Next Week's British Election Looks Very Close

Great Britain is holding national elections next week, and right now it looks like that election will be very close. The latest YouGov-UK Poll has the Conservative Party winning 272 seats and the Labor Party winning 276 seats. That leaves both major parties without a majority of 325 in the parliament, which means they will have to get support from other parties to form a government (which requires a majority).

The current government is ruled by a coalition of Conservatives (302) and Liberal Democrats (56), but if the current projection holds up, that won't work again. With 272 Conservatives and only 24 Liberal Democrats, they would only have 296 seats -- well short of the majority needed to form a government. Those who voted for the Liberal Democrats in the last election seem to still be angry with their leadership for joining the Conservatives (with whom they have nothing in common), and are set to punish them in this election (cutting their seats by more than half). That's no surprise, and I don't see the Liberal Democrats making that mistake again any time soon.

The biggest party gain is for the Scottish National Party -- going from only 6 seats to about 52 seats. Scotland has in the past, been pretty solid Labor Party territory -- so it wouldn't be unreasonable to think they might help Labor to form a government. Those two parties together would have 328 seats. If they were joined by the Liberal Democrats and the Greens (which seems likely to me), that would boost the total to 353 seats.

As with any election, anything could happen and election day could bring a surprise, but right now it looks like the new prime minister after next week will be Ed Miliband of the Labor Party.