The Big Prediction

So here we go. The eve of the election and it’s time for predictions. McNaughtonspolitics is predicting this. Labour will be a whisker be the largest party, possible a dead heat but I am going for a small advantage. I’m going for Labour on 272, Conservative 270, Liberal Democrat 28, , SNP 52, PC 4. Ukip 3, Green 1 The rest, NI and others. More importantly, what will happen afterwards? Clearly, if Labour is the largest party they will be summoned to the palace and asked to form an administration, and Miliband will accept. I go along with the idea of a Labour/Lib Dem minority coalition, so there will be five days negotiation between the two parties followed by some kind of memorandum of agreement. That will add up to about 300 seats. Precise numbers don’t matter because the two will not be able to muster enough seats for a majority without SNP support. The Queen’s Speech will follow after private discussions with SNP, probably not publicised and even denied, this will be approved by a parliamentary majority as the SNP will not dare to bring down a prospective government. There will be further budget negotiations and, again, SNP will support the final version. Again the government will deny a deal with the SNP, but there will have been one privately. Thereafter the fun starts. If the Conservatives are the largest party, the scenario is less clear. My feeling is that, assuming the numbers don’t add up (i.e. Con/LD combined + possible DUP, forget Ukip) I think Cameron will go quickly and advise the Queen to summon Miliband. After that the scenario is as above. Longer term, I think a Labour government may last for one session and then engineer an election. In its first year it will pick the low hanging fruit and produce a raft of popular measures (bank levy and regulation, taxes on the wealthy, minimum wage increase, more devolution to Scotland etc. and only a few unpopular ones. By then Johnson will be Conservative leader. The election of 2016 will be interesting to say the least as Scottish independence will then be back in play (Scottish Parliament elections in 2016). For me, in such a story, the key question will be, has Miliband grown into the role of PM? A footnote. If Farage loses his seat and resigns, it’s goodbye to Ukip.