I saw even a pollster this week suggest that predicting the outcome of this election is a ‘mugs game’.
It’s true that polls are only snapshots of a given moment in time. With 6 weeks to go who knows what course of history might change events leading up to May 7th.
As a political nerd, and out of interest for many of the people I work with or for, I have been following the headline polling and the figures for the last 5 years. I have made differing predictions over this period, all based on the ‘known knowns’ at the time, and taking into account the changes likely to take place in the campaign period itself (which of course effectively started in January thanks to the Fixed Term parliament)
I provide more accurate guesses (informed guesses!) of actual numbers but I have tended to land where many are predicting at the time. However, as we kick off I am just as uncertain about my prediction now as I would have been in May 2010! Until the sudden change in fortunes for the SNP I was pretty certain of another hung parliament with Labour as the largest party (in seats) but short of an overall majority.
But here goes – I am now predicting Tory/Labour only split by 10-15 seats difference – but not 100% which way round! Both in the 270-290 range. The Lib Dems will do proportionally better than their polling at about 25 seats and the UKIP seats will be no more than 4 Max. There will be more DUP than UKIP and we need to remember that! As for SNP. I will hate to see many Labour colleagues lose what were ‘safe’ Labour seats but even though I keep waiting for the SNP bubble to burst I haven’t seen much evidence yet, which means they could possibly have 30-40 seats.
What happens after such an outcome means the real fun starts after the election! More on that in further blogs!
View from the Margins 