UK Election 2010

[pragmatic liberal]

In America, we have a term for what the Labor campaign is becoming.  That term is train wreak.

This exchange makes me more supportive of Brown.

I've heard/seen suprisingly few negative comments about it. The reaction is like "Soldier's Mother letter with spelling mistakes" take 2...

That's actually what I wondered. It was a gaffe, obviously, but an understandable one and clearly played up as a "gotcha" moment by the Sky and the RW press.

I don't expect Labour to win this election, but I wonder if there could be a bit of a backlash/sympathy for Brown, as there was with that mispelled-letter incident?

[pragmatic liberal]

It seems pretty clear to me that the result they're heading towards is a Tory minority government, with Cameron perhaps 20-30 short of an overall majority.

Could the result be different? Sure. Cameron could get a slight majority. Or the Lib Dems and Labour could combined have a majority and try to form a coalition or pact. But I think a Tory minority government is most likely at this point.

The reason is that the Tories look to have solidified in the mid-30s, with a score in the upper 30s quite possible. Remember they got 31% of the vote with John Major in 1997, about the same in 2001, and then 33% in 2005. They're almost certainly going increase by a couple of points.

I suspect the core Labour vote is about 25%, which means they'll probably poll about 27-28%, with the Lib Dems a point or two ahead.

That probably translates into something like roughly 200 seats for Labour, and about 90-100 for the Lib Dems. That's not going to be enough to form a majority government between them.

Clegg might discuss forming a coalition with Cameron, but it's unlikely that Cameron will be so weak as to be able to concede proportional representation. Clegg will simply pledge to vote for the government in confidence votes and attempt to carry the fight for another day.

[pragmatic liberal]

It looks now though like the Lib Dems WILL finish third, probably with something like 25-27% of the vote. Labour's suppose looks to have shored up a bit, and they'll probably finish somewhere between 28-30% of the vote, while the Tories will probably get about 35%, give or take.

It's interesting whether this is *better* for the Lib Dems or not. On the one hand, they want very much to be able to argue that they deserve big concessions, and coming in second is key to that. But because of the distribution of votes, if they push Labour into third, that likely benefits the Tories and pushes the combined Lab-Lib seat total below the number needed for a coalition or pact.

I think they're best off if they can just barely beat Labour, with both of them scoring in the high 20s (i.e. 28-29%), enough that they can claim second, but not enough that Labour's seat total completely crashes letting the Tories in.