Useful little bit on the numbers from the Grauniad

There are 650 seats in the Commons. But there are five Sinn F?in MPs who do not take their seats, leaving 645 MPs. So to get a working majority you would need 323 votes.

There are 258 Labour MPs and 57 Lib Dem MPs. That makes 315. The SDLP (a sister party of Labour's) has three MPs and there is one MP who represents the Alliance (which is allied to the Lib Dems). If you add them, you get to 319. Plaid Cymru is in coalition with Labour in Wales. They've got three MPs, and if they join the total rises to 322. The SNP has also signalled its willingness to join a progressive pact of some kind, and its six MPs would take that total to 328. If the Greens' Caroline Lucas were to vote with this bloc, that would take you to 329.

The Tories have 306 seats. (One is the Speaker, but two Labour MPs ? and another Tory ? are likely to become deputy Speakers, and so they cancel each other out.) When the contest in Thirsk takes place, that is likely to rise to 307. If the Democratic Unionists (eight MPs) were to vote with the Tories (as they normally do), the Tory-DUP total would rise to 315.

Gordon Brown is right to say that the "progressives" could form a majority. But they would be dependent on several small parties and they would not have much of a cushion for when people started to rebel

Posted By: Old Git, May 10, 18:28:59