Party, party, party, party, party.
Posted: Sun Jan 18, 2015 10:09 pm
Britain politics faces being plunged into chaos after the election, as a detailed study of seats across the country shows at least three parties would be needed to form a coalition.
Political commentator Iain Dale predicts Labour will win 300 seats and the Tories 279, but both would need at least two other parties to secure a majority of the 650 MPs in the Commons. Today Nick Clegg ruled out ever sitting in a Cabinet with Ukip while Green party leader Natalie Bennett said her party would not join a power-sharing deal with anyone.
Mr Dale argues that national opinion polls offer no help in predicting what will happen at the election, because they cannot reflect what will happen in seats where four, five or even six parties are standing. Instead he has spent recent weeks looking at every seat in the country, and using polling, local knowledge and 'sniffing the political wind' to predict what will happen in each constituency. Writing in the Independent on Sunday, Mr Dale said: 'The truth is that this is the most unpredictable election in recent memory and for one very simple reason – for the first time in British political history, we're now in five party politics.
'For the first time ever it's conceivable that the joint vote share of the two main parties might be under 60 per cent.' He predicts that the Tories will 'pile up votes in seats where they don't need them', suggesting Labour could get more seats but fewer votes. The study confidently predicts that the Lib Dems 'will lose more than half of their seats', taking them to just 24. 'It could get even worse, although I reckon Nick Clegg will be safe in Sheffield Hallam,' he adds. It means that even with the support of the Lib Dems, neither Labour nor the Tories would be able to form an overall majority.
A so-called 'Rainbow Coalition' would then need to be agreed involving three or more parties, which all leaders acknowledge will be incredibly unstable. Mr Clegg today flatly ruled out at the idea of serving in a government with Nigel Farage which also included Ukip MPs. Asked if he could imagine a power-sharing deal with Ukip, he told BBC One's Andrew Marr show: 'No. I just really cannot see how Nigel Farage and I could ever…' It has been suggested that Labour could be forced to rely on SNP support to form a government.
But Mr Clegg also cast doubt on the Lib Dems entering power with the Scottish nationalists. 'I find it very difficult to imagine the circumstances in which I would do that,' he added. Mr Clegg also ridiculed Mr Dale's prediction that the Lib Dems would lose half of their seats. 'Iain Dale will have to eat his words, because I really don't think that's going to happen. He's a good man but some of his predictions are getting a bit silly,' he said.
