What do people want, what will they vote for and what will they get?

So roughly a third of the British electorate would like to see a Liberal Democrat Government or so at least the opinion polls seem to indicate at present.  Roughly the same amount want a Tory Government and slightly less would like to see a Labour Government. 

 According to the UK Polling report calculator a result along the lines of 33% Tory, 32% Liberal Democrat and 27% Labour with 8% others would lead to the following result (assuming a uniform swing).

• Labour – 255 seats (for the party in third place)
• Conservative  – 246 seats (for the party in first place)
• Liberal Democrat – 118 seats (for the party in second place)
• Others – 31 seats

Aside from the obvious inequities of the first past the post system on such a result there is interesting news from YouGov.

According to Peter Kellner YouGov asked “How would you vote on May 6 if you thought the Liberal Democrats had a significant chance of winning the election”.

The response they got was staggering as follows :

•  Liberal Democrat 49%
• Conservative 25%
• Labour 19%
• Others 7%

Let us assume for a minute that half of the people who need to be persuaded that the Liberal Democrats can win the election can actually be persuaded that this is so.  Not all of them just half of them.

This might leave us with the following percentage votes assuming slightly more gain from Labour than the Tories

•  Liberal Democrat 40.5%
• Conservative 29.5%
• Labour 23%
• Others 7%

On the same basis of a uniform swing this would achieve the following result

• Labour – 155 seats (for the party in third place)
• Conservative  – 178 seats (for the party in second place)
• Liberal Democrat – 288 seats (for the party in first place)
• Others – 29 seats

At least a result which is more representative of the actual votes……and on a non uniform swing who know what might happen.

If people voted as per the YouGov poll then the figures (again on a uniform swing) would be as follows.

• Labour – 19 seats (for the party in third place)
• Conservative  – 25 seats (for the party in second place)
• Liberal Democrat – 548 seats (for the party in first place)
• Others – 15 seats

Again this would show up the madness of first past the post – still at least it would put the Liberal Democrat Members of Parliament into the position where they would be the turkeys voting for an early Christmas as we moved to a proportional system!