My Ten Predictions for Thursday's Elections

We often hear from left of centre commentators the argument that the Conservatives should be doing much better than they are in the polls. Admittedly they have been much quieter in recent weeks, but the argument still gets the odd outing by the less enlightened. I expect it to be ramped up a notch in volume on Friday. People need to consider that around 5.3 million people are voting in London, which equates to 22.4% of the electorate on Thursday. The mayoral and GLA electoral systems actively encourage people to vote for fringe parties (we may see a BNP member of the Assembly as a result). Couple this with the increased use of PR in Wales, Scotland and the Euro elections, and people are more regularly voting for the fringe parties. So I do not expect to see the Tories hit the dizzy heights of 45% as some of the more partisan Labour commentators are saying they must. Here are my ten predictions, for which you can hold me accountable!

1. Boris will win the London mayoralty by a margin of 3-5% on second preferences.
2. Brian Paddick will perform more strongly on first preferences than the polls predict
3. Ken Livingstone will blame his defeat firmly on Gordon Brown
4. The BNP will get a seat on the London Assembly
5. Nationally, the Conservatives will gain more than a hundred seats
6. The LibDems will emerge with a small net loss of councillors
7. National vote share (weighted to take account of areas without elections) will be Con 41, Lab 27, Lib 23
8. Conservatives will take Reading (possibly), Vale of Glamorgan (probably), North Tyneside (hopefully)and Bury (hopefully) and establish footholds in some northern councils, but lose Coventry
9. Gordon Brown will not hold a reshuffle until July
10. Most of these predictions will be wrong!

In some ways it is a complete fools errand making predictions like this, but I am rather fed up with political commentators and pundits who won't put their money where their mouths are. It's what they are paid to do. Even if you can't come up with a rationale for every prediction you can often feel things in your water. You also have to take into account the spin from the different parties and translate what they are saying. These seem to be the lines being put out by the parties at the moment...

Labour: The Tories need to make at least 200 gains if they are to have a chance of winning the election
Translation: We really think they're only going to win 100

LibDems: We expect to make advances on Thursday in our key target councils
Translation: We'll be lucky to hold on to what we've got and what we gain on the swings we'll lose on the roundabouts.

Conservatives: Our results were so good in 2004 that, while we expect to make some gains, we're realistic about what we will achieve on Thursday
Translation: Anything over 100 seats is a triumph and we're on the way to power.

Last year the Conservatives gained more than 1,000 council seats. At the beginning of the evening the BBC were using 600 gains as the criteria for success. During the evening this bar was raised every hour and if you listened to Labour politicians you'd have thought the Tories had done really badly to gain 1000 seats!

And then there's London. The mayoral election result will overshadow everything else. As I have said before, there are only two ways of interpreting this results. If Boris wins it's great for the Tories and terrible for Labour and if Ken wins, vice versa. A narrow defeat is just that, a defeat. I do hope we don't see a succession of politicians from all parties appearing on TV claiming that everything is a massive victory. In my experience owning up to the negatives is actually a rather refreshing thing to do. I don't expect it to happen, but if things go wrong on Thursday for the Party I support I hope you won't find me trying to spin my way out of it.

And now I'm off to Millbank to take part in the BBC Election programme dress rehearsal, where apparently I am going to play the role of George Osborne and Luke Akehurst transforms himself into John Reid. LibDem blogger Alix Mortimer has drawn the short straw. She has to cut off all her hair and be Vince Cable.

Anyway, let's have your own predictions in the comments.