How GE2019 would have been with the new boundaries
This makes LAB’s chances look even more remote
Above is the main analysis from Electoral Calculus on the impact of the new boundaries. The table seeks to show what would have happened at GE2019 if these boundaries were in place.
As can be seen this is good news for the Tories and bad news for LAB, the LDs and PC. This also reinforces the point I repeatedly make that the 15% chance that the betting exchanges currently rate a LAB overall majority is almost totally off beam.
In my judgement, there are only two realistic outcome possibilities – a CON majority or not. Unless there is a sea change in public opinion on an almost unprecedented scale then the best that Starmer can hope for is a hung parliament with him being PM.
This is how the Indy’s John Rentoul sums up the chances of the Tories not doing it:
“All” that Labour and other parties need to do for that to become possible is to deprive the Conservatives and their recent allies – the Democratic Unionist Party – of a majority. It is not obvious what the DUP would do in a hung parliament after the way Boris Johnson has treated them, but all the other parties have said that they would not prop up a minority Tory government. So, as long as the Tory/DUP total can be kept below 322 seats – after the Tories gain 13 from boundary changes – then Starmer is likely to become prime minister. Unfortunately for Labour that would still require a 5 per cent swing, which is still greater than it has won at any postwar election apart from 1997.
Note that in the betting a CON majority is generally defined as being in excess of 325 seats.