Two New Graphs...

These new graphs go back to 1st of March, and show the Labour and Conservative shares, together with the all-important lead. Error bars are also shown, indicating the 95% confidence intervals.

We can see that the lead was narrowest on the 5th March and 24th March, and highest on the 4th April. Since then, the lead appears to have narrowed...

The yo-yo effect on the Labour estimate is due to the wide variation in different pollsters' estimates, particularly as Harris and Opinium enter and exit the field. The pollsters are far more uniform in their estimates of the Tories' share.

Update: all three parties are now displayed on the same graph. At right there's an image illustrating how many seats the LibDems might win for various shares of the vote. It assumes whatever the LD vote share the Tories maintain a roughly five point lead over Labour.

Civil Servants and Politicians gear-up for a Hung Parliament...

On 24th February 2010 this select committee heard fascinating evidence from a series of civil servants and academics on the likely twists and turns leading to  government formation in the event of a hung parliament. Some questions remained unanswered (or even unasked) but one remarkable exchange at the beginning of the tape suggested that the Meeting of Parliament and the Queen's Speech could be postponed by proclamation - implying that a "defeated" PM could remain in office for a considerable period of time without facing any parliamentary test...

Altogether a remarkable insight into how seriously the Establishment is taking the prospect of a hung parliament, and how their priorities are:

i) the continuance of effective government in a time of uncertainty

ii) the protection of the Queen from controversy

iii) an attempt to codify the rules of the game of party political poker that would ensue.

Note that the wishes of the voters do not feature on this list. They would be deemed to have produced an indecisive result, and their further opinions would be considered redundant. The Establishment would facilitate the installation of any viable government.

I, the undermentioned, hereby give notice that...

Your Current Forecast

Why not play along with our seat-by-seat forecast? It works like this...

Introducing a New Graph...

Following on from the PB article in 2006, I have now refined the Battleground Graph to show the best visual estimate of election outcomes.

The differences are small but can be summarised as follows.

Channel 4 News Report

The media are picking up a Hung Parliament as a seriously possible outcome of the election. Expect more of this as time goes on, until it becomes the default expectation.

When that happens, all parties, not just the Liberal Democrats, will face searching questions about forming a stable government capable of dealing with Britain's problems. David Owen makes a telling point that even a small majority will be insufficient to govern effectively.

2010 will be an election like no other we have seen...

The Problem...

I'll start with an article I wrote for PoliticalBetting back in 2006, which I think gives a good "at-a-glance" overview...

The relevant bits:

"Electoral System: The first graph has been compiled from Anthony Wells' data for the new constituency boundaries. For each percentage point the LibDems might reasonably score in the range 15-25%, the outcome of the Election has been calculated for plausible Conservative LEADS ranging from 0-11%. The concept of Swing implies that the difference between the main two parties is important while their absolute level of support is not. So we can represent three vote variables with only two dimensions.

A topical new blog....

This is a new blog on the prospect of a hung parliament at the next UK general election, which will be held before June 2010, and the consequences of such an outcome.

To avoid a hung parliament, the Conservative Party requires a larger swing and a larger turnover in seats than they have obtained at any general election since 1931.

The last hung parliament in the UK was in February 1974, and they also occurred in 1929, 1923 and twice in 1910. They were also narrowly avoided in 1992, October 1974, 1964, 1951 and 1950.

It looks quite likely that there will be another in 2010. There are good reasons for believing this, which we hope to explore here further....