My history tells me that in the past 5 years the coalition have saved the country.


It's not a tax.

She might want that but Labour won't let her.

She said that the SNP would have X number of seats and they would have their say in the House, not that she'd be twisting Ed's wrist.

Oh I agree with that, and that goes for whoever the government is, If they do win all the seats in Scotland, they must have a say even if the Tories are in power

Don't we have to factor in Labours built in advantage within the voting system though? The Tory's have to be about six points ahead of Labour just to get the same number of seats or something like that.

Many Tory's and Lib Dem's don't want another coalition and neither do I. The best option is a Tory majority but as that seems impossible I now would prefer Labour to be the largest party.

Having a look at Labour's target seats , Great Yarmouth is 74. Tories lead by 9.9 in the last election, Lord Ashcroft's latest poll says Tories lead by 2. If that proves accurate, that's swing of almost 8 to Labour

AFAIR, the Tories needed a 7-point lead to get a majority - they can get an equal/similar number of seats to Labour, or be the largest party in a hung parliament with a less % lead. Nonetheless, from what I understood - even with an equal vote share to Labour, Labour would still have more seats than the Tories (due to Lab's electoral advantage). Which is why, I'm slightly confused by the projections from various sources, but particularly Newsnight showing the Tories leading by roughly 30 seats or so, on a equal vote share. I don't get how they get those projections. Out of interest, why do you think a Labour majority is better than a Con-Lib coalition? At least you get some right-wing influence in that situation.

Precisely. Our political culture needs to understand the importance of the art of negotiation and compromise instead of these pantomime cartoon caricatures of arm twisting and people constantly being held to ransom. It's school kids talk.

Labour+SNP+PC+SDLP+Galloway+Lady Sylvia=326 and Miliband as PM.

I think the Labour electoral skew in their favour, where less votes equals more seats, requires that they aren't routed in Scotland. Labour being dead north of the border seems to result in a electoral balance.

Don't forget the Greens!

And this is why Miliband is the bookies massive odds-on favourite to be PM after the election.

Unless the Tories can win some of the voters around or get the ones who haven't yet to a polling station

Both the Tories and Labour have an inbuilt advantage. Is it fair that a party getting 15% of the vote may end up with 2seats instead of about 100?

Agreed. It's frankly embarrassing.

Labour have the biggest advantage. Not that you'll admit it..

The Labour advantage is minor compared to the advantage BOTH the Tories and Labour have over all the other parties, not that you'll admit it

How about we focus on your neck of the woods where a party may get 18% of the vote and end up with 0 seats instead of about 8....

No need to focus on anywhere, we need a more representational system so all political viewpoints which are voted for in numbers are properly represented.

Lets just hope Labour's negotiation team are better than that of 2010, only Peter Mandelson - who I don't even like! seemed organised. Ed Balls clearly ****ed up a Lib Dem pact by letting his ego get in the way. Labour better have learned some lessons and have a plan in place for May 8th, if not this won't work.

I'm on the fence - although leaning more and more towards PR. But playing Devil's advocate with you, unless that representation actually carries through to results - what is the point?

As an example, under PR we might have a situation where UKIP have 78 seats,. Because of the weight of the Coalition against them, UKIP will almost certainly not get any of their front line policies accepted. So, I repeat - what is the point?

(Apologies for derailing the Polls thread, don't know about anyone else but I'm finding the polls all over the place these days)

A bad set of numbers for Ukip in the Ashcroft polls.

Castle Point still seems possible (Ukip and Conservatives were pretty much neck and neck in the unweighted numbers) but worrying for for them that all the effort invested there doesn't seem to have advanced their position.

The Great Grimsby poll is a disaster for them. That's another consituency where they have invested huge effort but they've slipped right back.

That's a swing of 3.95%.

The reason most projections still predict a tory seat lead on the night is most projection models are still forecasting a late small movement to the tories

The point would be that the government represents the wishes of the majority. UKIP are unique in their position on a few major policies, so you either love them or hate than, but they will struggle to find friends in Parliament. Like the main parties they could move nearer the centre but that would kind of defeat the point.

They are a minority party and will not hold the reigns of power while that is the case.

Indeed. Didn't see the programme but BBC News just showed the ending and I agree.. he's effectively just read out the predicted seats from polling. Which as you rightly point out.. has UKIP on 1 seat when they look pretty good bets for at least 2 seats, possibly 3. It was just a gimmick basically.

Would have been much better to have had someone like Ashcroft do it.