CON lead	CON seats	LAB seats	LD seats	OTH seats
– 2.7%	239	326	59	26
0.0%	255	306	61	28
4.1%	282	281	59	28
7.3%	307	258	57	28
11.2%	327	233	62	28

What do these seat projections mean for next time?

The table above features the new commons seat projections for the next election prepared by Professor John Curtice for Friday’s general election post-mortem at the University of Nottingham.

As can be seen the Tories need a vote share lead of 11.2% to achieve a majority while Labour can do it with a margin of just 2.7% for reasons that were discussed here yesterday’.

Assuming that the next election is fought on the same boundaries and the same electoral system as last month then the hung parliament “window” will be wider than ever.

The Tory target for an overall majority is about the same as last time but the margin for Labour has got bigger.

At par the same vote shares for the Tories and Labour gives the former 255 seats while Labour would have 306 – 20 seats short. The Tories need a gap of 4.1% just to ensure that they win more seats.

In reality the hung parliament window is probably wider. For as we saw at the election the incumbency factor, where the current MP is standing again, provides an added cushion – that is unless you are Lembit Opik.

A reason that single party majorities have becomes harder to achieve is that the “big two” aggregate vote share is getting smaller. On May 6th LAB+CON proportion dropped to a new low in modern times – down to fewer than two in three of all votes cast.

Even though it might be five years off you can bet on the next general election on SportingIndex’s Swingometer market. Alas at current prices there’s no money to be made on a hung parliament.

Mike Smithson