Anthony Painter

Some mopping in the main this morning. A few hours after I posted on the Liberal Democrats strategy with regard to the post-election environment, I read a couple of pieces that further solidified my view that Nick Clegg sees his party as a competitor rather than collaborator with Labour.

First was David Marquand’s fascinating analysis of what happened following the 1923 election which resulted in a hung parliament. The interesting point he makes is that Ramsay MacDonald refused to cooperate with the Liberals, looking instead to replace them. I find it difficult to believe that the Liberal Democrats will find themselves in second place in terms of seats following the election (and I still doubt that they will do in terms of support) but the strategic parallels are interesting. Giles Wilkes seems to add further support to the replacement strategy theory.

Now, for a mop up on polling. The magnificent FiveThirtyEight has pitched into the UK election with a new model of seat distribution. It has already been picked up by Toby Young in the Telegraph. Interestingly, Peter Kellner is reporting that the Conservatives’ advantage in the marginals is declining. Liberal Democrats are taking support disproportionately from the Conservatives in the marginals. His ultimate prediction is that effect will slip back somewhat resulting in an outcome of 36-29-26 (Con-Lab-LD) with a seat outcome of 290-250-90.

Nate Silver at FiveThirtyEight lays out a number of different scenarios which- let’s be honest- is as good as any other way of doing this. His model allocates a certain portion of each party’s votes to another making it less uniform when it comes to seat prediction:

“The approach works by assigning shares of one party’s 2005 vote to another. For instance, what happens if 10 percent of people who voted for Labour in 2005 defect to the Conservatives, 15 percent of Labour’s voters defect to LibDems, and 10 percent of the Conservatives’ voters defect to LibDems?”

What the above implies is a degree of breakdown of the tactical vote between the Liberal Democrats and Labour. There are a range of scenarios but not one similar to the Kellner prediction above but worth having a scan through.

And, as for tmg.co.uk’s predictor, the weighted model currently has 307-229-81 which is based on poll of polls of 35-28-29 (Con-Lab-LD.) That shows the Conservatives higher and Labour lower than Peter Kellner’s predictions. Who is right? Well, no-one really knows but Peter Kellner has exceptional judgement on these matters. We’ll see. Can’t say any more than that!