News
Indy100 Staff
Jan 18, 2015
Political commentator Iain Dale, who accurately predicted the European election results, has been reading the runes again.
This map for the Independent on Sunday shows all the constituencies that he thinks will change hands at the general election in May, and the result could lead to a three-way coalition. Welcome to five-party politics!
On completing the map, Dale wrote: "Clearly only an idiot or a massive political geek would undertake such a task and put his money where his mouth is. I’ll leave you to decide which I am."
He used resources like PoliticalBetting.com and UKPollingReport as well as Lord Ashcroft's constituency-based polls to make the study as scientific as possible but in the end, he notes, "you also have to sniff the political wind and rely on your own instinct".
Dale notes that the performances of Ukip and the Greens are the hardest to predict, although he is confident that the Lib Dems will lose over half their seats.
In Scotland, Dale finds it hard to believe the SNP will sweep up as many seats as people are predicting.
Ultimately it looks as though no one will be able to form a sustainable government and we could well be in for a second election come Autumn.
Iain Dale presents LBC Radio’s Drive-time show. All his seat by seat election predictions can be found at iaindale.com
You can follow him on Twitter @IainDale
More: Ten things that might happen in politics this year
More: Why British politics is so interesting at the moment, in three charts
Top 100
The Conversation (0)