This point has been made before but given the way the betting markets currently give Labour a more than 25% chance of securing a majority it is worth restating.

At the last election what was then Corbyn’s party won 202 of the 650 common seats in the worst election result for the party since GE1935. Given the current polling then it’s clear that they’re going to do considerably better than last time and the big question is how well.

For Starmer’s LAB to secure the 326 seats required for a majority he would need to gain more seats than even Tony Blair did at the 1997 general election. This is too big an ask in my view

A big factor that undermines Labour was what happened in Scotland immediately after the 2014 Indy referendum. At the previous election, LAB had taken 41 of the 59 Scottish seats which was reduced to a single MP in 2015. There is no indication that that is going to change.

Although LAB looks set to recover well in England and Wales it is hard to see them reaching the level that would make an overall majority possible. The big thing that labour can hope for is for the Tories to lose enough seats that hey cannot maintain a majority. If that happens as I believe is likely then we could see some form of non-Conservative government put in place with Labour having the bulk of the seats. In that situation, Stamrer would likely enter number 10.

Mike Smithson