[Politics] How many seats will the Tories get ?

[hans kraay fan club]

Tories will get over 150 seats that is a shue in

 

[jimhigham]

Perhaps not. If you haven’t watched him before, I can recommend Phil Moorehouse’s “A Different Bias” channel on YouTube. Phil is a fairly crotchety, Yorkshire based Labour supporter and former science teacher.

He’s big on statistical analysis and really knows his polling. He reads every poll, right down to the methodology and fieldwork. What he’s spotted is that many polling companies are making manual adjustments to their modelling to reflect better outcomes for the Tories, simply because they cannot believe their own data is that bad for them.

He’s also spotted shifts to Labour from the LibDems in areas where Labour are the second party, and similar for the LibDems where they are the best placed challenger. In other words, the polling data is showing a marked trend towards tactical voting.

And finally, he’s looked at how many seats are “safe” for the Tories and the LibDems. That’s to say seats where their lead is greater than 5%, representing a generous margin of error. The findings are genuinely startling. The Tories are only safe in approximately 30 seats, whereas the LibDems are closer to 55. While the Tories are forecasted in first place in more seats, those leads are slender and vulnerable, particularly if tactical voting is widespread.

Put all that in the mix and the Tories are in a genuine fight to finish second in terms of seats. They probably will be the second largest party but it isn’t a given.

And in answer to the OP’s question, the Tories will win more seats than they deserve.

I’m claiming half a prize for this. Was bang on that they’d fall well short of 150. Was less near the mark on the battle for second, although I did caveat that particular point like billy-o.