election, with more standing down than did so at the 1945 general election (which on