Apparently Vince isn't happy with the prospect of an EU referendum:

[From The Guardian]

Vince Cable, the Lib Dem business secretary, is on Radio 4’s Election Call now.

Q: Will the Lib Dems make sure that, if there is another coalition with the Tories, they won’t allow this EU referendum go ahead.

Cable says the Lib Dems think a referendum in 2017 is “a seriously bad idea”. To spend two years “navel-gazing” on Europe, without knowing what the outcome would be, would be bad for business. It is “potentially very damaging”. The Lib Dems would take “a strong position” on this.

Q: Would it be a red line?

Cable says he is not going to use that phrase.

Q: The Lib Dems would veto it?

Cable says he is not saying that.

But “it is an issue of the very highest importance”.

Cable says having an EU referendum in 2017 is “a very bad idea”.
Cable’s stance on this is very different from Nick Clegg’s, because Clegg has pointedly refused to rule out backing the Tories’ EU referendum plans, and he has never criticised them in these terms. As Toby Helm has reported in the Observer, the Lib Dems are deeply split on this.

Here's the Helm article, which reports - as I've suspected - that Clegg is not carrying his party with him on this red line: http://www.theguardian.com/politics/...-eu-referendum

From the betting link i posted earlier and election forecast.co.uk who have forecast the share for every party in every constituency it looks likely that Labour would gain both Cardiff seats and Lib Dems would hold onto two seats inc Brecon & Radnor with Plaid failing to take Ceredigion so still on 3

The problem is the risk of an implosion within the party from a defeat. Like all parties they have members across the political spectrum.

Looking at the polling they would be in an actually decent position to go for a win in 2020 or when the next election will be called.

You would think that would have to be under a new leader and there lies the problem, they would have to find someone that the party could unite under and the general public would have to respect.

The Tory/Lib Dem Coalition lasted five years, Everybody's forecasting a Labour/SNP alliance but no one is really giving consideration to it being a long lived partnership.

Mr Cameron would not be too bothered by the prospect of his referendum plans being vetoed

TNS UK @TNS_UK

#GE2015: Voter turnout predicted to be 69% across Great Britain, with Scotland above the average at 71%. #mrx #polls http://bit.ly/1zLToKS

The Coalition was a proper, formulated majority Government. What we are likely to get this time is a "majority of sorts" which makes it less stable due to how the unofficial majority is set out. That's the difference.

The Coalition had the support of over 50% of the vote. As things stand with the polls a Lab/SNP may not.

Right; I'm glad I started my post with the words 'I think'

Would Plaid not be in potential difficulty in Arfon and Carmarthen East on those figures though?

I predict it will be 72% national turnout.

As for the "ballot box swing" to the Tories under discussion, there is nobody suggesting the potential for a decisive Labour swing. One psephologist I heard earlier today mentioned the rarely heard prospect of either Labour or Tory getting to a majority if the polls are pulled to the extremes of the margins of error in various directions.

It sounds good to say that but it's a false premise in reality. What about Lib Dems who voted in order to keep the Tories out for instance? The fact is that there was not one single vote in the last General Election for a ConDem Coalition Government. Not one!

With all the polling companies basically posting the same set of results for each party, is it possible that they are all making the same error when compiling poll data? If this is correct we could end up with a major shock result that nobody saw coming.

The Tory/Lib Dem's created a majority coalition making concessions on both of their manifestos to make this so. How many concessions will Labour make for the SNP? The SNP do not necessarily need to support Labour; if they feel Labour are not supporting them as much as they wish they can simply stay in opposition and whip up anti-Labour opinion in Scotland by saying Labour are not listening to them.

If they do listen, of course, then the Conservatives can stir up anti-Labour settlement in England by pushing the West Lothian question. The question is does David Cameron put his wishes ahead of the party? Understandably he would want to become Prime Minister again but the Tory party would be better off going into opposition once again - especially if they've pulled in the most seats but are unable to reach 326.

How could there be a single vote? The coalition didn't exist at the time.

The change election to election would be +4%.. that's quite mighty.

If it's a fault then it's a long-standing fault of the current union system. SNP and their supporters want an independent Scotland, not the current system with it's long list of problems, so really this is a question for Labour, Liberal and Conservatives and the failings of the union and it's politics.

The SNP won't govern though. They might support Miliband in his government by voting through a confidence motion but that's not governing, it's adding the support from their 30-50 MPs (at a guess) to a larger mixture of MPs from different parties (I'm assuming Plaid, Greens, etc also add their support - this is very hypothetical).

So it's not really 5 million Scots (not all Scots vote SNP for a start) against 50 million English. It's one party possibly adding their support to Labour rather than Tories and, by virtue of the arithmetic (again, hugely hypothetical) tipping the balance. If either Labour or Tory commanded more support it wouldn't be an issue.

Plaid, DUP, SDLP, etc all have the same potential issue in that they are either non-unionist or only standing in one part of the country yet they must exist within a Westminster that regulates for the whole country. They could tip the vote on any issue too if the vote was split enough. This is what happens when the majority can't agree on something. Even an individual MP can tip a vote if it's split enough and you have 10 million MPs. Why should the MP for Torquay get the casting vote in legislation affecting every other constituency? Because the other MPs voted and it was a dead split.

Does anyone think Labour might be underestimated? I just ask because in 2010, every one of the 9 polling companies underestimated labour's actual vote by between 1% and 6% and ALL predicted an outright Tory majority. Way off the mark.

Thats the point, no one voted for a coalition and we got one anyway, so there can be no complaints from The Tories if Labour/SNP oust Cameron from Number 10, thats they way the system works.

And the flipside of that question is what concessions might Cameron make in order to get the DUP on board? And would he work with UKIP should the numbers be tight, and of so, what concessions would he give them?

I think there's a more logical swing towards the Conservatives from UKIP though. Any swing from the Liberal Democrats to Labour seems to have already taken place although that's not to say there won't be any. It looks highly unlikely that there will be much swing from the SNP to Labour though Labour are seemingly going to do slightly better than previously expected. There were rumours of a complete Labour wipeout in Scotland but that doesn't seem to be on course to happen.

guess what. it didn't happen

No because I think the reason Lab was understated was because people on the day that said they were going to vote Lib Dem decided in the end to vote Labour, which is why LD was overstated by about 3%. I can't see the Lib Dems being overstated this time.

Lord Ashcroft tweeted a photo of what the pollsters predicted in 2010. I remember Kellner said the other day he thought the Tories would have 22 more seats then Labour, well in 2010 he predicted a Tory majority of 30. All of the other pollsters predicted a Tory majority as well.

Did they predict a Tory majority in 2010? Polls were predicting a hung parliament scenario right from the moment parliament was dissolved. And, I seem to recall, the Tories were predicted to have 296 seats to Labours 271 (or thereabouts). It was only the exit poll that gave the clearer picture.

EDIT: Oh, you mean, on the night itself!

A ConDem coalition is this time still seems likely to be a minority though, whereas it had a significant majority last time.


Precisely. But even now with a coalition currently in place, even if some people adore it and wish it to continue they have no way to actively vote for it. Just imagine how much messier it would get if you had the chance to vote ConDem as a candidate, aside from them as individuals!