“Having done a quick look-up in Wikipedia, there seem to be several forms of STV. In the single-constituency version, it could work to the advantage of minor parties. e.g. in a constituency where you had to rank Con, Lab, Lib, Green and BNP in order of preference, a good number of second choices would go to the Greens and BNP as well as Liberals.”

Actually, STV only works to the benefit of minor parties in large multi-member constituencies. In single-member STV (more properly called AV) it is vary rare for a candidate who did not come in top two in first preferences to be elected.

For a party to win from only 25% in first preferences the other 75% would have to be widely spread, with lots of second preference transfers either falling by the wayside or the vast majority going to that party.

I can’t see that helping any party who are not a “major player”.

Until Alan Johnson let the cat out of the bag on immigration.

Non-partisan>?

Con ~ 40

Lab ~ 26

LD ~ 20

Others ~ 14

It also looks like Like Labour will be almost wiped out of existance in large areas of England and be hammered in Wales.
Scotland may very well not be too hard on Browns Labour Government as the Scots have virtually been running the UK Government for most of the past 12 years anyway!

Next May can’t come quick enough to be rid of this worn out pathetic apology of a Government – Be gone!!

Never happened before, won’t happen now.

The Lib Dems ALWAYS gain support during an election campaign as they get more exposure. Also, the economy is their major strength with Vince Cable the undisputed cock of the Northern Rock.

The Conservatives are in the lead at the moment largely because they’re not Labour; when their record on expenses and their policies are scrutinised carefully, especially their grave economic errors on the recession, I expect them to lose support to poll just below 40%.

Labour will probably consolidate their core vote and recover a little as people realise they weren’t the only party whose MPs were on the fiddle (or even the worst!).

But there’s still all to play for; I suspect Michael Heseltine is much closer to the mark than some pundits on here because he’s a wise old head who’s seen it all before.

My predictions:

Conservative 38%
Labour 28%
Lib Dems 23%
Others 11%

The BNP will not gain a single MP, especially after Griffin’s pathetic performance on Question Time.

“right now october is nearly over hear is my second prediction for the next election in 2010

CON 383 SEATS

LAB 202 SEATS

LD 35 SEATS

OTH 30 SEATS

CON MAJ 116

VOTE SHERE

CON 42.5 +9.3

LAB 26.5 -9.6

LD 17.8 -4.8

OTH 13.2 +5.1

CON LEAD +16%

SWING FROM LAB TO CON 9.4%

AT RISK LABOUR MAJ UPTO 18.8%”

Your vote shares look reasonable but the LibDems will do far better than that in seat terms.

Also your ‘at risk Labour maj upto 18.8%’ fails to understand that UNS is only an average – half of seats will have higher swing and half lower. A UNS of 9.4% would put Labour seats with majorities of upto 25% at risk possibly seats with majorities as high as 30%.

“In terms of the growth figures, it’s worth looking at the city response to this mornings manufacturing data (biggest jump in output for two years) and consumer confidence (continued recovery). It further suggests the official first estimates of Q3 GDP (based on only 40% hard data and 60% projection) may well be wrong. Most now expect a sharp upward revision to the GDP estimates, but it may still not be enough to bring an official end to the recession in Q3.”

There may be an adjustment but these surveys, surveys I point out not actual data, will not affect it because they relate to October ie Q4.

“England will decide the election and as far as i can see labour will be wiped out, Scotland will vote snp and the BNP will win at least one seat in the yorkshire area .”

On what polling do you base these assumptions?