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.

LateNightFury, SNP have said they won't work with the Conservatives but will work with Labour. Labour have said no to SNP coalition. Either party could potentially try to govern as a minority, but Labour would be more likely to be able to hold it together as a minority (if the seats were roughly equal) as more of the remaining parties (SNP, Plaid etc) are anti Tory than anti Labour.

Thanks squoosh

I did wonder about that squoosh. It's not like him to be quiet.

Democratic Unionist Party - a party in NI, founded by Ian Paisley and now led by Peter Robinson.

LateNightFury, technically Sinn Fein do not take up their seats in the House of Commons, 323 is required for a majority. SNP will only deal with Labour and Labour have ruled that out completely for now and Lib Dems have ruled out any coalition with SNP, so as it stands, any coalition formed is likely to fall short of the 323/326 required.

However, if seats do not go as predicted, then either Conservatives or Labour may have enough votes to form a coalition with Lib Dems.

I decided in the booth. And voted for a party I never voted for before (and this is FAR from my first election)

Ah ok. Thanks!

Now I have this image of the Tories gettign a slightly higher number and Cameron going begging to Nicola on his knees and her going nup! Feck off! Haha and him shame faced in front of the media going oops, no one wants to play. and having to hand it over to ed? that would hurt!

Of course in reality I know it doesn't happen like this, right?

Or ed turning to Nicola and going uh yeah, about that, still wanna join?

Haha!

I think the people who wouldn't vote Labour due to a potential alliance with the SNP weren't likely to vote Labour anyway.

The SNP are certainly very active in social media, more so than Labour. It was the same in the referendum.

I think the country will be hugely regionally divided. Not just Scotland/england, but north/south England. I think Labour will do well in northern England and the Tories in the south, to a greater extent than usual.

I think it will stay a Conservative/ Lib Dem coalition OR Comservative/UKIP

I'm actually really interested in this election and I have never said that before!!

I will honestly despair if its a CON/UKIP coalition.

I don't think ukip will be a factor at all. Their one or two seats at best won't be relevant.

SolomanDaisy - it doesn't quite work like that. The rural North tends to be firmly Tory - with Labour having so little support that they tend to lose their deposit.

The DUP are interesting. They're very conservative on certain social issues such as sexuality, but belong to a particular populist tradition which exists on both sides of the Irish border and doesn't really fit into British left / right categories. They're also very parochially Northern Irish and Northern Ireland is heavily dependent on public sector employment and subsidies from Westminster - no NI party has any interest in shrinking the state! My guess is they'll auction themselves off to the highest bidder in terms of public funding for NI.

Jeremy Vine interviewed all the smaller parties yesterday and it was very enlightening!

Anyone else old enough to remember the upset of john major winning that second term? 1993? Was it?
The pollsters read that completely wrong.

I think whatever else this election is it's generated massive interest and I also saw queues at the poling station.

All my older kids friends Are voting, some for the first time.

I am off tomorrow and have snacks and wine.

Op I think you may be absolutely spot on.

Major was 1992. I remember it well (although I wasn't able to vote as I was only 16 at the time).

Also the DUP currently have eight seats at Westminster, which will make them more statistically significant than either UKIP or the Greens, this despite the fact that no one over here has heard of them. Their slogan for this election is "More votes. More seats. More influence....For Northern Ireland And Fuck Everyone Else ". I think that sums them up nicely

I found it tricky - because I have personally dealt with the incumbent and liked him.

But the bottom line was that I couldn't be part of voting a Tory into parliament.

However good the incumbent is on local schools - his party brought in the hare-brained free schools plan - which is one of the reasons school provision is so erratic around here.

Yep I remember that election - 1992. I was annoyed cos I was slightly too young to vote (born 1974, August birthday).

With hindsight, its not surprising that the Tories won it.

I also think LibDems will do much better than suggested, I think maybe 40 or so seats. The projections of 27-30 just seem too low to me... I think they'll benefit from tactical anti Tory and anti labour votes.

I think and hope that the SNP will do a lot worse than expected. It'll be an increase on last time so they'll still claim it but hopefully not a clean sweep. I think that the no voters were pretty quiet last time and now the people who don't like the SNP are also pretty quiet, due to the very vocal nature of the SNP supporters.

I think SNP will do well but not a complete whitewash. I think there will be a huge amount of tactical voting up here in an attempt to keep them out. I also think Tories will do better but may be cancelled out (if my SNP prediction is correct) by higher Labour support in Scotland (ironically probably by true Tories!)

I understand that there are conservative and lib-dem seats in parts of northern England (duh). My suggestion is that they may lose some of those. It's rare for a Labour candidate to lose their deposit though, five seats in the UK in 2010.