For the past few days the BBC website has had an interactive game where you have to build your own coalition, using a series of possible results from tomorrow’s election. It ought to be marketed as an educational test, far more challenging even than Michael Gove’s rigorous school tests. But finally, I think I have done it. I have worked out the only possible way to build a viable government using the composition of the House of Commons which the polls appear to be predicting.
Take Nate Silver’s analysis of the polls this morning, which predicts the following: Tories 281 seats, Labour 266, SNP 52, LibDem 26, DUP 8, Sinn Fein 5, Plaid Cymru 4, SDLP 3, Ukip, Greens and UUP one apiece. There are plenty of ways to build a majority there, of course, but none which are consistent with what party leaders have said, given that Ed Miliband has ruled out a coalition or any other kind of formal arrangement with the SNP, and that the SNP, Plaid Cymru, the Greens and the SDLP have vowed to do whatever it takes to keep the Tories out of power.
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