I can see a splitting of the Party in order to try and regain ANY popularity in Scotland or Wales,
Splitting the Welsh Tories off from the main Tory party would be very silly; much of their electoral appeal comes (and has always come) from the fact that they are seen as being the most English of the major parties. Sure, that's also a reason why they're beyond the pale for a lot of other Welsh voters, but those that think that won't be attracted to the Tories no matter what.
And it's not as though the Tories don't have a decent vote in Wales; they've beaten Plaid in every election since 2003 and will likely poll around a quarter of the vote in the Assembly elections.
Too early to make any serious guesses about the next General Election; it's not even clear whether it'll be a low turnout one (as it would be if it was held
now; might even *gulps* fall under 50%...) or a high turnout one. It depends how much politics changes over the next two years or so. Obviously a low turnout election would favour the Tories and a high turnout election Labour.
At this point, I think it's likely that the Lib Dems will grow sick of Ming Campbell and toss him out much like the Conservatives did to Iain Duncan Smith, possibly as early as June of this year if the locals are disappointing (or perhaps June of next year).
Perhaps. But maybe not; enough LibDems might remember the month or so of terror in early 2006 to try another coup.
Btw, I suspect I'm in a minority of about three here, but I don't think that Ming (the Merciless) has been as bad a leader as is generally assumed; it's just that Kennedy was a very, very good one (as far as electoral appeal goes at least). Better than the alternatives anyway; Huhne comes off as a second hand car salesman and Hughes is beyond the pale in so many ways... and unlike those two there's no chance of Campbell actually losing his seat next election.
Only if they felt suicidal
Labour don't hold many seats in the South as it as.
O/c the most of marginals seem likely to go (even if there's a high turnout election), but not all of Labour's remaining Southern seats are marginals.
And Pavilion is hardly worthy of an "even" in front of a losing prediction; it's not exactly Itchen.
No chance. You clearly don't know London; there's a solid core of inner city constituencies that won't fall in (almost) any circumstances. You should also note that Labour's core vote east of the City held up quite well in 2006.
And I've seen no evidence of a LibDem surge in London of late (because there isn't any).
Labour's vote across the GLA-area fell by 8%; partially because certain unpopular policies are more unpopular within the Metropolis than outside, but also because Labour did very well there in 2001.
Btw, the theory of "trending" has, happily, not crossed the Atlantic; finding people over here who are foolish enough to believe that an 11% fall one year means that they'll be a similer sized fall the next is rather hard.
Where? I can think of about three at the most and I don't see any of them actually falling.
Contrary to their own silly propaganda the LibDems aren't actually surging in the Northern Cities...
No they don't; the boundary changes (like all boundary changes) favour the Tories.
But methinks that isn't what you're getting at. The reason why Labour needs less votes per constituency than the other parties is because turnout is lower (often a lot lower) in Labour areas than elsewhere. That... and class polarisation. Obviously.
lol; Labour doesn't benefit from the few extra seats Wales gets (Wales isn't Scotland you know). If you eliminated a few Welsh seats the eliminated seats would
not all be Labour; if the boundaries were drawn in the same odd way as they were in Scotland it's actually possible that all the eliminated seats would be held by other parties.