You can dominate parliament with 40+% of the vote and go nowhere with 25%.
I think it remains possible that the Lib Dems could get 35 - 50 seats, which means that any majority of 17 - 25 over the second place becomes conditional on other support.
Invariably the conservatives turn to the Ulster Protestant parties (the major parties do not stand in Ulster) while Labour look to the Lib dems keep to the Fen Causeway
Or do you mean they'll end up with 35 - 50 after the next election?
With 319 needed to govern, people not enthralled with Brown ...
This could get interesting.
I felt that the 63 seats at the last election was a high water mark.
To push on from that they really needed a new leader who was dynamic and able to command the media. But sadly they decided that would be too exciting and so chose Menzies Campbell; who promptly crumbled into inconsequence and the party more or less vanished from view for about 18 months. Realizing this was a bad thing, they replaced him with Nick Clegg, seemingly on the basis that, if the electorate cannot tell him and David Cameron apart, they might get some tory votes by mistake.
Most would conclude that the Lib Dems are gonna struggle to make 50 seats and that 35 would be a good result given their anonimity. keep to the Fen Causeway
That's probably the best possible outcome, considering.
But I wouldn't write off an historic Tory landslide. The headbanger shock troops are so very, very angry they're much more motivated than the normal people, and turning out in their tens or hundreds may be enough to swing the key marginals, especially if they can take Mr & Ms Protest Vote with them.
I still think that the important vote with a small electoral turnout will be the UKIP vote. that has a possibility to throw a spanner in the Tory works. Any idiot can face a crisis - it's day to day living that wears you out.
Have to find where those headbangers are. If they are all concentrated in Tory-anyway seats it don't mean much. Winning seats by 8% is a waste; need to truck some of those voters to other districts. ;-)
This is, in fact, exactly where national polls fall down for predictive purposes.
Question is, and I make no pretense of knowing the answer, how many of those seats the Tories will grab.
Conservative (193) Democratic Unionist (9) Independent (5) Independent Conservative (1) Independent Labour (1) Labour (350) Liberal Democrat (63) Plaid Cymru (3) Respect (1) Scottish National (7) Sinn Fein (5) Social Democratic & Labour Party (3) Ulster Unionist (1) Speaker and Deputies (4) keep to the Fen Causeway
Data from here
88 Labour Seats are at or under 5% swing. With Brown's popularity and the disgust with Labour have to figure these seats are in danger and will, most likely, be lost. Of these 18 lean LibDem, the rest to the Tories. That gives the Tories a 263 to 262 or a one seat lead.
There will be a shocker or two, there always is, but these numbers give us a basis for 'winging it' one step further.
Looking at the LibDems, they have 33 seats at 5% or under with 12 right at, or under, 2.05% - roughly 20% of their Parliamentary representative. Ouch. Give 7 to the Tories - because they are hungry - and it's
L - 262 T - 270 L/D - 74
Which seems too high for the L/Ds 'cuz they're fuck-ups. So have them lose the Tory-inclined seats in the 2.05% to 3%, another 7 seats and ...
L - 262 T - 277 L/D - 67
Now this is where it's guess time.
