UK General Election Prediction Thread

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If only for posterity, I'll stick my neck out and predict Labour as the largest party, but by just a few seats - 290 for Labour vs 280 for the Tories, let's say. It should be enough to combine with the SNP and Lib Dems to form a viable government for long enough to hold a referendum, but once that's done there will probably be another election within a year.

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Conservatives around 300, Labour around 200, Lib Dems around 75, SNP around 50. Nothing for the Brexit Party. Plaid and the Greens hold their current seats. The real "fun" begins on December 13.

LibDems around 75 seems pretty high.

It does, doesn't it?

Especially with a 300/200 Con/Lab result. If the Lib Dems have won 75 seats (and those seats are anything like the seats they are targeting) they will have pulled far more heavily from currently held Tory seats than Labour ones. If the LD's get 75 I'd expect the Tories to be somewhere around 225 and Lab somewhere around 275. The SNP would probably be under 40 as well.

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Almost nothing about this election is predictable at this stage? We have very little idea of what it will look like in any sense; other than that it won't look like the last one.

Not even sure we can count on that. Soul crushing though it may be to contemplate, a near identical seat split (315/260/35/15/other) is very much possible.

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Don't forget Belfast North. Sinn Féin has gained ground in that seat every election for 2 decades.

Also, seeing Nigel Dodds lose his seat would be Greek drama levels of irony.

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Just need to hope that Corbynmentum happens again.

I think it's safe to say Labour have not been running as disciplined and effective a campaign as last time so far. There is a long way to go though.

Didn't the gap only really close in the second half of the 2017 campaign after both parties released their manifestos?

It was a pretty steady climb throughout the campaign. People only took notice in the last two weeks because Labour finally got within striking distance of the Tories. I think they may have had the lead in one or two polls within a week of E-day.

[cp]

At the moment the Tories are well placed, but they may have played their last best card - the "let's eat up as much of the Brexit Party as we can" one.

The fact they intend to release their manifesto so late (just two weeks before the GE, almost unheard of in previous campaigns) suggest it is going to be a damage limitation exercise after the folk memory of 2017, not an inspiring programme that will sweep the board.

Yeah, I'm still pondering the wisdom of this move. It fits into the lifelong Johnson strategy of getting people to vote for something they probably don't want by avoiding as much public scrutiny as possible (hey, just like Brexit!). But it's also a way of ceding the field to the opposition, which isn't a good idea no matter how big your lead is. The fact that we've spent the past two days talking pretty much entirely about a Labour manifesto proposal ought to give Tories pause about not releasing any manifesto for another two weeks.

[cp]

If only for posterity, I'll stick my neck out and predict Labour as the largest party, but by just a few seats - 290 for Labour vs 280 for the Tories, let's say. It should be enough to combine with the SNP and Lib Dems to form a viable government for long enough to hold a referendum, but once that's done there will probably be another election within a year.

In the spirit of bookending, I'm going to make a second prediction one day before polling day:

Tory: 305
Labour: 257
SNP: 45
LD: 21
DUP: 8
SF: 7
PC: 3
Alliance: 2
UUP: 1
Green: 1
Brexit: 0

Figures above assumed with a +/- 5 seats for Tory/Lab/SNP.

I'm not too fussed about percentages, but something like a 39/38/13 is the general ballpark.

A few minor predictions: Johnson, Skinner, Swinson, Baker, Berger, Ummuna, and Redwood win their races. Raab, Goldsmith, Onn, and Blake (LD in Sheffield Hallam) lose theirs.