Talk:Opinion polling for the 2015 United Kingdom general election/Archives/2010/December

Predicted majority?

Hi, I was just wonndering if sometime could explain to me what the difference is between the "Predicted Seats Lead" and the "Predicted Majority". Aren't they the same? Thanks, The Celestial City (talk) 20:12, 25 December 2010 (UTC)

Hi, if you take the latest poll (YouGov/The Sun - 20-21 December) it gives the Conservatives 276 seats in the Commons and Labour 340 seats, making the oppositions lead over the government 64. However, to take control of the Commons a party needs to have more seats than any other party not just the other main party. So if Labour were to try to win an election they would need more seats than the Conservatives, Lib Dems, Nationalists etc. Basically, the predicted seats lead is the number of seats they would have over the Conservatives and predicted majority would be the number of seats they would have over all parties. I hope that's helped and I apologise if I have insulted your intelligence, I just didn't know how much you already knew about elections in the UK. Editor5807^speak 00:45, 26 December 2010 (UTC)

Hi, thanks for the clear explanation. All makes complete sense now, I'd forgotten that the majority relates to the entire Commons, not just the two major parties. The Celestial City (talk) 02:29, 27 December 2010 (UTC)