I'm sure that information is available to the parties and any other interested party who can stump up the cash for the private polling info.

Also I'm pretty sure the media know exactly which seats are in play during an election. But everybody in the game wants to maintain the fiction that every vote counts and so you'll never see anyone discuss the fact that 450 - 500 seats will return the same party as currently holds them, the same party that has held them for several parliaments.

So, the only way to know is to trawl through websites such as the BBC and, wherever there's a majority of less than 5,000 for the current govt, make an assumption that it's in play. Any seat with a majority of less than 2,000 is definitely gonna move over.

I don't know about tactical voting, I know I have tried hard to talk to people about the necessity of voting against what you hate, but many prefer to vote for the party they like believing that democracy is compromised if they think too hard about being effective.

keep to the Fen Causeway