Reuters win key timings in Britain's general election

When exit polls on May 6 showed Britain’s Conservatives on course to be the largest party but without the majority needed to push through legislation unchallenged, Reuters was first with the news. The Reuters alert was ahead of Dow Jones and Bloomberg. This was market sensitive intelligence that sent sterling lower because markets thought there was a risk of policy paralysis. On May 11, after several days of talks Reuters was alone among international newswires in quoting a negotiator from PM Brown’s Labour saying Labour’s talks with the Liberal Democrats were over for the time being. When Conservative leader David Cameron announced the same evening that his party would form a coalition government with the Liberal Democrats – a far deeper cooperation than many had envisioned – Reuters was ahead of Bloomberg with the news that sent sterling higher in relief protracted talks were over.