Last night was the last debate and after the loss of the court case I wrote about in my last post, it was the same characters that took part in the last 2 debates.
Listening to the radio reaction this morning is totally focused on these three parties and how their leaders acted during the debate, did they look confident etc. and not actually about what they say they will do in power.
There is 6 campaigning days left and of course there is time for one of the parties to make a severe gaff that changes everything, but as long as no hidden microphones are forgotten, it looks pretty clear to me what will happen.
Overall, I can see a UK wide win for the Conservatives, probably enough to get an overall majority.
Think that Labour will get second place in terms of number of seats and although the Lib Dems have had a lot of publicity due to the TV debates, I don’t see it being enough to get them into 2nd place or cause a hung parliament. It’s one thing to get a lot of clicks on Youtube and another to get people to actually go out and vote in enough numbers to cause any difference in a first-past-the-post system.
In Scotland, I would predict it will be pretty much like last time we had UK elections.
I think the biggest losers on the night will be the SNP. Although they are the government of Scotland in the Edinburgh parliament, they have been made to look completely irrelevant in this election. Their core vote will still turn up, but they will be lucky to hold on to the (poor) number of seats they got last time.
Tories will win a couple of extra and I reckon that Lib Dems will stay roughly the same as they don’t have the same “Think Different” effect in Scotland than they do in England as that space is already taken by the SNP.
From our 59 MP’s I would predict at the moment:
Labour 38 – 40
Lib Dems 12 -14
SNP 4 – 6
Tories 3 – 4
But of course, I may be as good at predicting elections as I am at predicting football scores, in which case we will have a Monster Raving Loony Party landslide! (Let’s hope so).
