UKH

Time to read the runes and risk looking like a total muppet come Friday morning.

My bet: Labour win and big but not the utter annihilation the Conservatives deserve. A strong but non-revolutionary result for both LibDems and Reform. I think the greens might do a bit better than usual drawing votes from across the spectrum for a variety of reasons.

Lab: 435

Con: 90

LD: 65

Ref: 15

SNP: 10

Grn: 3

Ignoring NI, and my numbers don't quite add up.

jk

I think you might have reflected the % of vote quite well here but I don't know if the seats will be like this. Reform getting 15 seats & Greens getting 3? I would be surprised.

Surprised which way?

I suspect the thing I'm most likely to have got badly wrong is underappreciating how well clustered Reform's vote is but that weighs against the drip-drip of bad candidate stories which may well put off enough of the swing/protest voters Farage needs to really convert his ex UKIP base vote-share into seats.

You're probably right about the Greens.

jk

Lab: 405

Con: 105

 LD: 75

Ref: 15

SNP: 12 

Grn: 5

This'll be wrong 

I doubt it will happen, but I’d love it if the Lib Dem’s pushed the Tories to third place. 
 

I think they would be a much better official opposition.

I'd love that too - and I think it would improve things significantly to have a relatively sane official opposition to a Labour government rather than whatever the Tories will mutate into after this.  (I fear the worst.)

I'm not going to guess at the numbers but I will place a small UKC bet that Sunak will be off back to California within a year, whether Tom Wilson manages to unseat him or not.

I think Reform Ltd will do depressingly well, and that they'll take more seats from Labour than Cons. I'd predict a healthy labour majority, but not bigger than the 97 landslide.

Presumably the pollsters have got good at accounting for different voter turn out among the different demographics but I still think Labour’s vote share is being widely over stated. I think there is massive indifference towards Labour among less engaged voters (which is most people). 

Agree with this…..

I agree. I don't know who my husband is going to vote for, but I don't think he can bring himself to vote Labour, so will be happy enough to accept that I've not reminded him to vote on Thursday.

Despite everything, I don't expect a Tory annihilation.  I'm guessing they'll retain about 150 seats and form the official opposition.

For many months past the vibes from that party have been that anything that reaches three figures will be trumpeted by them as evidence that they can call a relative, and rather flatulent, success in the circumstances.  It won't be, but they have strong recent form on ignoring elephants.

There's another point about the election that I'm interested in, which is complete schadenfreude.  I'll see if I can post about that on another thread.

T.

I was rather hoping more people would join in with actual numbers so we could all be wrong yet still declare someone a winner on Friday.

jk

It's an interesting one this. The seats Reform win will I'd think mostly come from Labour but the better they do vote share wise, the more seats Labour and the LibDems will take from Conservatives elsewhere. Hard to work out really whether a strong Reform showing* would be nett better or worse for Labour in terms of overall seats than a weaker one. What it would do is change where those Labour seats come from, potentially if Reform do do well Labour is again left with a metropolitan liberal bias in terms of seats represented (and a manifesto aimed at a different set of voters).

*I don't think it will be that strong, the toxic campaigning/candidate (bear shits in woods) scandals will I think weigh on some of the protest voters needed to really deliver a real revolutionary shock.

jk

Oh go on then (I'm also not going to attempt to predict NI.)

Lab:            425
Con:            115
LD:                60
SNP:             20
Ref Ltd:          5
Plaid C.          4
Green.            4

I have a horrible suspicion the Tories will somehow do better than expected. I also think Reform will detract from the Labour vote in red wall-type seats. Tactical voting should help the Lib Dems pick up a few seats but coalition memories remain raw. In Scotland new leadership at the helm of the SNP should stave off a rout.

Labour 380, Conservative 150, Lib Dem 50, SNP 30, Alba 3, Plaid 3, Green 1, Reform 1, 

Genius 

Nobody has got the total number right yet - there are 650 seats, if you exclude NI then there are 632; bad show...

For the record, in NI I'm only going to predict that Shin Fein get at least 10 of the 18 seats.

Rest of UK & NI is a real guess...

• Labour 417
• Conservative 115
• Lib Dem 67
• SNP 17
• Plaid Cymru 4
• Reform 5
• Green 3
• Independent 4

Total = 632

Associated point - how are we going to decide who's closest? 😁

You're closest because you can do basic additions.

:p

We should vote on it 😁

Jk

Gawd I hope the SNP don’t do that well, they need a good kicking to induce a fair degree of introspection (and a massive cull plus change in core philosophy) after which they might actually be a force for good as part of the opposition, which they potentially could be quiet adept at.

Lab 430

Con 86

Lib  86

Reform 7

others the balance 😀

I reckon Lib will do well because of tactical voting.. Tories better than polls cos those polled might be too embarrassed to admit to being Tory plonkers

Go on then. I'll get a prediction registered for tomorrow.

Green, 5.

Independent Left, 5.

Labour, 455.

Lib Dem, 75.

Conservative, 61.

SNP, 22.

Reform, 6.

Plaid Cymru, 4.

Turnout 58%.

Lab:            433
Con:            123
LD:                53
SNP:             19
Ref Ltd:          2
Plaid C.          4
Green.            2m

not sure my maths is quite right - and like others excluding NI where have little knowledge of likelihood or different parties securing seats 

Fair does:

labour 470

libdem 70

tory 60

SNP 20

plaid 4

green 3

Reform 2

 Countbinface 1

Which is quite surprising because I have a maths degree (from rather a long time ago) and maths graduates are known to be rubbish at arithmetic.

Shin Fein? Aren't they the political leg of the IRA?

Yep, the Economist's model gives a median estimate for reform of 3 and the Better Together bloke on the News Agent Podcast last night said their MRP model reckoned 2 for reform. 

Some of my colleagues live in 30p Lee's constituency, who seems likely to be one of the two or three Reform MPs, and I guess as a result have a darker view of their fellow citizens than I try to maintain! If the good people of Ashfield manage to do better and kick him out I will readily come back and sing their praises!

I reckon (and also hope) zero seats for Reform, despite a significant share of the national vote. 

Labour… 385

Con… 140

LD… 65

Reform… 12

Green… 2

SNP… 14

Plaid Cymru… 7

Independent… 2

The problem is that for the Westminster parties, Scotland is but one region of the UK, where votes are quite hard to pick up. For all their faults, the focus of the SNP is Scotland (just they're not very good at it).

Labour 415

Tory 135

LD 50

SNP 20

Reform 7

Plaid 3

Green 2

Unsure on NI politics. Are there 18 seats? If so, excluding them, then my predictions do add up, not through design!

​​​​​​

A major weakness of the opinion polls is the large number of don’t knows (or won’t tell) and that the pollsters statistical analyses to distribute them that has been accurate in the past may be wildly off this time due to rise of Reform etc

There's no other real option though. 

I don't have a green candidate. I won't vote for a party who isn't trying to move back towards EU (rejoining single market would be enough to start with). And I agree with more SNP policies than I do Libs. So while I agree they have many failings, they are my only option. 

I would have gone green if I had had the option. 

Indeed they are. I always thought that a much better (than violence) republican tactic would have been to encourage catholic families (who would have been very largely republican) to have lots of kiddies so that the NI demographics eventually changed enough so that union with Eire became inevitable.

I think that's going to eventually happen anyway, just not as quickly as it might have with some encouragement.

Yes. The armed struggle made no sense for an organisation like Shin Fein. Making strides towards democratic legitimacy should give them a much sounder footing on which to build the long-standing legacy they seek.

You have to remember that when the "struggles" started, the violence that successfully led to Irish independence (*) was only 50 years earlier so still within living memory. That memory of "success" probably added to violent protest being a legitimate approach.

(*) no doubt it was only one factor of many but the British Empire was still strong and whereas now we see one country controlling another as morally wrong, back then the thing that led to independence was if the effort of ruling "your" country wasn't worth it for the "rewards" that rule provided.

It’s no tibial matter though. They need to toe the line and avoid any knee-jerk reactions. Time will tell if they’re able to nail it. 

Weren't Shin Feinn proposing a joint sovereignty for NI at one point?

A leg up so to speak?

Can we just put Michael out of his (probable lower limb) misery and spell it out: Sinn Féin. Beyond the spelling, all the points are perfectly reasonable, even if the jokes has... ummm... grown legs.

I was under the impression they wanted to calve it up. But were hamstrung by some of the more hip voters

I'm betting the election date is today...

Calving up your Shin Vein is not a good idea.

Sinn Féin has been a pretty respectable political party for decades and the IRA ceasefire was 30 years ago.  They are also the majority party in NI Assembly.

Better to fake such injuries and be a member of Shin Feign. 

My neighbour has a silhouette of Bruce Forsyth on his roof that moves around to show the wind direction. It’s a Chin Vane. 
It’s going to be a looong night….

Thank you, I knew it didn't feel right but my very rushed search on t'web didn't give the right answer either.

I got three correct! Anyone beat that? And if not, what do I win?  

I'll run it all through a spreadsheet on Tuesday to pick out the winners and losers unless someone beats me too it.

Better than the exit poll which was pretty good. An excellent result for the Greens and the one Farage needed to play kingmaker in the future. Let's hope Labour can do something with their opportunity.

Jk

I've already declared myself the winner anyhow. 

Good idea.  The official result is taking ages so claim victory, stick to your guns and take it all the way to the supreme court if necessary.  Worked a treat for George W Bush.

Apologies for the delay, I've been away from my computer.

Firstly we have a clear overall winner and a close race for second split only by errors/bet.

• 1st: Michael Hood (total error 28, 3.5/bet)
• 2nd: deepsoup (49, 7)
• 3rd: Bouldery Bits (49, 8.2)

Consolation prizes, closest per party:

• Labour: Tom Guitarist (error 4)
• Conservative: J72 (error 2)
• LibDem: Bottom Clinger (error 1)
• Reform: Michael Hood & deepsoup (error 0)
• Green: Bottom Clinger & deepsoup (error 0)
• Independents: Cumbria Mammoth (error 1)
• SNP: jkarran (error 1)
• Plaid Cymru: deepsoup, Michael Hood, Cumbria Mammoth, J72 & Dr.S at work (error 0)

Thanks for playing along.

jk