In my judgement, in last night’s Question Time Special, Cameron scored 8.5 out of 10, Miliband 6 and Clegg 5. Furthermore, Miliband’s mistake in failing to acknowledge any role in, or responsibility for, the financial crisis, will cost him dear.
Unsurprisingly, the spreads have moved:
| Tories | 290.5 – 294.5 |
| Labour | 262.5 – 266.5 |
| Lib Dem | 23 – 25 |
| SNP | 48.5 – 50.5 |
| Ukip | 3.2 – 4.7 |
On these prices, Cameron would be able to form the next administration.
The maths (using the offer prices):
| Tories/Lib Dem | 294 + 25 = 319 (+ DUP, no UKIP = 327), |
| Labour/SNP | 266 + 50 = 316 (no Lib Dem) = failure. |
Perhaps now is the time to “pile Pelion on Ossa”. I think these results, on trend, are possible:
| Tories | 310 |
| Labour | 248 |
| Lib Dem | 15 (Clegg beaten) |
| SNP | 50 |
| Ukip | 2 (Farage beaten) |
| DUP | 8 |
| Sinn Fein | 5 (won’t take up seats) |
| Other | 12 (SDLP, Plaid Cymru, Green, etc) |
| Total | 650 (323 needed for a majority) |
If the outcome was something like this, I would expect Clegg to be gone by midsummer; Miliband by the autumn equinox; Cameron to hand over to Boris Johnson well before the next election; and the Tories to govern (possibly on their own) until 2020 – with the UK still intact and still a member of the European Union.
I suspect that a good way to make money in the stockmarket would be to buy Lloyds at 83p (up sharply today on strong first-quarter figures – for full disclosure, I own the shares myself). The shares would probably take off during the first few months of a Tory-led government.
Things could easily change in the final few days, but markets are starting to suggest that it’s all over. How long will it take for the polls to catch up?