There are perhaps two major issues:-
1. Scotland, in particular, and Wales behave differently, and again this is for two reasons. Firstly, the issues have always been different in these nations, and this is the mnore so now that the Westminster parliament is no longer responsible for services such as Health and Education there. Secondly, in Scotland and Wales there are four major parties, because of the Scottish Nationalist Party and Plaid Cymru: obviously if there is a swing from one major party to the nationalists they may lose sufficient votes to forfeit a set either to the nationalists or to another party which holds onto (or increases) its vote.
In the 1950s, England and Wales swung (e.g. in the 1959 election) to the Conservatives, whilst the Tories lost a number of seats to Labour in Scotland. More recently, in 1987 Labour made little progress compared to 1983 in England, but achieved substantial swings and won seats (for example Cardiff West) in both Scotland and Wales.

The position is complicated, even in England, because not all the seats on the Tory target list have Labour in second place: in some the Liberal Democrats are second. In addition, it matters how strong the third party’s vote is: the more votes the third (and subsequent) candidates got at the previous election the more possibility there is for tactical voting.

Liberal Democrat gains and losses cause particular problems. At the moment, it appears likely that overall LibDem strength at the next election will be not dissimilar to last time; but if there is a swing away from Labour it is likely that the LibDems will on balance be winning seats from Labour and losing them to the Tories (and the LibDem target list has fewer Labour seats that Tory ones). Unfortunately, few opinion polls question enough voters to identify where the LIbDems are likely to be gaining or losing. And LibDem gains and losses tend to have more to do with local or specific issues (e.g., last time, student loans) and the qualities of candidates than do seats changing hands between Tory and Labour.

Unfortunately, the BNP will be targeting a select number of seat next time. Current conventional opinion is that their voters are predominantly disaffected ex-Labour voters. A BNP candidate even getting a few per cent of the vote may mean the Tory gets in on an apparently larger swing. There are even a few seats in which a swing to the BNP may have the effect of returning a LIbDem MP instead of a Labour one. SImilarly, it may make a difference whether a Green or UKIP candidate is standing, or gets a changed proportion of the vote: Green votes tend to be from electors who might otherwise vote Labour or LibDem, UKIP voters otherwise being mostly Tory.

Traditionally, in England the swing, in either direction, tend to be bigger in London, particularly, and the South East than in the North: a reason for this is that more electors move in and out between elections around the capital.

Having said all this, in England the swing tends to be fairly uniform. If, for the sake of argument, the Tories won a hundred seats in England I would expect them to have won (I am thinking on my feet here) almost all their first seventy five English targets, whilst Labour would hold almost all the seats beyond a hundred and twenty five on the target list. But this does leave room for upsets.

The famous upset in recent time was Labour’s Stephen Twigg’s gain of Enfield Southgate from Michael Portillo in 1997. In the same election, Labolur won Crosby on a huge swing. Again in 1997, the LibDems’ win in Carlshalton was surprising.

To express thoughts on surprises next time is just too risky for credible commentators. In addition, it has implications for political betting.

Back to sobriety, it appears likely that the swing at the next election will be even more uniform than usual, because the economy is so overwhelmingly important as an issue at the moment, and of course it is a national issue.

I hope that is enough for you to be getting on with!

In the event of the Tories winning by a majority of 20 or 30 seats would the 100 most marginal seats [ie the 100 cons' target seats quoted here] be the ones to fall?

Alternatively, are there significant regional vatiations which may result in Labour retaining a particularly vunerable seat or conversely losing a relatively “Safe” one.?
How many upsets really occure?

Any thoughts on surprises this time round?
Cheers.

1. G20 – as has been commented above and elsewhere, this is likely to be a damp squib. There is a risk for Brown in trying to puff it up in that it could backfire. Sustained improvement in Labour’s position as a result of a global jamboree is unrealistic.

2. Indeed, the Euro and County Council elections will definitely happen on 4th June, while the date of the next GE is uncertain – though it too could be on 4th June. So far we have had only one national Euro Poll and one Euro question in a Scottish poll.

Historically, minor parties have generally done well in Euro Elections – often because these may be perceived as a cost-free way of sending a protest message. Leaving aside SNP/PC, I would expect the minor parties to register well into double figures in aggregate, though UKIP will definitely lose seats, the Greens may well struggle to hold theirs, and the BNP could possibly gain their first MEPs.

For the County Councils, the common expectation is that Labour will do badly, and are likely to lose their last remaining Counties. Bear in mind that these are predominantly in rural England, so will not really tell us anything new. Also, projections that Labour will lose 100s of seats are wide of the mark since they are only defending some 600 seats out of 2400 in total. (LDs have 500 and Con 1200).

Personally despite being a Tory, i’m extremely fond of Clegg (I really like Orange Book Liberals). If they could actually ever ben within a change of government I’d definately support them….