to ask if I'm alone in sensing that the election results will confound the pollsters??

[grovel]

It's just a gut feeling that the nation(s) won't vote as predicted.

Totally agree re. Labour chasing the 'perceived' wealthy.

If you are lucky enough to live in a house in an area that has vastly increased it's value it doesn't mean you have huge amounts of ready cash available to pay a sudden tax bill. Yes it means in the future you could sell up, move to the other side of the country and buy a castle. But generally these are normal people who bought when prices were reasonable and want to stay living in the area (where funnily enough all the houses are equally as expensive) and where they have jobs, and family and friends!

There was a recent debate about mansion tax on Radio 2 I think on the lead up to the elections and they were discussing whether it would have been better for them to have targeted the amount of land a house is built on. The 'proper' mansions where the super wealthy tend to live, but in sure any of these ideas have their problems so I guess going after house value was the easier option.

*my predictions
I think the tories will do better than expected, gaining quite a few marginals - esp from lib dems

snp could have all but the highlands/islands seat in Scotland

ukip will be a flash in the pan*

I'm currently unemployed - do you think I could get a job as a political pundit??

Balls not being in Parliament may make it easier for Yvette to stand because she won't have the problem of having her husband in her shadow cabinet , plus he can bake his famous cakes and make his lasagne at home!

I said yesterday that I thought it could be a conservative majority , rightly or wrongly the English people are conservative with a small 'c' .When they got into the polling booth they thought "better the devil you know "Labour felt like a leap into the unknown and they didn't want another coalition, it felt scary and worrying , they don't like the Conservatives but they didn't feel confident about the alternative .