Who will win the UK election ?

Generali

Moby wrote: »

The outcome could be decided in a few swing constituencies but overall I think you are right Generali. The tories will have more constituencies in England. Their problem will then be cobbling together a govmt. Their real hope is that the Lib Dems will hold up enough to form another coalition but that is going to be a hard sell to the Lib Dems because they have been damaged badly by 'getting into bed' with them. Not to forget of course the tories will face a resurgent SNP and a stronger Labour opposition. To be frank although I'm campaigning I don't actually know if this will be good election to win....if it's close that is!

Don't forget that the DUP will form a coalition with the Tories under basically any circumstances and Sinn Fein won't take their seats. They look likely to get 4 seats each reducing the seats the Tories need to about 319.

The Lib Dems look likely to get about 20 seats from the Lord Ashcroft polling and history tells us that they'll get into bed with the Tories if asked. That leaves the Tories needing ~300 seats to form a Government. If they fall just short, say 4 or 5 seats, but have the most votes then I suspect that a few Unionist Labour MPs could be persuaded to join them or UKIP might even be able to make up the difference (if people don't jump to the Tories from UKIP then I think UKIP'll get perhaps 4 seats).

Everything I read says that Labour and the SNP are likely to be in a position to let Labour lead a minority Government. I think it's not quite as simple as people think.

The confounding factor is UKIP. Everyone 'knows' that it's Tories that are voting UKIP but I don't think that's the case. If it was, Labour would be storming ahead in the polls. The SNP look likely to win a lot of seats but are going to get 2.5% of the vote at most and probably more like 2%. Greens are polling at about 5% give or take. So where has Labour's soft support gone? There really is only one place left: UKIP.

Generali

andydiysaver wrote: »

you can crowdsource the public opinion by using betting site betfair known to the MB people - method I used was to take mid point of odds, do reciprocal on that then fit the small over-round into 1 for perfect probability or at the least best definition of probability with all parties absorbing as much of the over-round as the others...


according to a cross section of the Great British public prepared to put their money where their mouth is as at 8.55am 12/04/15


Lab Minority 32.98%
Con Minoiry 22.17%
Conservative 11.34%
Con-Lib Coal 12.96%
Lib-Lab Coal 9.37%
Labour 3.17%
Con-Ukip Coal 1.38%
Any other 6.65%


clearly this is subject to change...


Lab Minority32.98%Con Minoiry22.17%Conservative11.34%Con-Lib Coal12.96%Lib-Lab Coal9.37%Labour3.17%Con-Ukip Coal1.38%Any other 6.65%

Any other is clearly the value bet!!!! If the Tories fall a little short the first door they'll knock on will be the DUP's. 6.65% is what, 19 (18-1) something like that? There's a genuine chance of a National Government being put in place, a Lib-Lab-Con alliance. There's also a fair chance that Lab+SNP will fall short which could mean something like the SDLP or PC joining a coalition. There's even the chance of a Lab+SDLP coalition being formed. I doubt there's much appetite in the Labour Party to deal with the SNP.

antrobus

michaels wrote: »

This is an interesting one. In general where people put their money turns out to be a good predictor but this has not been the case with political betting (famously betfair odds were forecasting a tory outright victory last time).

In theory you might also expect the market to be biased by affected people 'hedging' their exposure to possible results, in the uk that should equate to high earners betting against the tories to cover likely losses were labour to be elected but if history is any guide the betting markets tend to err towards the right.

This chap says different.

Betting markets are more reliable than polls at predicting the outcome of a national vote, says Leighton Vaughan Williams
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/general-election-2015/11457970/If-you-want-to-know-who-will-win-the-election-ask-a-gambler.html

And since he is the director of the Political Forecasting Unit at Nottingham Business School, who claims that he has a "huge data sets of polls and betting trades", he just might know what he is talking about.:)

antrobus

Generali wrote: »

Any other is clearly the value bet!!!! If the Tories fall a little short the first door they'll knock on will be the DUP's. 6.65% is what, 19 (18-1) something like that? There's a genuine chance of a National Government being put in place, a Lib-Lab-Con alliance. There's also a fair chance that Lab+SNP will fall short which could mean something like the SDLP or PC joining a coalition. There's even the chance of a Lab+SDLP coalition being formed. I doubt there's much appetite in the Labour Party to deal with the SNP.

I certainly don't think there will be a Labour-SNP coalition. For one thing, both parties have ruled out that option. For another thing, I don't think the SNP want to be part of the UK government and therefore attract their share of the blame for all the cuts and tax rises that will inevitably be part of the government programme. What they want to do is sit on the sidelines, blame everybody else, and proclaim that all these problems will disappear once Scotland becomes independent.

Generali

antrobus wrote: »

I certainly don't think there will be a Labour-SNP coalition. For one thing, both parties have ruled out that option. For another thing, I don't think the SNP want to be part of the UK government and therefore attract their share of the blame for all the cuts and tax rises that will inevitably be part of the government programme. What they want to do is sit on the sidelines, blame everybody else, and proclaim that all these problems will disappear once Scotland becomes independent.

I agree that it's incredibly unlikely that the SNP and Labour will form a formal coalition. I would imagine that any 'confidence and supply' deal with the SNP would require Labour to provide a little pork to the SNP in return. A coalition in all but name.

Rinoa

Current odds on Prime Minister after election:

Cameron 8/11
Miliband 1/1

Very close.

http://www.oddschecker.com/politics/british-politics/next-uk-general-election/prime-minister-after-general-election

Generali

Rinoa wrote: »

Current odds on Prime Minister after election:

Cameron 8/11
Miliband 1/1

Very close.

http://www.oddschecker.com/politics/british-politics/next-uk-general-election/prime-minister-after-general-election

AIUI, Cameron gets first dibs on forming a Government as the current PM hence the lower odds I guess.

Interestingly (to me) the Government doesn't get dissolved in the run up to an election, only Parliament does. The Government can put pretty much anything through on a nod at the moment I believe.

Uxb

Generali wrote: »

UKIP is a bit more interesting. Voting Tory gives you a referendum on Europe albeit a different one to UKIP's......

you mean we will get the referendum in the same way as last time the Tories said they had no plans to raise VAT - which they promptly did.
I reckon the Tories will invent some new excuse as to why a referendum on Europe would not be a good idea, would cause destabilization or some other twaddle and quietly drop it.
They all a load of lying scum.

Generali

Uxb wrote: »

you mean we will get the referendum in the same way as last time the Tories said they had no plans to raise VAT - which they promptly did.
I reckon the Tories will invent some new excuse as to why a referendum on Europe would not be a good idea, would cause destabilization or some other twaddle and quietly drop it.
They all a load of lying scum.

Thanks for your valuable input to the thread.

It reminds me of the old Twain quote:

"Better to stay silent and be thought a fool than to speak and remove all doubt".

kabayiri

Generali wrote: »

AIUI, Cameron gets first dibs on forming a Government as the current PM hence the lower odds I guess.

This factor may prove more important than they we currently imagine.

If we assume no outright majority, the initial control passes to the current prime minister. He gets first call as you say.

We could easily end up with a situation between May and September where we have a transitional arrangement led by Cameron.

It will be interesting to know the market response during such a period. They don't like uncertainty, and I don't think they believe in an anti-austerity approach.

There will be a lot of horse trading behind closed doors, that's for sure.

Our current MP was credited with brokering the deal between Labour and LibDem. His reward ? A knighthood. Fancy that!