To think the Tories have it in the bag.

[Littlefluffyclouds81]

I hope IABU.

To be fair, this is only based on the West Country (I do quite a lot of driving so I'm including Cornwall, Devon, Somerset, Wiltshire, Dorset, bristol and bath). Driving around, I'd say the amount of stake boards and posters I've seen roughly represent these proportions:

Conservative: 60%
Green: 15%
UKIP: 15%
Lib dem: 8%
Labour: 2%

They have it sewn up, don't they? My mum is involved in politics and her prediction is a Tory/UKIP coalition

If that happens I'm emigrating.

General Elections are always the first Thursday in May though. At least they have been for at least the last twenty years

Apart from these:

3 May 1979
9 June 1983
11 June 1987

9 April 1992
11 May 1997
7 June 2001
5 May 2005
6 May 2010

The fixed term Parliament Act was in 2011. Now it's the first Thursday in May.

Random question because some of you might know: are elections in this country always on a Thursday, and why?

Yes - on a Thursday.

Tradition?

Because traditionally market days were on Thursdays so punters were coming in to town anyway.

Socialist shithole?

There are absolutely no socialists in the running.

I think you need to check your political vocabulary.

Where would you go to, needadognow?

Plus I'm really not convinced of this economic recovery at all. The deficit is higher than ever. Growth isn't really growing and we are still making making cuts that have no positive impact for anyone.

When I was a student I voted in my home town by postal vote.

I wonder how many of them do that rather than vote on their uni town

Market days aren't always Thursdays!

It's a weekday, because as polling stations are local and you'd be doing your usual round of work, chores and errands, and so would find it straightforward to call in to a polling station.

I stand corrected.

Lots of other suggestions for the thinking behind Thursday elections here

Orlando - lots of the dates in your list were the first Thurs in May though

Except those which weren't.

Well yes - but I thought you listed GE dates that were the exception to the "first Thursday in May" rules

I live in Devon and don't know who I am voting for yet. I bet loads of people are still undecided.

The panorama last night was interesting viewing- I hope its wrong though I'm voting conservatives- I don't feel confident for a clear cut result I can see upsets ahead

Thanks Crystal.

Monstrous.

Oh no, not Lorely Burt
She has been a great constituency MP.
Where are you finding the odds, redtoothbrush?

As regards Sheffield Hallam, I wonder if it's possible that there is a 'shy Tory' effect going on among Clegg supporters?

People might say to their mates, 'no, no, would never vote for that tosser. Lying bastard. Tuition fees!' but in the polling booth think, 'well, he did the best he could with the hand he was dealt... he seems like a nice chap... came across well on the Last Leg' and vote for him anyway?

I think Nick Clegg is has come across as more of a dick in the last few weeks than at almost any point over the last 5 years. 'George Osborne is a dangerous man' after casually nodding through every Tory policy he could, FFS.

If he thought all George's hideous economic policies were so shite then why did he sit through all the budgets, sagely nodding from his Deputy PM spot on the bench.

electionforecast.co.uk

They are updating daily their predictions.

They have a couple of interesting sections by seat. They have predicted share intervals where they list they percentage range likely for each seat eg Sheffield Hallam they are predicting
16-24% Con
27-35% Lab
32-39% LD
5-10% Green
2-7% UKIP
1-5% Other

And then they do a prediction for the winner in each Constituency

Its very clever (and was part of the data that they used for the Panorama programme) and a lot more interesting than some of the data being produced by other polls.

It seems to match the betting for most of the Constituencies too.

The Telegraph have a handy map based on the current projection from electionforecast here

I've also been using may2015.com/category/seat-calculator/ which is comparing polls and their predictions for the number of seats.

The BBC poll tracker is also worth a look if you are a stat fiend, but its based on overall percentages so is only interesting to a point. Bare in mind that the seats have a slight bias to Labour, so the Conservative actually need a slightly higher percentage of the popular vote to win roughly the same number of seats.

Redtoothbrush We live in Lynne Featherstone's constituency, and i really hope we get rid of her. She is a real Marmite MP. Personally I don't like her, wasn't overly impressed with her at our local hustings last week (where the majority seemed to be leaning towards Labour, but that was only a 100 or so people). Lynne's campaigning has been very negative against Labour.

We were a Labour seat for years, I hope we can get back to that. It's looking very close.

Incidentally, the Tory candidate didn't even reply to the hustings invite, and apparently when out canvassing, he hides around the corner and will only come to the doorstep if the occupier has said they support the Conservatives.

I like Clegg. My opinion of him hasn't changed much since before the last election. I hope he survives as a moderating force in whatever government he chooses.

I don't get the LD voters who threw toys out of the pram over tuition fees saying they were betrayed when the LDs also advocated Pro Rep on their 2010 manifesto and were therefore always in favour of coalitions and their inevitable policy compromises. The 'graduate' tax system we've ended up with is pretty fair if you have a head for numbers. DH was under the previous scheme and calculated he has paid more than he would have under the current system. It does seem like Clegg has been beaten by a stick repeatedly about the issue to the point that its become quite ridiculous.

Its unfortunate they are trailing here and I'm in an important marginal. Our local LD candidate is the strongest they have had for many years. I'll vote for them for the Local Election but probably vote differently for the General Election.

And yeah, he did come across well on the Last Leg imho!

I agree with redtoothbrush. If you do the maths, graduates generally end up paying less under the current system than they did in the old one esp if not high earners. Oh, and the univesities are better funded and happier too...

But no-one wants to hear a story that involves doing the maths, they want to hear a story where lying bastard politicians lied to us. That's democracy, and that's what we've got to work with. Fair enough.

But I'm also slightly annoyed by how many people on these boards have said; 'It doesn't matter how I vote because I'm in a safe seat! Why don't we have PR?'

The Lib Dems sacrificed the tuition fee pledge, and got branded as liars forever, so you could have a referendum on a fairer voting system. You, the people, said no, we prefer the shitty one that the papers told us to stick with. Well, fair enough, that's democracy, but... seriously dude?!

Well I voted yes to AV but it is not a poroportional system. It was a rubbish compromise offer. I would much prefer STV or another type of proportional system. Voting yes to AV would not have made our system proportional but would have benefitted the three main parties, especially the Lib Dems, at the expense of smaller ones in many constituencies making the issue worse not better.

True, AV is a compromise, but it would have avoided the problem of wanting to vote A, but having to vote B or else party C will win, which seems to be going on a lot.

What does everyone make of Miliband's ruling out of a SNP coalition?