My latest election prediction: a (well) hung parliament.

According to a mix of the Ashcroft constituency polls and general polling the outcome of the election will look something like this:

Conservative 281

Labour 267

Libdem 26

UKIP 1

SNP 51

Green 1

Others 23 (including 8 DUP and 3 SDLP)

In this scenario the Conservatives would try to get support through either a formal coalition (as in the last government) or by "confidence and supply" agreements with other parties. This looks unlikley to work:

Conservative + Libdem + DUP + Lady Hermon (Ind) = 316 (10 short of the required 325, 7 short of the 323 that could technically form a majority without Sinn Fein MP's sitting in Westminster)

Labour would then try, but have a harder time at forming a majority:

Labour + Libdem + SDLP =296 (29 short, assuming the Libdems would speak to Labour at all)

If Labour does not do a deal with the SNP then David Cameron, as the leader most likely to be able to get close to a majority, will stay on as Prime Minister to see if he can get a Queen's speech passed. If he can't then he will probably give way to Labour and let them try.

At this point Labour will either do a deal with the SNP or we will head into a second general election in September.

One warning though: there is a nuclear option. If both the Labour and Conservatives believe that allowing the SNP any influence would be either too toxic or give them unnecessary credibility they might decide to form a "grand coalition" or "national government" with Labour and Conservative parliamentary parties forming one bloc in parliament. With Labour likely to be decimated in Scotland the effect of any fallout on Labour north of the border would be self limiting, making this scenario less unlikely than a few weeks ago.

And one final word on the general election campaign. The BBC Poll Tracker shows us that nothing that any of the parties did changed the outcome. Most minds were made up long before the campaign started:

Why the SNP will not hold the balance of power after this election.

According to analysis based on the latest Times/YouGov opinion poll the parties will have the following number of seats after the election:

49   SNP
290 Labour
265 Conservative
20   Liberal Democrat
2     UKIP
24   Others

With 650 seats, an outright majority requires 325.

Based on these figures the Conservatives will not be able to form a government. Even if they could form a coalition with the Liberal Democrats again and bring in all the "others" plus UKIP it would not be enough:

Conservative (265) + LibDem (20) + UKIP (2) + Others (24) = 295

Labour, on the other hand, would have a far easier job:

Labour (290) + Others (24) + LibDem (20) = 334

So even if all the 24 "others" did not support them they would still have a majority without having to talk to the SNP at all.

Given the historical enmity between Labour and the SNP and the fall out from the referendum it seems fanciful to me that they would make any sort of agreement after the general election. The SNP might choose to vote for policies put up by Labour, but Labour will not need to do anything to keep the SNP on-side as they will not need them to have a majority and get Ed Miliband into No 10.

What makes this even less likely is that the level of support for the SNP suggested in this poll is unprecedented. The likely outcome will be far fewer SNP MP's and more Labour ones, meaning even less of a need for anyone to do a deal. A figure of 35-40 SNP MP's seems far more likely given that younger people are less likely to vote than older.

We can be sure that the Liberal Democrats will want to stay in power, even with a vastly reduced number of MP's. Labour has been careful not to single them out in their national campaign. One of the reasons for this will be their potential as coalition partners on May 8th.