No movement for the top two parties in this week’s UK Polling Report average (the Lib Dems are up 1, and UKIP down 1), so very little change to our forecast.
It’s moved a touch away from the Conservatives and towards Labour this week, essentially because of the Tories’ failure to make up ground in the polls as expected by our model. But the change is only extremely small, and the Tories remain very slight favourites to win the most seats in May (54-46, compared to 55-45 last week).
Our central forecast sees the Tories’ expected seats drop by 2 (from 303 to 301) this week, but Labour are still on 292. The improvers are the Lib Dems, who move back up to 28 seats after dropping to 26 seats (their worst since our forecast began in October) in last week’s central forecast.
Date of forecast: 15 August 2014
Days till the election: 265
Inputted current average poll shares (from UK Polling Report)
Con: 33%
Lab: 36%
LD: 9%
Others (inc. UKIP): 22%
– UKIP: 12%
Forecast Election Day Shares (with 95% Prediction Intervals)
Con: 35.9% (±7.4, i.e. 29% – 43%)
Lab: 32.2% (±5.5, i.e. 27% – 38%)
LD: 12.5% (±8.1, i.e. 4% – 21%)
Implied point estimate shares for:
– Others (inc. UKIP): 19.4%
– UKIP: 10.6%
Forecast Election Day Seats (with approximate 95% Prediction Intervals)
Con: 301 (222 – 393)
Lab: 292 (206 – 367)
LD: 28 (23 – 35)
(Prediction intervals assume LD & others shares at central forecast, Con & Lab shares vary as per prediction intervals)
Central forecast: Con largest party, but short of a majority by 25
Approximate probabilities of key outcomes
Con largest: 54%
… with a majority: 28%
Lab largest: 46%
… with a majority: 21%
Hung Parliament: 51%
… with Con largest: 26%
… with Lab largest: 24%
(probabilities may not sum due to rounding)
Elections Etc 
I think this website is run by some right wing think tank, If you look on the BBC or other site the latest three polls ALL Have labour in the lead…
I think I start telling people not to come here any more, I thought this was going to be an honest site, seems not.
Which is why today’s YouGov poll for the Sun has Labour and the Tories level pegging of 35% each?!?
which still doesn’t explain anyone can come to the above conclusion.
The prediction is made on the basis that historically in the years and months leading up to the election the governing party(s) gain ground and the opposition falls back. However this GE is likely to be different because of the Coalition, the Fixed-Term Parliament and the implosion of the LDs so what we are seeing is the Tories only very slowly making up ground and the LDs continue to flatline or worse. As reality is currently bucking the historic trend the continual updates keep dialling down the performance of the Coalition partners (IIRC when it started it was predicting a confortable Cons win, now we are hung parliament territory with a 55:45 split on who’s the biggest arty) and only time will prove whether the predictions here will ever bear any resemblance to the final GE result.
Mike. Is the point not that this site is different to a polling website? Opinion polls often show sitting governments doing badly mid term. Then come election time there is often a swing back to the incumbents. I assume whoever is running this site. uses a mathematical formula to try and predict this. I don’t think you can compare a polling site to this site – it’s like comparing apples and pears. And by the way I’m a lefty!