UK General Election - May 7th 2015

[Harry Hayfield]

With regard to the debate about the Lib Dems, my personal feelings are that:

• Any seat with Lab in second: Labour GAIN
• Any seat with Con in second: Lib Dem HOLD

With Ceredigion operating on it's own electoral rules.

[Harry Hayfield]

My feelings are that there will be a minimum 11% swing from Lib Dem to Lab (and by association a 5.5% swing from Con to Lab which is amost what they need anyway to win). According to UK-Elect the effect of an 11% swing from Lib Dem to Lab would be:

Labour 348 Conservatives 257 Liberal Democrats 21 Northern Ireland 18 SNP 5 Plaid 1

which is a Labour majority of 40 or so before you have any swing from Con to Lab

[Harry Hayfield]

My personal feelings are:
Vote Share: Con 30%, Lab 30%, UKIP 20%, Lib Dem 10%, Others 10%
Seat Share: Con and Lab both around 300 with Lib Dems winning 0 - 5 seats making a coalition impossible. General Election held in November 2015 or Grand Coalition

[Harry Hayfield]

My personal feelings are:
Vote Share: Con 30%, Lab 30%, UKIP 20%, Lib Dem 10%, Others 10%
Seat Share: Con and Lab both around 300 with Lib Dems winning 0 - 5 seats making a coalition impossible. General Election held in November 2015 or Grand Coalition

300 seats each for the Conservative and Labour parties and up to 5 for us? Check your writings, Harry!

Running through UK-Elect: Lab 305, Con 303, SNP 9, UKIP 7, Plaid 4, Lib Dem 2, Green 1, National Health Action 1, Northern Ireland 18 (Hung Parliament)

Coalitions:
Conservatives + Unionists (DUP = 311 (Not a workable coalition, short of 323)
Labour + SNP + Plaid + SDLP = 321 (Not a workable coalition, too many parties)

[Harry Hayfield]

Using the data published by Electoral Calculus as to how similar the new proposed seat was to the old, I came up with the following alternative General Election 2010

Conservatives 296 seats
Labour 234 seats
Liberal Democrats 47 seats
Democratic Unionists 6 seats
Scottish Nationalists 6 seats
Sinn Fein 6 seats
SDLP 2 seats
Plaid Cymru 1 seat
Alliance 1 seat
Northern Ireland Independents 1 seat

[Harry Hayfield]

Even since the UKIP surge in 2013, I have become convinced that the next election will see the following vote shares:

Conservatives 30%
Labour 30%
UKIP 20%
Liberal Democrats 10%
Greens 5%
Others 5%

According to Electoral Calculus, that would result in a House of Commons with: Labour 317, Conservatives 274, Liberal Democrats 29, SNP 7, Plaid 3, Greens 1, Northern Ireland 18

[Harry Hayfield]

The effect of "fracking" at the next election (for the attention of Mr. Teale)

[Harry Hayfield]

Rhondda in 2001 remains the funniest instance to date, I think.

Labour 23,230 votes (68% -7% on 1997)
Plaid Cymru 7,183 votes (21% +8% on 1997)
Conservatives 1,557 votes (5% +1% on 1997)
Liberal Democrats 1,525 votes (4% -2% on 1997)
Independent 507 votes (1%)
Labour HOLD with a majority of 16,047 votes (47%) on a swing of 7% from Lab to Plaid

Am I missing something here, because that doesn't sound funny at all?

[Harry Hayfield]

Rhondda in 2001 remains the funniest instance to date, I think.

Labour 23,230 votes (68% -7% on 1997)
Plaid Cymru 7,183 votes (21% +8% on 1997)
Conservatives 1,557 votes (5% +1% on 1997)
Liberal Democrats 1,525 votes (4% -2% on 1997)
Independent 507 votes (1%)
Labour HOLD with a majority of 16,047 votes (47%) on a swing of 7% from Lab to Plaid

Am I missing something here, because that doesn't sound funny at all?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhondda_%28Assembly_constituency%29#Elections_in_the_1990s

Also, why did Plaid win Rhondda anyway?

Oh, you mean Rhondda 1999 not Rhondda 2001.

[Harry Hayfield]

Sky News are reporting that they have seen an internal UKIP target list of 12 seats:

South Thanet now with added Nigel Farage for UKIP)
North Thanet
Sittingbourne & Sheppey
Worthing East & Shoreham
Eastleigh
Portsmouth South
Aylesbury
Forest of Dean
Thurrock
Great Yarmouth
Boston & Skegness
Great Grimsby

For which I get paid the grand sum of 66p via Paddy Power!

[Harry Hayfield]

Top 10 SNP Targets (ranked by swing)
1) Ochil and South Perthshire (5.14%)
2) Argyll and Bute (6.36%)
3) Gordon (6.92%)
4) Falkirk (7.72%)
5) Dundee West (9.80%)
6) North Ayrshire and Arran (10.73%)
7) Inverness (11.01%)
Aberdeen North (11.09%)
9) Caithness (11.11%)
10) Livingston (11.26%)

[Harry Hayfield]

Could members weigh in on the following point (which was raised in a question I answered on All Experts.com)?

Ed Milliband currently has 258 MP's, in order to govern with a majority he only needs 321 MP's (a net gain of 63) or no less than 306 MP's (working in coalition with the Liberal Democrats or the SNP) (a net gain of 48)

[Harry Hayfield]

Thank you for using the term "take off" as it has reminded me of these charts displayed during both the 1974 general elections which showed the % share needed for a Liberal "take off" and an SNP "take off" which sadly I cannot find online to post. Has anyone done a chart showing what it would take for UKIP to "take off"?

[Harry Hayfield]

My Northern Ireland Forecast (working on the assumption of Unity Unionist candidates)



Antrim South (too close to call)

[Harry Hayfield]

what's happened to South Antrim there? not a DUP hold?

and do you not think that enough extra SF voters will turn out in F&ST after the four-vote margin last time?

As Northern Irish polls appear to be almost non existent and I am not a complete expert on the province I am guessing that the DUP and the UUP will fight each other to a standstill in Antrim South (but that the SDLP and SF will decide the result) as to Fermanagh I think it will be a straight Independent Unity Unionist vs Sinn Fein candidate with the SDLP tipping it towards the Unionists (as they will realise that a Sinn Fein MP will not have any influence in a very hung parliament)

[Harry Hayfield]

I'm tipping another election within a few months, or otherwise a Labor minority government.

Can anyone clarify the following for me? If the next election produces a result where no viable coalition can be created am I right in thinking that Cameron would stand down as PM, Milliband would be invited and then stand down as PM and Parliament would have to vote to dissolve itself under the rules of the Fixed Term Parliament Act?

[Harry Hayfield]

What a good thing I have spent today organising my battleground charts, eh?

Labour currently have 258 MP's (yes, I know they lost Bradford West and gained Corby but this is as of the last election and by-elections don't count), therefore in order to win a majority they need to gain 68 seats. The 68th Labour target is Norwich North and that would go to Labour on a swing of 4.58% (a national Labour lead of 1.86%). For every seat that the SNP gain from Labour, Labour have to gain another seat from the Conservatives, Liberal Democrats and Plaid Cymru so if (as some polls have been suggesting) Labour lose 37 of their Scottish seats to the SNP, Labour have to gain another 37 from other sources which would take them to target number 105 Derbyshire South (when allowing for Scottish targets it would be 109 which is Cambridge on a swing of 7.43%, a national Labour lead of 7.56%)

[Harry Hayfield]

For the record I'm voting SNP in the GE (while I have done at Holyrood, the Tories have got my GE votes in the past even though they count for nothing)

My word, may I ask what has caused this sea change from Con to SNP? (and does this mean that even Dumfriesshire is at risk of going SNP?)

[Harry Hayfield]

I would like to see the following debate format

England
Debate One: All parties with a Party Election Broadcast
Debate Two: All parties with more than 10% of the popular vote in 2010
Debate Three: All parties fielding more than 326 candidates and polling more than 10% averaged over the last twenty eight polls

Scotland
Debate One: All parties with at least one MSP
Debate Two: All parties fielding 59 candidates

Wales
Debate One: All parties with at least one AM
Debate Two: All parties fielding 40 candidates

Northern Ireland
Debate One: All parties with at least one MLA
Debate Two: All Unionist Parties with at least one MLA
Debate Three: All Nationalist Parties with at least one MLA
Debate Four: All Other Parties with at least one MLA

[Harry Hayfield]

So with just 110 days to go to the big day (and being someone with a certain fondness for stats ) here is my stab at predicting the result:

......................................................................% Vote.....Popular Vote.....Seats       
Conservatives (David Cameron)........................35.1........10,445,874........293
Labour (Ed Miliband)..........................................30.9..........9,195,940........278
Liberal Democrats (Nick Clegg)..........................13.5..........4,017,643..........31
UK Independence Party (Nigel Farage)..............11.3..........3,362,917............2
Scottish National Party (Nicola Sturgeon)............2.2.............654,727..........23
Others.................................................................7.0..........2,083,223..........23

........................................................................100.0........29,760,324........650

Change from 2010
Con..........-1.0...........-257,780...........-13..............(10,703,654)
Lab..........+1.9..........+589,423..........+20...............(8,606,517)
LibDem.....-9.5........-2,818,605...........-26...............(6,836,248)
UKIP........+8.2.......+2,443,446............+2..................(919,471)
SNP..........+0.5.........+163,341...........+17.................(491,386)     
Oth...........-0.1.............-47,105..............0...............(2,130,328)     


On these seat numbers a centrist and centre right coalition of Con/Lib/DUP would give a majority 14 with a working majority of 24.

An unlikely centrist and centre left coalition of Lab/Lib/SNP would also be possible (mathematically at least) which funnily enough would also have a majority of 14

At the last election there were 18 Northern Irelanders (of which five did not take their seats), three Plaid Cymru and a Green for a total of 22 seats. This means that there will be one net gain for the Others and that net gain could be any of the following: Plaid gain Ceredigion, ICHC gain Wyre Forest, Green gain Norwich South

[Harry Hayfield]

Nationally, this is what Sky News are predicting at the moment:

Northern Ireland 18 leaves 6, missing parties are Plaid and Green so that would suggest (as every expert in the world says that Plaid will not GAIN either Ceredigion or Ynys Môn), Plaid 3, Green 1, ICHC 1 and Respect 1

[Harry Hayfield]

Here are the biggest swings at every general election in the UK since 1987 where the swing was between two parties who contested the previous election (and excludes by-elections)

1987: Western Isles (Lab GAIN from SNP on a swing of 19.33% from SNP to Lab)
1992: Edinburgh, Leith (Lab HOLD on a swing of 13.76% from Lab to SNP)
1997: Brent North (Lab GAIN from Con on a swing of 18.83% from Con to Lab)
2001: Kingston and Surbiton (Lib Dem HOLD on a swing of 15.92% from Con to Lib Dem)
2005: Dunbartonshire East (Lib Dem GAIN from Lab on a swing of 20.62% from Lab to Lib Dem)
2010: Blaenau Gwent (Lab GAIN from Ind on a swing of 29.17% from Ind to Lab)

[Harry Hayfield]

Why has a turnaround like this happened? I just don't get it.

It's the Labour YES voters who wanted independence to ensure that a Conservative government could never govern Scotland. The memories of the Conservatives from 1979 - 1997 are still fresh in a lot of Scottish minds.