Forecast UK Tracker
This is the latest of our new style General Election Predictions, focussing on projecting forward to the upcoming national vote. In the past week the Conservatives have slipped again by over 1.5% and are now approaching levels of support which could leave them without an overall majority. The Liberal Democrats appear to have stabilised their ratings around 21%.
Summary
| Party | % | Since 2005 | Since Prev |
|---|---|---|---|
| Conservative | 37.2% | +4.8% | -1.6% |
| Labour | 28.0% | -7.2% | -0.1% |
| Lib Dem | 21.0% | -1.0% | +0.2% |
| Swing Labour to Conservative | 6.0% |
The latest information shows that the position for Labour is improving as the Election approaches. The Liberal Democrats have maintained support, but we can now confirm that the Conservatives are losing their predominant position.
Forecast UK Predicted Swing
Opinion polls since our last forecast confirm the drop in support for the Conservatives that we first began to see signs of last week. Although it has been a bad news week for Labour, their levels of support seem to be holding up, as well as those of the Liberal Democrats.
We have seen an increase in support for the SNP and Plaid and our forecast reflects these observations.
Other Key Predictions
- The Greens will pick up Brighton Pavilion as their first Westminster seat, though we are cautious as to the size of majority they will acquire.
- In Scotland we predict that the SNP will capture around a quarter of the popular vote, enough to gain them a total of nine seats. The Labour vote however, after collapsing in the first half of 2009, is now back to 2005 levels.
- The Plaid Cymru vote in Wales continue to fluctuate around levels where they may win between 4 and 6 seats. In this forecast we tend to a more bold prediction of 6 seats.
- We do not believe that George Galloway’s Respect will win either of the two seats they are contesting in East London.
- At present we do not believe that the Speaker, John Bercow, will lose his seat to Nigel Farage.
- We believe on balance that Richard Taylor will just hold onto his seat in Wyre Forest from the Conservative challenge there.
Full Forecast
| Party | Seats | Since 2005 | Since Prev |
|---|---|---|---|
| Conservative | 337 | +124 | -13 |
| Labour | 228 | -119 | +5 |
| Lib Dem | 48 | -12 | +4 |
| SNP | 9 | +3 | +2 |
| Plaid Cymru | 6 | +4 | +2 |
| Green | 1 | +1 | nc |
| Irish | 18 | nc | nc |
| Other | 3 | -1 | nc |
| Conservative Majority | 24 |
Good evening,
I am sorry for asking an amateur question, but I do not really understand how the Conservative majority in your prediction is calculated. Let’s take the last one, for instance – you predict the Tories to have 337 seats. OK, the required majority is 326 seats (half of 650 plus 1). 337 seats give them a 12-seat majority. Say, the speaker is conservative and you calculate him separately – that’s 13. If you imagine that they manage to collect all the Irish Unionist Parties under their whip – that’s ten more (unless one of the traditionally Sinn Fein/SDLP districts swithces to unionists). How did you get the figure of 24?
The previous forecast (the one of February, 19th) is even more difficult to comprehend: 350 seats is a 25-seat majority, plus the Speaker is 26, and even if ALL of the Irish seats are unionist, it’s still only 44. Could you please elaborate on the way you calculate the majority?
Hi Alexander,
It’s quite simple realy, if the Conservatives have 326 seats all the other parties have a total of 324, that is a majority of 2 i.e. 2 times the amount over the halfway point. Therefore, if they have 12 more than the 325 half seat point their majority is 24 and so on. The majority is expressed as the number of seats a party has in excess of all the other parties added together, irespective of the individual parties voting preferences in parliament.
Hope that helps.
Ciao
David