Ménage à trois

Sorry for lack of posts recently. Have been in London, which I shall have more to say about later.

Well, the election campaign is finally upon us. I'd like to be able to say something like election fever is gripping the nation, but it's really more like a light sniffle, with the occasional cough. That is not for want of media coverage, mind you - only wars have recieved more coverage than this campaign.

Below is a list of 'special' seats - seats where, based on the likely national swings, there is a chance of a very close result between Labour, the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats.

Derby North
Edinburgh North and Leith
Edinburgh South
Hampstead and Kilburn
Norwich South
Watford

In these seats, Labour came first, the Liberal Democrats second and the Tories third. For each I have provided the implied 2005 share of the vote along with the projected national swing, for which I shall use the current change in the vote implied by the polls

LABOUR DOWN 6%
TORIES UP 6%
LIBERAL DEMOCRATS DOWN 3%
OTHERS UP 3%


Derby North 2005: LAB 40%, LIB 31%, CON 26%
Prediction: LAB 34%, CON 32%, LIB 28%

Edinburgh North and Leith 2005: LAB 34%, LIB 29%, CON 19%
Prediction: LAB 28%, LIB 26%, CON 25%

Edinburgh South 2005: LAB 33%, LIB 32%, CON 24%
Prediction: CON 30%, LIB 29%, LAB 27%

Hampstead and Kilburn 2005: LAB 37%, LIB 34%, CON 24%
Prediction: LAB 31%, LIB 31%, CON 30%

Norwich South 2005: LAB 38%, LIB 30%, CON 22%
Prediction: LAB 32%, CON 28%, LIB 27%

Watford 2005: LAB 34%, LIB 31%, CON 30%
Prediction: CON 36%, LAB 28%, LIB 28%


Basically, if the projected share of the vote between the 1st and 3rd parties is anything less than 10%, it will be really interesting. Though the result may not be politically significant in itself, I am pretty interested in the mathematics of it all.

A special mention goes to Ealing Central and Acton, the notional 2005 result of whose is as follows:
CON: 12655 (32.8%)
LAB: 12561 (32.6%)
LIB: 11468 (29.7%)

I did not mention as part of the previous list of seats as it is unlikely to be so close this time round, the projected result being something like CON 39% LAB 30% LIB 27%