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I've just done a set of predictions for May 6th on my blog and thought it would be interesting to see what you guys think and to see how close/far out we were in a month's time. The winner gets some money-can't-buy kudos!

Here's mine:

Overall result:
Conservative majority of 12


Uniform National Swing (nearest 0.5%):
7%


Seats:
Con: 331
Lab: 237
Lib: 55
Oth: 27


Turnout:
65%


Popular Vote:
Con: 10m
Lab: 9.5m
Lib: 6m
Oth: 4.5m


Green Seats:
1 (Brighton Pavillion)


BNP Seats:
0 (But a strong performance)


Speaker's Seat:
Safe, but he'll be a normal MP again within a month


Major Upset (a.k.a. The Portillo Moment):
Ed Balls
If anyone can think of any other categories that might be worth adding, feel free to throw your ideas in!

I don't know enough to make all those kinds of predictions, but I think it's safe to say there will be a swing to Conservative. I think they could well end up as the largest party in a hung parliament.

Predictions based on... what? Here's my hunch: a three-way split. All bets are off. This is why it's going to be a very intense period of electioneering as every vote will count.

It's a tough call, the trouble for the Tories is that a strong BNP and UKIP performance will take votes from them, and this could assist Labour in holding on in some key marginals. I'd be surprised if the Lib Dems end up with as few as 55 seats, in LD-CON marginals I would expect CON to gain around 6 seats, whereas in LD-LAB marginals I think LD would gain 8, giving a net gain of 2 seats. Full prediction to follow....

Soup Dragon wrote:It's a tough call, the trouble for the Tories is that a strong BNP and UKIP performance will take votes from them, and this could assist Labour in holding on in some key marginals. I'd be surprised if the Lib Dems end up with as few as 55 seats, in LD-CON marginals I would expect CON to gain around 6 seats, whereas in LD-LAB marginals I think LD would gain 8, giving a net gain of 2 seats. Full prediction to follow....

I share your sentiment there, Soupy.

Ten years ago, the Tories were the only "real" party for anyone with right-wing beliefs (all the way from Centre-Right to almost Extreme-Right) so were able to take in votes from the entire right wing spectrum. These days, having moved to Centre Right, we've got UKIP stealing votes from Mid-Right voters and the BNP taking votes from Extreme-Right voters (although they're more than welcome to those kind of people!).

I would be very interested to see what would happen to Labour support should a credible Mid-Left party show up on the scene...

uefacup81 wrote:Speaker's Seat:
Safe, but he'll be a normal MP again within a month

I think that there's a distinct possibility that the Speaker will get unseated by UKIP - I think that UKIP will get the Tory / right-wing vote in Buckingham.

However, if he does manage to remain as their MP, I agree that he very probably won't last more than a month or so as Speaker ....

This begs an interesting question - does he just go back to being an ordinary MP, or does the fact that he's been Speaker (albeit only briefly) mean that he gets shunted off into the Lord's and then there's a by-election - ?

Roger.

rhubarbrhubarb wrote:This begs an interesting question - does he just go back to being an ordinary MP, or does the fact that he's been Speaker (albeit only briefly) mean that he gets shunted off into the Lord's and then there's a by-election - ?

Roger.

My rough constitutional knowledge says that the only reasons the office of MP can be stripped of someone are if they are convicted of a criminal act, or they take an office of profit under the crown. As you may know, it is not actually possible to resign your seat in the House of Commons, instead you ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer to appoint you to one of two (nominally paid) positions that are used for this purpose, one of which is Crown Steward and Bailiff of the Manor of Northstead. Getting back to the point, there is no reason the current speaker would lose his seat in the Commons should he be ousted from the position of speaker. In recent times there hasn't been a speaker who has been ousted, rather they have stepped down from the position and consequently their seat in the Commons. What could happen with John Bercow is if he was re-elected in this General Election under the banner of 'Speaker', and was subsequently returned to being a normal MP by the Commons, he could 'resign' his seat as MP and then seek a mandate from his constituency as a Conservative in the subsequent by-election.

*takes deep breath*

uefacup81 wrote:Ten years ago, the Tories were the only "real" party for anyone with right-wing beliefs (all the way from Centre-Right to almost Extreme-Right) so were able to take in votes from the entire right wing spectrum. These days, having moved to Centre Right, we've got UKIP stealing votes from Mid-Right voters and the BNP taking votes from Extreme-Right voters (although they're more than welcome to those kind of people!).

I would be very interested to see what would happen to Labour support should a credible Mid-Left party show up on the scene...

Confusing. Is there a difference between Centre Right and Mid-Right? Also: I don't think any party ever "steals" votes from another... and I would have a hard time calling New Labour anything-Left any more.

Root wrote:Confusing. Is there a difference between Centre Right and Mid-Right? Also: I don't think any party ever "steals" votes from another... and I would have a hard time calling New Labour anything-Left any more.

Surely this happens the world over. Either a new party comes along or an existing party redefines/realigns itself, thus capturing a share of the vote that would otherwise have gone to another party because of their new position.

Root wrote:

uefacup81 wrote:Ten years ago, the Tories were the only "real" party for anyone with right-wing beliefs (all the way from Centre-Right to almost Extreme-Right) so were able to take in votes from the entire right wing spectrum. These days, having moved to Centre Right, we've got UKIP stealing votes from Mid-Right voters and the BNP taking votes from Extreme-Right voters (although they're more than welcome to those kind of people!).

I would be very interested to see what would happen to Labour support should a credible Mid-Left party show up on the scene...

Confusing. Is there a difference between Centre Right and Mid-Right? Also: I don't think any party ever "steals" votes from another... and I would have a hard time calling New Labour anything-Left any more.

I'd argue that once you start getting into "This Is England, keep the Pound, out of Europe" territory (pretty much anything from The Daily Express!) You're moving further down the scale to the Right.

Centre-Right is taken these days to mean "right of centre", whereas mid-right would sit in the middle of the right half of "the line"

This might help:

dudey wrote:

rhubarbrhubarb wrote:This begs an interesting question - does he just go back to being an ordinary MP, or does the fact that he's been Speaker (albeit only briefly) mean that he gets shunted off into the Lord's and then there's a by-election - ?

Roger.

My rough constitutional knowledge says that the only reasons the office of MP can be stripped of someone are if they are convicted of a criminal act, or they take an office of profit under the crown. As you may know, it is not actually possible to resign your seat in the House of Commons, instead you ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer to appoint you to one of two (nominally paid) positions that are used for this purpose, one of which is Crown Steward and Bailiff of the Manor of Northstead. Getting back to the point, there is no reason the current speaker would lose his seat in the Commons should he be ousted from the position of speaker. In recent times there hasn't been a speaker who has been ousted, rather they have stepped down from the position and consequently their seat in the Commons. What could happen with John Bercow is if he was re-elected in this General Election under the banner of 'Speaker', and was subsequently returned to being a normal MP by the Commons, he could 'resign' his seat as MP and then seek a mandate from his constituency as a Conservative in the subsequent by-election.

*takes deep breath*

Sorry, but the A Level Politics student is screaming out to me to type a pedantic reply. I have checked my notes too - so it's them that are to blame if anyone can find inaccuracies in the post below.

Firstly let me begin by saying that I believe what rhubarbrhubarb was getting at was how it's a very long time indeed since the Speaker of the House of Commons on leaving the office of Speaker hasn't gone on to the House of Lords afterwards. However I do believe that they are 'offered' a place in the House of Lords. Thus they could theoretically refuse and stay as an MP until the end of the Parliament, or apply for a bogus job which is a means of collecting profit from the crown and therefore then loose their place in the House of Commons along with refusing their place in the Lords. Therefore I don't think the Speaker needs to reaffirm his mandate if he looses the position of speaker - after all it's no different to a Member changing their party allegiance during the lifetime of a Parliament.

Finally (though this is rather anal and slightly vague in my notes) I'm also not sure that you apply to the Chancellor but a clerk of the House, but I'm far from sure. Otherwise it may be possible for the Chancellor to refuse a resignation if it were in the PM's interest and if the PM and Chancellor were in league - which they often are!

But yes, other than those very minor discrepancies I totally agree.

This may be of interest

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chiltern_Hundreds

http://www.parliament.uk/documents/upload/P11.pdf

Hmmm... my predictions...

Over the next four weeks we'll hear a load of bollocks from people, it'll be all over our radios and TVs and we will end up with a different load of people in power. Then nine months down the line we'll all be complaining that the goverment still aren't doing anything, we're still in recession, gov't organisations are still wasting money, taxes are still to high, petrol will be at almost £2/l and soforth.

Oh wait, you said General Election predictions, not general Election predictions...

RichieG wrote:Over the next four weeks we'll hear a load of bollocks from people, it'll be all over our radios and TVs and we will end up with a different load of people in power. Then nine months down the line we'll all be complaining that the goverment still aren't doing anything, we're still in recession, gov't organisations are still wasting money, taxes are still to high, petrol will be at almost £2/l and soforth.

Sad but true

I'm going to vote for anyone who stands outside the voting booth and gives me a lollypop to vote a certain way. This includes Mad Mick, the local fruitcake.

RichieG wrote:Oh wait, you said General Election predictions, not general Election predictions...

This made me laugh far more than it should've done