Coalitions

Just a short posting to record my current estimate of what will happen in the UK general election next month.

This will probably change but the best guess I have (most based on bookie quotes) is the following:
Conservative 285 seats.
Labour 270.
Scottish Nationalist 44.
Liberal Democrat 26.
Democratic Unionist 8.
Sinn Fein 5.
Party of Wales 3.
Social Democratic and Labour 3.
UK Independence 2.
Green 1.
Alliance 1.
Independent Unionist 1.
The Speaker 1.

The most obvious coalition would be Labour, SNP, Liberal Democrat (340 seats, a majority of 31).

But the one that actually works best would be the most devious. A Conservative-SNP coalition would have a 9 seat majority and could only have one agenda: Scottish independence, taking away a dozen Labour and three Tory seats.

Devious because Labour would point out that the SNP promised not to let the Tories back in. To which the answer would be “not in Scotland, we haven’t”. Devious also because the Tory party, which most benefits from Scottish independence, sees itself as defender of the Union.

Who wants the power, and how badly?