I have now factored in the Lib Dem surge. Result prediction as follows;Tories 315 seats - 10m votes - (35.1%)
Labour 205 seats - 7.9m votes - (27.7%)
Lib Dem 90 seats - 8.1m votes - (28.4%)
UKIP 0 seats - 0.5m votes - (1.8%)
Greens 1 seat - 0.4m votes - (1.4%)
Others (incl Nats) 39 seats - 1.6m votes - (5.6%)
This leaves the Tories 6 short of a majority, with unionist and nationalist support they might just be able to govern without the Lib Dems, which would enable them to avoid a referendum on reform and call another election for the Autumn.
This is what I predicted 3 weeks ago for comparison (with 2005 votes in brackets)
Tories 10m (8.8m) votes - 310 seats
Labour 8.4m (9.6m) votes - 240 seats
LibDem 5.7m (6.0m) votes - 60 seats
UKIP 1.1m (0.6m) votes - 0 seats
Green 0.5m (0.3m) - 1 seat
Others (incl Nats) 1.8m (1.8m)- 39 seats
If that is the outcome, the silver lining in that cloud could be that by Autumn the Tories will have become so unpopular because of spending cuts etc. that they would lose if they called another election. Also, while the other parties are broke, even the Tories don't have unlimited money for campaigning. They might just try to limp on as a minority government. Without a majority they would not be able to push through anything really awful.
ReplyDeletePZT: Let's just hope the Tories don't get close enough to 323 seats (they only would need 326 if Sinn Fein took up their 5 seats) to govern with Unionist support.
ReplyDeleteThe only chance the Tories would do a deal with Libs is if Lab and Lib got enough seats to deliver a PR referendum. Tories would agree to 3 seat STV if it stopped AV+ or 5 seat STV.