Predicting the unpredictable: 12 things to expect on election night

In the ‘most unpredictable election in a generation’, it’s a fool’s errand to make specific calls. However, it is possible to outline what the political landscape might look like on Friday morning.

1.  Throughout election night, there will be an obsession with whether the Conservatives or Labour end up as the largest party, far beyond its actual importance to forming the next government. If we’re at that stage of the discussion, it is Ed Miliband who will eventually end up in Downing Street, even if a minority Conservative administration has to be be formed and fall first.
2. Labour will take dozens of seats in England, including almost all their targets from the Liberal Democrats and a sizeable number of those from the Conservatives. There will be some unexpectedly tight battles, especially in northern seats with a first-term Conservative incumbent, but Labour’s superior ground game should see them through. There will be much soul-searching in Conservative circles as to how Labour’s less well-funded campaign remains the superior one.
3. A good number of the Labour gains will be made by MPs who lost their seats in 2010 and still have a large personal following: Bob Blizzard in Waveney, Nick Palmer in Broxtowe, Andrew Dismore in Hendon, Sally Keeble in Northampton North, Mike O’Brien in Warwickshire North, Joan Ryan in Enfield North, Rob Marris in Wolverhampton South West and, at a push, Patrick Hall in Bedford & Kempston and David Drew in Stroud. The effect of the first-term bounce in such seats will be muted.
4. Labour will not lose a single seat in England, unless you count George Galloway holding on to the Bradford West seat he won in a by-election. The prospect of Ukip taking Great Grimsby, one of the most realistic seats Labour could lose, seems less and less likely by the day.
5. Conservative majorities in southern shire seats will increase substantially, as the second place Lib Dem vote will splinter to Labour and the Greens. Conservative incumbents in such seats will doubtless take it as a sign that whatever they did locally ‘worked’ compared to the national picture. They will be wrong.
6. In London, the closer a seat to the centre of the city, the less the Conservative vote will decline – for reasons I laid out at the start of the campaign. Jane Ellison’s majority in Battersea will hardly move, while Lee Scott will go down to the wire in Ilford North (a seat Tony Blair failed to hold in 2005).
7. Around 2am, we should get the first results from Scotland – and the all-consuming scale of the SNP victory will be apparent. They may not win every single seat (Orkney & Shetland seeming the toughest ask), but any more than five wins for Unionist parties seems unlikely. The Conservative vote will hold up extremely well north of the border, but it’s unlikely to do the party any good – though they may make a gain in the Borders.
8. Labour will win certain seats where they don’t see any increase in vote share at all, thanks to the splintering of the Conservative vote towards Ukip. The SNP will also take seats in Edinburgh with around 30 per cent of the vote. Many of those who campaigned so vociferously against AV will begin to question why.
9. Similarly, the Lib Dems will lose large numbers of seats to the Conservatives simply due to a refusal of Labour and Green supporters to vote tactically. Indeed, the scale of these losses will be as drastic, if not more so, than pundits predict. As with Oxford West & Abingdon and Harrogate & Knaresborough in 2010, some will come out of left field. Sheffield Hallam might fit this bill, if we didn’t have so much constituency polling to back it up.
10. Though unlikely, don’t totally discount the chances of the Liberal Democrats gaining a seat. Watford seems most likely. The party saw near misses there in 2005 and 2010, but now has popular local Mayor Dorothy Thornhill as its candidate.
11. Ukip’s chance of success in their targets is utterly unpredictable. There is a chance their vote will get squeezed at the last moment, but there is also the possibility of a ‘silent Ukip’ phenomenon, where voters are unwilling to tell pollsters their intentions and will simply stick two fingers up to the establishment in the comfort of the polling station. Along with the two seats they hold, and top target Thurrock, it’s too soon to discount Nigel Farage’s chances in Thanet South. Ukip may also prosper in seats like Castle Point and Boston & Skegness. That said, the possibility of Douglas Carswell being their only MP is a realistic one.
12. Ukip will also be handed the gauntlet, ‘enjoyed’ by the Liberal Democrats in recent elections, of being the second party to Labour across much of the urban north. They will claim to be the only ‘truly national party’ – it won’t do them much good.