Just a bit of fun: General Election Prediction

I have marked the start of the general election campaign by entering the prediction competition at UK Polling Report.

My figures are as follows:

• Labour 372
• Conservatives 182
• Lib Dems 61
• SNP 6
• Plaid Cymru 5
• Kidderminster Health Concern 1
• Speaker 1

Labour Majority of 100.

I reached this result by the following entirely entirely scientific procedure:

Picking a few likely recent poll results from UK Polling Report, namely Labour 37%, Conservatives 34%, and Liberal Democrats 21%.

Putting these figures through the predictor at Martin Baxter’s Electoral Calculus site, with a 5% tactical swing from Labour to the Lib Dems. (Well, why not. You can’t have an election without some Tory front bench scalps.)

The UK Polling Report competition does not cover Northern Ireland, anticipating that a competition will appear at Nicholas Whyte’s Northern Ireland Elections site.

All of these sites and more are featured on my updated Westminster General election 2005 post, and the sidebar to the left. Thanks to Richard Kimber for pointing us to his British General Election 2005 resources.