[Guest post by DRJ]

Michael Barone is in Britain covering the British election and he notes the polls show the Conservatives, led by David Cameron, are favored to win:

“The latest British poll results suggest, on http://www.electoralcalculus.co.uk/index.html a uniform-swingometer, that Conservatives will win 293 seats, Labour 238 and Liberal Democrats 87, with 326 needed for a majority. That leaves Conservatives 36 seats short of the 326-seat majority in the House of Commons, but it also leaves Labour and Lib Dems, combined, short by exactly 1 seat, of having a majority by themselves—a critical number, as I have argued. And, as others who reject the uniform-swing model have argued persuasively, the poll results actually project more Conservative (and perhaps Liberal Democrat) seats and fewer Labour seats than uniform-swing models suggest.”

Conservative candidate Joanne Cash is one of the reasons the uniform models may not be accurate:

“She has become involved not with “the Muslim community,” but with Morrocans, South Asians and others individually; “they have different cultures, and people realize you’re respecting them.” She has worked to get people in these communities in direct touch with the police, to get rid of prostitution and drug dealing in the more deprived communities—even as people in St. Johns Woods and Maida Vale hire their own neighborhood private police guards. She argues that under the Labour government the gap between the rich and poor in the district—as in much of Manhattan and Mexico City—has grown wider, and has supported charities like Boxing Gym and Butterfly Literacy in the state schools. She has tried to put flesh on Conservative leader David Cameron’s “Big Society” policies by supporting such endeavors.”

Ms. Cash’s policies, not to mention the Tories’, are probably Too-Big-Government compared to what I favor, but it still seems like a positive turn. The UK Times says this could be the biggest swing to the Tories since 1945. We shall see tomorrow.

— DRJ