A realistic forecast for 2010 and a "fantasy" one
The New Statesman website has two extremely different predictions for 2010
Peter Kellner the (Labour leaning) Chairman of the Yougov polling company has this message for labour optimists: "Get Real!"
At the other extreme, James Mackintyre, who predicted last year in his Political Predictions for 2009 that
"By the end of the year, the two main parties will have switched positions in the polls, with the Conservatives heading into 2010 languishing below 30 per cent."
gets out his crystal ball again and makes a prediction for 2010 which he himself describes as Fantasy Politics.
I am not sure how serious this prediction is supposed to be, particularly given the title: it predicts a 6th May election (that date is plausible) in which BBC and ITV exit polls project a Conservative majority of 30 to 50 seats but when the actual votes are counted Labour have emerged as the largest party in a hung parliament.
This reminds me of an article in one of the papers just before the 1997 election which suggested that there was some chance that the Conservatives might scrape home in that election. I wasn't certain at the time whether that was supposed to be serious either.
I find it very interesting that the most optimistic projections that anyone in the Labour camp or their supporters feel able to put forward suggest a hung parliament in which no party has a majority.
A hung parliament would be a disaster both for Britain and Copeland: for the country because nobody would have the mandate to take the painful decisions which are needed, for Copeland because it would leave the anti-nuclear Lib/Dems holding the balance of power.
Although the majority of recent opinion polls suggest that the most likely result of the election is a narrow majority for the Conservatives, no election result is certain until the votes are counted and nobody can afford any complacency about the results of the coming election, either in Copeland or nationally. The result could be very close and every vote will count.
Peter Kellner the (Labour leaning) Chairman of the Yougov polling company has this message for labour optimists: "Get Real!"
At the other extreme, James Mackintyre, who predicted last year in his Political Predictions for 2009 that
"By the end of the year, the two main parties will have switched positions in the polls, with the Conservatives heading into 2010 languishing below 30 per cent."
gets out his crystal ball again and makes a prediction for 2010 which he himself describes as Fantasy Politics.
I am not sure how serious this prediction is supposed to be, particularly given the title: it predicts a 6th May election (that date is plausible) in which BBC and ITV exit polls project a Conservative majority of 30 to 50 seats but when the actual votes are counted Labour have emerged as the largest party in a hung parliament.
This reminds me of an article in one of the papers just before the 1997 election which suggested that there was some chance that the Conservatives might scrape home in that election. I wasn't certain at the time whether that was supposed to be serious either.
I find it very interesting that the most optimistic projections that anyone in the Labour camp or their supporters feel able to put forward suggest a hung parliament in which no party has a majority.
A hung parliament would be a disaster both for Britain and Copeland: for the country because nobody would have the mandate to take the painful decisions which are needed, for Copeland because it would leave the anti-nuclear Lib/Dems holding the balance of power.
Although the majority of recent opinion polls suggest that the most likely result of the election is a narrow majority for the Conservatives, no election result is certain until the votes are counted and nobody can afford any complacency about the results of the coming election, either in Copeland or nationally. The result could be very close and every vote will count.
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