This man predicted the US election results. Here's who he thinks will win here

The statistician who correctly predicted the outcome of every single state in the 2012 US presidential race has given his forecast for next month's general election.

Nate Silver told BBC's Panorama on Monday night that he believes the Conservatives will win the most seats on 7 May but that it could be an “incredibly messy outcome” and there is still “enormous uncertainty” about which parties will form the final government.

His model puts the Conservatives on 283 seats, Labour on 270, the SNP on 48, the Liberal Democrats on 24, the DUP on eight, Ukip on one and other parties on 16.

By these results no two parties would be able to form a majority without the help of a third.

Silver's model, created with three British academics - Chris Hanretty, Ben Lauderdale and Nick Vivyan, takes into account the popularity of local MPs and attempts to analyse people’s reluctance to disclose their voting preference before polling day.

The forecast suggests that the SNP will make gains in Scotland and that Ukip and the Liberal Democrats will suffer under the first past the post system, despite relatively widespread popularity.

More: The bosses of ten polling companies told us who will win the election