General election 2010: Britain goes to the polls

A woman leaves a caravan converted into a polling station after casting her vote in Cornwall
Photograph: Ben Stansall/AFP/Getty Images

A representative from Ladbrokes bookmakers sits next to a board with odds for the election
Photograph: Stefan Wermuth/Reuters

Respect party members canvass outside a polling station on Brick Lane, east London
Photograph: Dan Kitwood/Getty Images

Men sit outside the Fox and Hounds pub, in Christmas Common, being used as a polling station
Photograph: Eddie Keogh/Reuters

Business carries on at a hairdressing salon as a man, reflected in a mirror, casts his vote in Hull
Photograph: Anna Gowthorpe/AP

Members of the public arrive to cast their votes at a house being used as a polling station in Dudley
Photograph: Christopher Furlong/Getty Images

A Chelsea Pensioner makes his way towards a polling station in west London
Photograph: Leon Neal/AFP/Getty Images

A voter makes her way past members of the media taking photos of the Sinn Fein president, Gerry Adams, as he arrives to vote at polling station in Belfast
Photograph: Peter Muhly/AFP/Getty Images

A soldier from the Royal Artillery arrives to cast his vote at Baker Barracks on Thorney Island, near Chichester
Photograph: Luke Macgregor/Reuters

The actor Ben Kingsley gestures to photographers as he arrives to cast his vote at a polling station in Spelsbury
Photograph: Peter Macdiarmid/Getty Images

Voting at dawn in Kenton, Suffolk
Photograph: Graham Turner for The Guardian

Police erect a ladder to remove protestors on the roof of a polling station in Witney, Oxfordshire, before the arrival of the Conservative party leader, David Cameron, and his wife, Samantha
Photograph: Kirsty Wigglesworth/AP

Nuns from the Tyburn convent vote at St John's Lancaster Gate polling station
Photograph: Julian Makey/Rex Features

Artists from Zippos Circus support Zippo the clown, aka Martin Burton, as he attends his local polling station in Sidcup, Kent
Photograph: Alan Chapman/Rex Features

A woman walks away from a polling station in Tower Hamlets, east London
Photograph: Graeme Robertson for The Guardian

A schoolboy passes a polling station in London
Photograph: Matt Dunham/AP

A man leaves a polling station in south London after voting
Photograph: Stefan Wermuth/Reuters

The presiding electoral officer prepares the polling station at West Blatchington windmill
Photograph: Luke Macgregor/Reuters

A voter arrives at the Reigate social club in Halewood, Knowsley
Photograph: Peter Byrne/PA

Voters at the Market Hall polling station in Swadlincote, Derbyshire
Photograph: Rui Vieira/PA

A defaced poster of Gordon Brown close to the polling station in North Queensferry, Scotland
Photograph: Paul Ellis/AFP/Getty Images

A voter leaves Westpark church in Denny, Scotland, after voting in the Falkirk constituency
Photograph: Andrew Milligan/PA

A voter leaves a polling station at Pitlochry town hall, in Scotland
Photograph: Russell Cheyne/Reuters

A voter gets ready to cycle away from the polling station at the Methodist Central Hall in Westminster, London
Photograph: Dominic Lipinski/PA

The presiding officer, Andrew Dicks, prepares the polling station at the Bungalow, a private home in Chettisham, Ely
Photograph: Chris Radburn/PA