h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

This posting might get hauled down because it could be seen as electioneering. Myself, I prefer to look upon it as a piece of electoral maths, and a bit of idle whimsy.

As the title suggests, there is an outside possibility that the Green Party might win their first ever seat in Parliament.

At the last election in 2001, the percentage share of the vote (for the 4 main parties) in the Brighton Pavillion constituency was as follows:

Labour 50.6%
Tory 26.0%
Liberal 13.6%
Green 9.7%

Now if one factors in the data from the 2003 local elections, and the 2004 European elections. Then kicks the data around a bit - normalising, allowing for boundary changes, that sort of thing - the predicted share of the vote now looks like this:

Labour 31.3%
Tory 26.2%
Liberal 18.8%
Green 23.7%

Which to my mind looks like a genuine 4 way marginal. So what I'm saying is that with a fair wind and a decent sense of the ridiculous almost anything could happen!

GD this mawell be as you said a genuine 4 way kin England. I will be watching with interest if I'm back from the count in time.

I don't think they should bother oiling their bat and putting on their pads just yet...