Gordon Brown calls elections

[malaise]

for May 7th.
I'm betting there will be a coalition government with Labour and the Lib Dems.

[Alexander]

1. How do you figure?

That would probably be the ideal result, but I'm afraid Brown is quite unpopular right now and it's likely the Tories will win.

[SoCalDem]

2. Yep.. I think ole Gordon is SOL.

Unfortunately for GB, the righties will rule again:(

[malaise]

3. Neither Labour nor Conservatives will win 40%

Lib Dems have been gaining on both of them - they will have a say. Should be fun to watch this one.

[tekisui]

4. I hope the election brings a war opponent.

[Odin2005]

5. I hope the Lib-Dems win big!

[malaise]

7. I don't see them winning

but they are likely to have their best results ever.

[muriel_volestrangler]

6. FWIW, it's May 6th, not May 7th

A Labour/Lib Dem coalition doesn't look very likely at the moment - polls are running at about Con 37%, Lab 29%, Lib Dem 21%, which may translate to Con 300 seats, Lab 262, Lib Dem 55, others (mainly regional parties) 33. That would mean either a Conservative minority government, or a Con/Lib Dem coalition (they need 326 to get an absolute majority, so Labour + Lib Dem couldn't do that in that situation).

This site has a calculator to try to turn survey results into seat numbers, and tries to give the probability of various outcomes based around the surverys that have been taken.

http://www.electoralcalculus.co.uk/index.html

This site posts all the latest polls, with discussion (it's run by an employee of one of the polling companies):

http://ukpollingreport.co.uk/blog/

If you really think a Lab/Lib Dem coalition is likely, you can get odds of 6/1 on it: http://www.paddypower.com/bet?action=go_type&ev_class_id=33&disp_cat_id=56&ev_type_id=13104&ev_oc_grp_ids=239033

[malaise]

8. Thanks - lots of useful information

Do you see a Con/Lib Dem coalition? Looks more like a hung parliament.