That puts it within 1% of my guesstimated mean from the other day (33 / 33 / 8 / 13 / 5) - it looks like the polls are still refusing to budge an inch. This is proving to be the most tedious election campaign ever...

There is a new toy for the Conservative campaign boss, the SNP.

They are really going with how teeny-tiny SNP will lord it over not only Labour but the Conservatives in the House of Commons.

Apparently Nicola Sturgeon is the Scottish Devil, or maybe Thatcher II, or something powerful anyway.

I see how the SNP threat stirs up their own supporters but i'm not sure that it worries people in the centre/centre-left that much. Lets not forget that Sturgeon basically won the main leaders debate and 20% of English people are currently saying they would vote SNP if they stood in England.

Maybe i'm not the most representative of voters but i'm really not worried by the SNP. The press is whipping them up as some sort of Maxist/Stalinist hard left party but they're basically just traditional European socialists. I find it hard to get that scared by plans to increase spending by 0.5% or to not have nuclear weapon - mainly because Labour isn't going to implement them anyway. A party of 50 MPs who have no alternative coalition partner are not going to have that much influence over 250-300 Labour MPs.

Good points I would add though why some people are worried is if they have an undue influence over politics in England.....They can help make decisions that effect English Issues, where the public are unable at any point (in England) to vote them out......

Same goes for any MP if you don't live in the area. You could say the same about co-op MPs having undue influence and no one in the SW can vote them out.

It's pure scaremongering at the end of the day. It's not like we've had chancellors, leaders of Scottish decent running the country before!

I agree that there is clearly a democratic deficit with Scottish devolution and the lack of subsequent arrangements in the UK. I'm strongly of the opinion that an English parliament would be too powerful within the UK and would eventually lead to to the end of the Union, however there's no reason why areas of similar size to Scotland in England shouldn't receive their own devolution.

However given the current situation I see no reason why 50 SNP MPs should have less influence over the UK government then 50 Lib Dems - however I do expect Labour to resist all attempts at parochial demands. The UK government has to be a national one and ANY concessions to one single region would be fatal.

Agree, it would be a tightrope for Labour.

Do you think A tory+LD coalition with minority support would be able to last any great distance? E.g if Tory + LD equalled say 315 and the DUP and UKIP agreed to vote with them on key issues?

I'm not sure really, it's a tricky thing to predict. I never thought the current coalition would last the whole 5 years: mainly because I assumed at some point that the left wing of the Lib Dems would stage a coup, but Clegg seems to have completely neutered them.

If we do get the above result (which actually is what i'm predicting, even now) then Labour will slip into turmoil. I think it will be worse than last time as the Blairites will try to take the party back and the membership won't accept it. Also the SNP will face a harsh backlash from it's part in Labour's defeat. So there's going to be a very weak and divided opposiiton.

The Tories won't deal with UKIP as the LD's wont allow it, however UKIP will probably vote with them on most issues. So what you'll get is a reheated version of the last coalition - austerity, a few LD spending commitments, nods towards electoral reform and the big one, the EU referendum with a number of (ultimately helpful) concessions to the LDs to help the pro-EU vote.

A very long term prediction here, but I guess the government will end with the EU renegotiation, which will basically be a scam. I expect the right of the Tory party to go ballistic and bring down the government rather than go ahead with the referendum.

Interesting analysis, I think a Tory + LD coalition is most likely if it can get through a queens speech because Clegg seems to of made clear he wants to work with the largest party (which I believe will be the CON's).

I am all against more politicians with the devolution to other areas idea....if it can be done with no more layers of government it might change my mind.....The thing is with the Lib Dems they sit in all regions of Britain, whereas the SNP just sit in Scotland....actually I would be for a spin off SNP in England and maybe call it the Socialist National Party (probably another out there with a similar name already)....not necessarily because I would believe what they stand for but it would be better for democracy if there were another strong (true) left wing party. Also that wouldn't make me feel so worried that the SNP would have too much power, because they would be sitting in effect in English seats also.....

Current poll of polls:

Labour 33.9
Tories 33.7
UKIP 13.3
Lib Dems 8.3
Greens 5

You sum things up really well ....... Whatever happens there is interesting times ahead in politics and you cant often say that ...... I still think a Labour/Lib Dem with SNP backing on certain issues is still the most likely atm ...... although a stay as you are (going slightly by last years European Elections) might be nearly as strong as an outcome.

I found that POV from Clegg very interesting - particularly as a politician who is pro-coalition/PR, in Europe there are many occasions when the second placed party does get into government via coalition - then again, perhaps he is tailoring his view to an electorate which he knows isn't particularly pro-coalitions. As it is, I think Clegg probably does have a preference to work with the Conservatives I suspect he knows that there's a more likely chance he'll be LD leader under a Conservative-LD arrangement. Although, whether a Tory-LD coalition happens isn't actually up to Clegg - the LDs have to get approval from MPs (what's left of them), as well as their federal executive committee - like they did last time. I suspect that despite the slight upturn in LD fortunes in the polls, they'll still get pretty decimated in the elections, and with the damage done to LD brand, I'd suggest that convincing a centre-left party base to participate in a second coalition with the Conservatives is going to be far harder than many are implying.
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And on the wider context of what would happen to the Labour party if they didn't get back into government, I actually don't think they'd be too divided. The Brownite generation would pretty much sink to the abyss similarly to the way Blairites are, paving the way for the 2010 generation if Labour MPs. The real question is whether than generation is sufficent enough to get Labour back into government. As for the SNP, the more Labour becomes preoccupied with the centre of British politics - which means it'll continue to emulate a wierd hybrid of left/right politics in order to appeal to CD2E 'white van man' type - the more more SNP, I suspect will move from strength to strength in Scotland. I think that the only backlash the SNP will face for Labour's defeat will primarily be England centered, more than anything else.

As for the polls, I think another 1992 is coming up - not not necessarily in terms of the result. As more and more have become disillusioned with the two main parties, and we've seen the rise of smaller parties, I think that polling companies have struggled to deal with this change in British politics. Is the ICM/Ashcroft methodology of reallocating based on previous voting history right? Or is it prompting smaller parties, such as Survation (AFAIR) do? I don't think the polls will change much until election day - in the end, only the exit poll is really going to be able to tell us who will be the large party.

Very good analysis. Its really hard to call whats going to happen.

But won't the exit polls suffer from similar sampling weaknesses as the ongoing polls (ie weighting by previous voting intentions?)

You may find this article informative on the subject of the exit poll:-

http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/fac/sci/st...poll-explainer

Exit polls have really good data.

Polls over the last 5 years have been 50% offal, 50% data. The end result is close to a guess based on known human behaviour and how good looking the party leader is.

The exit poll comes close to being an actual science.

Good points, also if my memory serves me right didn't they nearly get it spot on in 2010 with the exit poll?

Yougov where bang on the money.

Thanks very interesting!

Thanks for that! .... Might not stay up and watch then and get a good nights sleep

Na because its people saying how they've just voted so they can't change their mind , also they do it in specific constituency's and are able to see whether national swings are occuring or whether its more regional and they can then apply that data to similar seats etc. Also its a very big sample size.

Looks like the Tory high command are taking the gridlock in the polls as accurate because they seem to have given up any semblance of running a positive campaign and have gone full tilt into Project Fear Part Two. Gone is the talk of allowing people to buy shares they already own and holding the price of train tickets to travel in overcrowded and unreliable trains, now it is all about scaremongering about those pesky Scots who will not know their place and vote as they are supposed to.
Desperate times indeed when they wheel out doddery old John Major to bleat on about how absolutely horrid it would be if those Scots got their grubby paws on the levers of power.
So IMO the polls are near enough to what will happen and the fun and games over the following weeks will be a joy, well a joy for some of us anyway

Hopefully more people are seeing through the corporate media's antics and tactics especially in election season and are less likely to be swayed by them unduly.