10 weeks out GE prediction

[dorlomin]

Five election forecasts concur: Labour & Tories to fall at least 40 seats short of a majority

First up, polls will be wrong in this election. They are geared to avoid 92 style screwups and assign "shy voters" to big parties. As there is little previous data to support the UKIP, Green and SNP surges it will be hard to guess who will change their votes in the polling booth vs what they think when a pollster calls.

The Lib Dem implosion should favour Labour with the Liberals disappearing from Northern urban constituencies including university seats, where they will partally transfer to the Greens\Labour or SNP (in Scotland). The Libs will hold up in their SW bastions where it is mostly Lib\Tory marginals.

UKIP will eat into Labour majorities in urban centers outside of London but they will generally supplant the Tories as opposition.

Labour will lose in the rural\urban mixed seats, especially along the coast where in many places they will go from marginals to third place.

Normally the Tories need a bigger slice of the vote to form a majority near 39% while Labour could on something like 36%. This calculus will change this time out as UKIP\Green eat into national totals without making big gains in seats. I suspect the Greens will have none come the election, I would be surprised at UKIP having more than 3. I would not be surprised at one of their two current MPs losing a seat but they are likely to get an upset or two.

I expect Greens to break towards Labour in Marginals and UKIP to the tories by a margin of 2:1 over Labour.

The net result will be the Labour being very weak in non London SE\W. The tories being non existent in urban centers north of Birmingham (not even second placed) and everyone deeply unhappy with the difference between votes won and seats in parliament. A fractious parliament and back to the polls in 2 years.

[Young Joseph Stalin]

Let me have a look.

*checks questions*

Looks like no UKIP option YJS.

Good humour