The news that one bookmaker is paying out early on David Cameron being the next Prime Minister seems rather premature (and given the bookmaker in question's track record on earlty pay-outs, no great cause of concern for those on the left). What is becoming more and more likely is that the tories will be the largest party come May 7th. Despite some rather inaccurate reporting of marginal polls, none of the recent polls are yet indicating a tory majority (taking into account the Lib-Dems, SNP, other Scottish and seats where they are currently third a swing of nearly 9% would be needed in Labour-Tory marginals for that to happen as I have previously written about here). This raises a question of how many seats the tories would need to win to be able to form a minority government without support from the Lib-Dems, which Cameron is currently ruling out.
In order to become Prime Minister, Mr Cameron would need to get a vote for the Queens Speech passed in the House of Commons. The magic number for a majority is 326 votes. With Sinn Fein MPs traditionally (and no sign of this changing) not taking their seats in the chamber, this comes down to 322. So how could the tories get it lower.
SNP/Plaid Cymru - I can't honestly see either of these parties falling into line behind the tories. However, in return for greater devolved powers which the tories have been dangling over the last week I could envisage them being persuaded to abstain. Between the two parties you could be looking at 10-14 seats in the new parliament. Their abstention would therefore bring the total needed to win the vote down to 315.
Ulster Unionists of various kinds. The tories have a deal with the Ulster Unionist Party. Its very far from certain however that they will win any seats at all this time round. Their one MP left the party over the deal as she clearly favoured Brown to Cameron. She is likely to be re-elected and won't back the tories. The remaining ulster unionists will be made up of independants who might back the tories and the DUP. How they will respond and what price they would demand for their votes remains to be seen. At the very best for the tories this represents 10 votes (probably 6-8) which makes our magiv figure now 305 seats.
Of the rest - Labour, Lib-Dems, possibly Greens and independants (Wyre Forest, Blaenau Gwent and the possibility of an independant taking aq tory seat in Northampton South where the sitting MP hardly ever turns up to the house of commons anyway) its difficult to see where the tories would get any more votes or more than 1 or 2 abstentions. So any less than 305 seats and the tories are going to struggle to form a government. In that case they would need to persuade the Lib-Dems to abstain and even that might take a more conciliatory approach than they've adopted so far.
Even if they managed to win the vote to form a government, it remains to be seen if they could achieve much. I suspect we'd all be back at the polls again before the year was out.
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OK - for another take - if the tories get around 290 seats, then the lib/lab pact would not form a majority government (given the 30 or so other seats from other parties) - this isn't that impossible to see them getting that. at that point the tories pretty much become the only party that can govern. then would LD really vote down teh government, and lose all credibility of being a party of consensus and willingness to work with other parties?
You might have a slight point on the figures, but a lot would depend on the Nats and Ulster Unionists still. That's a frightening thought - it could all still come down to the vaguaries of Alex Salmond's ego!
Don't buy at all what you're saying about the Lib-Dems losing credibility. For a start technically they wouldn't be voting down the government as until they got the Queen's speech passed they wouldn;t technically be the government in my understanding. But more crucially in terms of what you are saying, I think there would only be an inconsistency or loss of credibility if they were voting against a party who were showing any willingness to work with other parties. The tories are consistently showing that they are not and thus represent the old politics that the Lib-dems have been campaigning against. Consistency would thus almost dictate a vote against a tory minority government. I would say that there is far less consistency in a tory minority government, (given their persistent comments on a hung parliament and backroom deals) whch was dependant on back room deals with the DUP, SNP and Plaid Cymru.
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