Thoughts on politics and life from a liberal perspective

Thursday 31 December 2009

My Predictions for 2010

Featured on Liberal Democrat Voice

Here are my predictions for the coming year:

  1. Gordon Brown will push the General Election very late to May or June.
  2. There will be a hung parliament after the General Election with the Conservatives as the largest single party.
  3. The Lib Dems will lose seats despite the vote share being very similar to last time.
  4. David Miliband will become Labour leader after the election.
  5. England will go out of the World Cup in the quarter-finals (sorry to sound unpatriotic but 44 years of hurt and all that...)
  6. Like last year, I again predict that Eddie Mair will become the new host of Question Time.
  7. Caroline Lucas will become the Green Party's first MP.
  8. Nigel Farage will become UKIP's first elected MP.
  9. A senior Labour MP will defect to the Lib Dems.
  10. One of the major political bloggers will quit blogging altogether after the election.

Happy New Year!

9 comments:

Kalvis Jansons said...

Interesting! I agree with many of those, but you might have inside knowledge on some of the others.

Anonymous said...

Mark and will the Lib Dems back the Conservative minority Government (based upon your prediction)?

Simon Fawthrop said...

Will the Conservatives have the biggest share of seats or popular votes?

Jennie Rigg said...

I will be very very surprised if we lose seats. In fact, even given the parlous state of my finances, I'm willing to have a little wager with you on that. £10?

And don't give up blogging... ;)

Constantly Furious said...

Speaking of bets, I think we still have one open, don't we Mark? ;-)

Mark Thompson said...

bristolwestpaul - As I think I have said before on here, I expect Cameron to have to form a minority administration.

TGS - Both.

Jennie - I am very happy to take you up on your £10 bet. Just to clarify, I think that Lib Dems will have less than 63 seats after the GE. You think we will have 63 or more. Is that right?

CF - Don't worry, I hadn't forgotten! E-mail me the details of how you would like me to pay. I am happy to do a bank transfer or send a cheque.

Jennie Rigg said...

Yes, Mark, I think we will have 63 or more seats after the election. I'd predict 75-80 if I was going wild, but you know me, ever cautious. I think we will only lose five or six, and we will gain at least twenty. If you look at the maths of the Lib Dems with the most marginal seats, it's people like Chris Huhne and Tim Farron. There's no way in hell they are going to lose their seats given how they work their constituencies. If Tim, in particular, loses his seat, I'll eat my own hat.

And then if you look at seats where the Lib Dems are in with a chance, it's mostly places like Bradford East and Burnley, where they wouldn't dream of voting Tory, but have a very discredited Labour MP at the moment.

FWIW, I reckon my own seat of Calder Valley will probably go Tory, though. We always land with the party which wins in terms of seats.

Mark Thompson said...

Jennie - OK, the bet's on!

BTW, I very much hope you are right and I agree about people like Chris and Tim. However I just feel that with the swing going to the Tories that we could get a bit squeezed.

Jennie Rigg said...

We shall see ;)