Milibandwagon - Village Magazine

76 April 2015

HE UK’s May election looks to be as

unpredictable as any since Febru-

ary1974, the ﬁrst of two that year,

which produced the ﬁrst hung parliament

since the second world war, giving Ted

Heath’s Tories more votes, though fewer

seats, than Harold Wilson’s Labour. They

collapsed later in the year.

Polls have long shown the main

parties, Conservative and Labour, as vir-

tually tied. That might, just, have allowed

Labour to get a majority, because of the

way that the electoral system is skewed

in the party’s favour but a downward

trajectory and the very poor individual

ratings of its geekish leader Ed Miliband

suggest this is unlikely.

The favourite outcome, as measured

by Ladbrokes, is “no overall majority”

at the very strikingly poor odds of 2/11

(was 5/6 last October); a Labour major-

ity is 14/1 (was 2-1 last October) and a

Conservatives majority 11/2 (was 4-1

last October). Bet at your peril.

With this in mind, a new coalition

might be even more difficult to put

together than before; it might take three

parties, not two. To understand why, we

need to look at the bookies’ best guesses

at the overall outcome.

Bear in mind that the total number of

seats is 650. The betting companies cur-

rently have the Conservatives winning

284.6 (was 273.5 seats last October);

down from 303 at the moment. The

estimate for Labour is 273.5 (was 306

last October); up from its current total of

257. The Liberal Democrats, the junior

party in the current coalition, are fore-

cast to get around 26.5 (was 31.5 last

October). The Scottish National Party is

in the lead in polls north of the border

and is up to a remarkable 43.5 (was 12.5

last October) seats (out of 59). These

seats will be at the expense of Labour

(the Tories have only 1 Scottish MP).

The SNP’s ascent seems likely to leave

a Labour/Lib Dem coalition short of an

overall majority. Would the SNP join a

three-party coalition? It seems likely to

demand a very high price. As to North-

ern Ireland its members, particularly

DUP and Sinn Féin have a whiﬀ of sulfur

for the English parties. The likely result

there is 9 for the DUP, 5 for Sinn Féin,

3 for the SDLP and 1 Independent. The

only diﬀerence from 2010 is that the

DUP is likely to take Naomi Long’s Alli-

ance seat. Plaid Cymru are likely to take

3.5 seats in Wales and the Green Par-

ty’s Caroline Lucas will retain Brighton

Pavilion for them.

With 650 seats in the Commons, a gov-

ernment needs 326 seats for a majority.

So if the odds are right, the only possible

two-party government would be a Con-

ser vative-SNP coa lition which could hold

327.5 seats, a narrow majority of around

1! But if we factor in that the Conserv-

ative Party is in fact the Conservative

and Unionist Party such a pairing is in

fact impossible. Most projections put the

Conservatives well short of the 326 seats

they would need to form a majority gov-

ernment, and the Lib Dems are unlikely

to be left with enough MPs to make up

the shortfall, though Peter Kellner, the

chairman of YouGuv, has predicted that

both the Tories and Lib Dems will do

better than most polls are forecasting.

He suggests that thrusting if anodyne

Cameron will go into the election with

a ﬁve-point lead over Labour, and that

Clegg’s party will secure ten per cent of

the vote - thus resulting in 300 seats for

the Tories and 30 for the Lib Dems. That

would give the current coalition part-

ners a narrow working majority.

A coalition of the right looks harder

to pull oﬀ. Even if UKIP optimists are

proved right, and the party gets 10-12

seats (the bookies are going for 4-6),

those seats would probably come at the

expense of the Conservatives. It is hard

to envisage that leading to a Conserva-

tive/UKIP coalition (since that would

require an increase in Conservative seats

at the same time as a UKIP surge). And

the Lib Dems would never sign on to that

group.

Punters could be overstating the Scot-

tish impact. Labour is, of course, set to

lose seats, but these will be to the SNP,

not the Tories. So every seat that Labour

takes oﬀ the Conservatives in England

will oﬀset two losses to the SNP north of

the border in terms of this market. Nev-

ertheless the odds are that Labour will

go into government with the SNP or the

Lib Dems amounting to a notional 317

or 300 respectively. If it takes on both

it would have 343.5. Otherwise though

the DUP could have apparent enhanced

appeal for Labour, its unionism would

not be compatible with partnership with

the SNP.

Narrow odds are available on Labour

and Conservative minority administra-

tions – 2/1 and 11/4 respectively.

But the most exciting bet is availa-

ble from most bookies at around 20:1:

Labour/Lib Dems/SNP with 343, nicely

overreaching the required 326. •

Labour/SNP/Lib Dems, maybe. By Michael Smith

Milibandwagon

The favourite

outcome is

“no overall

majority”

at the very

strikingly poor

odds of 2/11

“

INTERNATIONAL UK Election

beautiful but uninspiring