I have been playing with an election forecasting calculator thingy. http://www.netcoms.com/election2005/election_predictor.asp This one (Ed: site now defunct), the BBC have one which yields very similar results.
I poked in some numbers…..
Let’s say New labour, Conservatives and the Lib Dems all got the same number of votes and the rest got the same number they did last time. Well, this is what you get:
| Results of split | 2005 | 2001 | +/- Change |
| New Labour | 327 (30.2%) | 403 (40.7%) | -76 (-10.5%) |
| Conservative | 177 (30.2%) | 165 (31.7%) | +12 (-1.5%) |
| Liberal Democrat | 113 (30.2%) | 51 (18.3%) | +62 (+11.9%) |
| SNP | 6 (1.8%) | 4 (1.8%) | +2 (0%) |
| Plaid Cymru | 4 (0.7%) | 4 (0.7%) | — (0%) |
| Others | 19 (6.8%) | 19 (6.8%) | — (0%) |
It could be argued that it would be a great result for socialists!!!!
Ten seats is a great result?
Well, it would give a new Labour majority of what, 8? So all it would take is 4 of the left winger labour MPs, I believe there are still some, to threaten to take down any piece of government legislation unless they got summat in return…..so I was thinking that a small majority would give the lefties a much much greater influence.
Are there 4 socialists left in New Labour? I thought they had all retired in disillusioned disgust, or defected to the Lib Dems?
So that leaves ten Socialists. SNP (6) + PC (4) = 10 in the whole place, and I am not too sure about all of those?