British Elections Forecasting

Elections in the United Kingdom this Thursday, May 7, will determine whether the Conservative government of Prime Minister David Cameron will remain in office, or whether Ed Milliband's Labour party will succeed in mustering a governing coalition.  Neither major party is expected to win an outright majority of seats in the House of Commons to allow it to govern alone; the Scottish National Party is projected to win a large bloc of seats, at the expense of Labour which has traditionally been strong in Scotland.  As is often the case in the parliamentary system, there's likely going to be a period of posturing and bargaining before anyone is able to cobble a governing coalition, if one can be formed at all (just ask Israel's Bibi "Bomb Bomb" Netanyahu, who still hasn't succeeded, and their elections were in March).

For those interested in the race, or if you're just Anglophiles like us, Five Thirty Eight has a wonderful interactive electoral map of the United Kingdom, which is updated regularly.  You can get the latest projected seat count, plus if you hover over an area on the map, it will give you the latest polling for that seat.  We also like hovering over spots on the map just to get the names of the districts ("Favorsham and Mid Kent," "Skipton and Ripon," and the seat in Wales most evocative to us Byrds fans, "Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney").  Check it out.