When it comes to watching the results coming in, I've now finalised my order of preference for the parties (excluding Northern Ireland, where I'm not going to pretend enough knowledge to comment):
1. Greens
2. Lib-Dems
3. Most independants
4. SNP/Plaid Cymru
5. Labour
6. Respect (excluding George Galloway)
7. Conservatives
8. UKIP
9. George Galloway
10. BNP
So the basic rule is that when seats move up the list, I'll be happy. Seats moving down the list and I'll be unhappy. So, where to pay particular attention to:
Greens
The main focus will be Brighton Pavilion where they have a really good chance of winning. Also expect strong showings in Norwich South, Cambridge and Lewisham Deptford, but more than one seat would be a real shock.
Lib-Dems
Against the tories it will be a fascinating battle in the South West. Among the tightest marginals would be Somerton and Frome which has an incumbent Lib-Dem, but is notionally a tory seat on boundary changes. If they're having a good night then a seat like Wells could be really interesting - the sitting tory had some expenses questions to answer, the UKIP candidate refused party instructions to stand down - it would be a good gain for the yellow team. Guildford is also a fascinating battleground - just 77 votes denied the Lib-Dems the seat last time, but with little Lib-dem bounce in the South East could be very tight again.
Against Labour, the North-East will be an interesting battleground - City of Durham and Blaydon should fall. It they go yellow by a lot, then some of the Newcastle seats might follow. In Scotland, Edinburgh South should also turn yellow. After that the key will be how their vote is distributed. Last time they won a lot of protest votes in Labout heartlands. If its more focussed in their targets this time, a similar share of the vote could bring a few more gains.
Past experience with the Lib-Dems suggests they will fail to get a few obvious targets and then pull a few rabbits out of the hat that nobody saw coming.
Independants
I'm expecting holds for the independants in Blaenau Gwent and Wyre Forrest. The other interesting one to watch will be Northampton South where an independant is apparrently putting up a strong challenge to the sitting tory MP who has a very poor attendance record at Westminster.
Nationalists
Plaid Cymru should take Arfon and Ynys Mons from Labour. The SNP should take Ochil and South Perthshire and I'd also back then to spring a surprise somewhere, but not sure where yet. Elsewhere in Wales Aberconwy is potentially a 4 way marginal although it should be a tory gain, but could be a good indicator of the way the battle is going there. In Scotland, there might be little change, but some interest around whether the tories can keep their one scottish seat.
Labour/Conservatives
The Labour-Tory battlegrounds are too numerous to mention. What will be interesting will be the situation in three way marginals. Personally I'm expecting no Balls moment and definitely no Darling moment to rival the 97 Portillo moment.
Respect/George Galloway
Here's hoping that the voters of Poplar and Limehouse send Mr Galloway on his way - his victory speech in 2005 was the most disgusting thing in the whole election. Elsewhere Bethnal Green and Bow could be a rare Labour gain from Respect, whilst a strong Respect challenge in Birmingham Hall Green might help the Lib-Dems come through the middle and take the seat.
UKIP
With Buckingham not counting until Friday, most UKIP eyes will be on share of the vote rather than winning seats. I don't think they'll take Buckingham anyway, but what might be interesting come Friday is to see how many, if any, seats the tories could arguably have been said to have lost due to UKIP votes.
BNP
The main BNP target is Barking and the key figure to watch out for is around 15% of the vote - any more than that and they've advanced again, less and they're falling back.
My totally unscientific prediction
For what its worth and having only seen two polls so far tonight, I'm going for something like this:
Northern Irish Parties: 18 seats (not going to make predictions here)
Speaker: 1 seat (I'm being fairly safe so far)
Greens: 1 seat (a breakthrough)
Independants: 3 seats (see above)
Plaid Cymru 4 seats
SNP 8 seats
Liberal Democrats 82 seats
Labour 249 seats
Conservatives 284 seats.
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4 comments:
Tories ~290 IMO. :-(
Lib-Dems are on a knife-edge, anything less than 70 is a disaster considering "cleggmania", anything above 80 a victory.
Steve,
Living in the one part of the UK that is still clearly not ready to even contemplate a tory government I maybe underestimate their strength a little, but having looked at the figures post prediction I'm standing by it. 7% marginal swing taking off all LD, SNP, Scottish and seats where they're currently third, add in a bit of tactical voting and few seats lost as well and its going to be between 280 and 290. I also have a hunch that the marginal swing is going to be higher higher up the list of targets where they don't need it and lower lower down where they do. Will be an interesting night anyway. What's your constituency by the way?
I also think that you can argue considering they started the campaign struggling not to lose seats, that any gains by the Lib-Dems are a victory. Judging by tonight's polls, their vote has held up better than most nay-sayers were predicting so far - still averaging around 28%.
I suspect that a lot of people who poll as Lib-Dems will bottle it in the voting booth. Thus, I fear that they won't do as well as hoped. Maybe 70 as the edge of disaster was too harsh on my part. Lib-Dem/Tory marginals will be fun to watch tomorrow night. Strongly suspect that the 3-way marginals may be painful.
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