Wednesday, 4 February 2015

Heading for chaos

Britain will hold a general election on May 7 and the outcome is incredibly difficult to call. That is because of the rise of three minor parties, the Scottish National Party, UKIP and the Greens and the decline of another minor party, the Liberal Democrats, currently the junior coalition partner. Neither the UKIP nor the Greens will take many seats but they could erode the vote of the top two parties in marginal seats, with unpredictable consequences.

The latest Scottish constituency polls show a massive swing from Labour to SNP, that could leave the latter with more than 50 of Scotland's 59 seats. At the same time, there has been a swing from Conservative to Labour since the last election which puts the latter one point ahead in an average of polls. That lead may not sound much but because of the distribution of votes (big Tory majorities in the suburbs and shires, smaller Labour majorities in the cities) gives a seat advantage to Labour. The May 2015 website estimates that the result will be Conservatives 272 seats, Labour 270, SNP 56 and Lib Dems...Continue reading

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