How many council seats will the Tories win tonight?

A ConservativeHome mug for the best guess.

Comments

[Richard Weatherill]

Presumably we're talking overall gains here (rather than the number of new seats that we win, ignoring any losses)?

[malcolm]

General consensus seems to be if we win 250 plus that will be a good result.Less than 200 a bad night.After the way Labour have imploded we should expect to do well even if our campaign has been a bit lacklustre.

[Christina]

Gain of 1798 seats

[Christina]

Oops, meant to be 179 seats

[Rob Largan]

Only a very small net gain of around 20 seats.

[leon]

The Tories will be lucky if they get anything close to 250. Cameron unfortunetely for him needs that or above to claim his leadership is taking hold.

[Rob Largan]

But I should add, it is going to be very difficult to tell, if the Labour vote utterly collapses and our vote holds firm, then we could be in for a particularly good night in certain places.

[Editor]

Yes NET gains, RW. Valid entries must be received by 10pm.

[Bob]

327 gains

[leon]

"But I should add, it is going to be very difficult to tell, if the Labour vote utterly collapses and our vote holds firm, then we could be in for a particularly good night in certain places."

Optimistic in my view but you could be right.

[Ben]

+350.

Sounds about right, I may well be way off, but we'll see... things are not looking at all good for Labour in London which could provide 150 or even 200 gains for the party... hmmm... a long while to go before we find out though :)

My greatest hope is that we pickup Brooklands (in Manc) and we seem to stand a fair chance of doing so... but as i say we'll see when we see.

[leon]

Problem is, in many wards were Labour will do badly it will be the Lib Dems not the Tories that will pick up the votes.

[Andrew Woodman]

263 gains

[Ranting Guttersnipe]

402 seats - good luck to all candidates and activists!

[Nick]

I'm gonna sit on the fence and say 225. About half way between a good and bad result. Whatever happens im sure the leadership will talk up the result anyway!

[johnC]

277 net gains - hope it's more than that

[Matthew Oxley]

150 gains

[Andy Dalton]

204 for me please.

[Robbo]

236 net gains for me

[malcolm]

144 for me but I would be delighted to be wrong.

[Edward Lennox]

Net Tory gains of 281. Lib Dems likely to be beneficiaries of Labour vote sinking in some of the urban areas I reckon.

[Deputy Editor]

4361, hopefully.

[malcolm]

You're very bullish Sam,do you know something we don't?How about you Tim now you've got into betting with Chad how about chancing your arm?

[malcolm]

Sorry Sam didn't realise the irony of your bullishness!

[Biodun]

314 seats.

[Neville Cheek]

375 net gains

[Editor]

OK Malcolm: I'm going to predict 342 gains (200 of them coming from London).

[brian]

Ever the optimist - 363 net gain

[RobC]

156

[Ted]

384

[howard stevenson]

303 net gains. Heres to a good night for all our candidates.

[eugene]

Remember that these are mainly Metropolitan areas (our worst battlegroung after Scotland) and secondly, we did well here last time out- it makes it harder this time. We can hardly expect much more. My concern is that we are hyping up our chances when the geography and timing is not in our favour and Labour will seize on it to twist it like they always do. I will be delighted with 100 gains.

[Henry Cook]

316 net gains. (Labour lose 450+)

[Will B]

going for a middle of the road David Cameron style, 238

[malcolm]

Not many people will be satisfied with that Eugene.We would expect to make many gains in London and whilst 2002 was better than the previous two corresponding elections it was by no means a golden year.We MUST be able to win at least a few seats in Northern cities if we are to have any chance nationally and we must eclipse the Lib Dems.

[Gary Barford]

374 net gains

[Henry Cook]

Encouraging news - on the next general election betting odds, the longest odds on the Conservatives winning are now evens, whereas the longest odds on Labour winning are 21/20. As a result we now come above Labour on readabet.com's summary, for the first time. Coral and Sporting odds now have us as favourites, while some others have us tied with Labour. A good set of results tonight should see us as clear favourites. See for yourself:

http://readabet.bestbetting.com/Default.aspx?market=15989545

Sorry for going off topic, but I thought you'd like to know!

[True Blue]

219 net gain, which would be a reasonable result.

[JT]

186

[Alastair Matlock]

325 net gains.

[Suggestion]

Curses the above 350 prediction already went. OK, 398. (Not a general posting return but I cannot resist chiming in).

[Editor]

Great to hear from you Suggestion. Do come back properly... we all love you really!

And thanks, Henry. Your comment justifies a post and thread all of its own.

[malcolm]

So what about you Tim?

[Richard]

300+ assuming not too many Labour voters switch to the Lib Dems. I'd be happy with 250 though.

[Editor]

I predicted at 17:11 Malcolm!

[malcolm]

Sorry must look more closely!

[MattK]

249 - an agonising one short of the magic 250!

[Matthew]

293 seats, here's hoping for more though.

[Tim Aker]

110 gains

[Richard]

The Guardian's analysis is that 250 + shows steady solid progress and 400+ is proof that the Tories are out of a trough.

Interestingly I recall the Tories did better in local elections under Hague and IDS than the media were predicting. I remember one under Hague where they gained 600+ seats when the media was saying 400 would be very good (I think those were the figures anyway. I seem to recall they were in the Telegraph). Sadly this didn't transform into a GE win.

In this case though the Tories have alrady benefitted from earlier victories during their time in opposition. This means they might be reaching saturation point.

[William]

BBC reports 'The number of postal vote applications in Birmingham has fallen from more than 70,000 in the general election of 2005 to fewer than 60,000 this year.

However, there are increases of up to 30% in five wards.

London investigation

In London, allegations of vote rigging have been made in seven of the 32 boroughs.'

Sounds like Labour are at it again.

[Real Market]

+83 seats

[Richard]

I seem to recall hearing somewhere that sunshine increases the number of Labour voters. I might have to lower my prediction to between 250 and 300.

[Philip Dumville]

289 - including three from Slough one should be Adrian Hilton for whom I am knocking up by phone right now.

[Alex Dawson]

I reckon 232.

[Steed]

Do you win a prize if they make a net loss? If so my bet is a net loss of 30

[Chris]

270

Top be honest any result is reasonable where we don't lose seats. We are already the largest party in local government, and I doubt even Blair could spin Labour losing lots of seats to anyone as a sucess for Labour. I'm not caring about net gains, I want to see the national percentages...

[Daniel Vince-Archer]

shot in the dark... 275

[Editor]

I agree with you Chris. I set out the real benchmarks for tonight yesterday. This is really just a bit of fun.

[BW]

188

[Voice from the South West]

Complete guess: 221

I hope for much more, but I think not.

[Peter Harrison]

The Sunday Times says that anything over 200 will allow Cameron to claim he has made a real difference. They were predicting around 100 net gains. I'll go for 246.

[Chris Barton]

217

[AC Fisher]

298 gains

[TC]

+ 247

[Nigel Clark]

275 gains

[EU Serf]

I'm going for 251

[JonathanT]

113

[DavidB]

Impossible to say, I'm going for a hugely optimistic 405. Just say I'm hoping that the Cameron project is worth it.

[steve e]

wipeout for Labour

199 net gains for tories

300 net gains for libdems

500+ net labour losses

[Stephen Alley]

I haven't much experience in these things, but 375 sounds as good a guess as any.

I'll be looking forward to the coverage.

[Stephen Alley]

Oh, silly me, 375 has already been taken, I'll change to 328.

[hayek's grandad]

Unfortunately the good weather means Labour will avoid meltdown and keep us below 200 gains. I'm going for 167.

[Henry Edward-Bancroft]

193 gains

[Dick Wishart]

324 seats.

[Robbo]

I have, 5 minutes ago, joined the Conservative party with an extra, yet modest, donation. Do I get a mug for this?

[Jaz Hayre]

+ 247

[kingbongo]

I'm going to be brave and go for 301 net gains as, if it comes true it means even the Grauniad will have to accept it's a good night for us (though they may wait for Labour to tell them how to spin this as a tory disaster).

Also all this stuff about good weather bringing out the Labour vote is a myth, I was first told it by my mum when my Dad was standing for the council in 1972; it wasn't true then and it isn't true now.

[Editor]

No mug, Robbo, but our respect! Welcome to the blue team.

[Richard]

"Also all this stuff about good weather bringing out the Labour vote is a myth, I was first told it by my mum when my Dad was standing for the council in 1972; it wasn't true then and it isn't true now."

I hope you're right. I would be interested to know where the myth came from.

[Bel]

456

[Chad]

180

[Nick]

227

[EdR]

388

[BW]

The myth originated in the old days when it was the Tories who had more cars to get their voters to the polls in wet weather....

[Goldie]

Net gain of 66

[kingbongo]

Things must be looking quite good, even Goldie's predicting tory gains!

[Chris Palmer]

69 gains (ie. net)

[Mark Fulford]

228 for a mug

[Chad]

I have, 5 minutes ago, joined the Conservative party with an extra, yet modest, donation. Do I get a mug for this?

If Cameron pulls the Tory MEP's out of the EPP before 1.1.2007 I'll have to pay the Tory party £100, but I don't want a mug, just a group photo of Caroline Jackson, Ken Clarke and Tarzan's faces when they find out... :-)

[Andy Stidwill]

Everyone seems to be saying that turnout is high because of the good weather.

My opinion: if turnout reaches 40%, I'll eat my hat.

Prediction - 80 gains.

[Noisy Summer]

I will go for 420 gains.

[Martin Curtis]

I am going to be uncharacteristically pessimistic - 127

[Richard]

As I have to make an exact prediction to win a mug - 299

[Tom Ainsworth]

254. At least. ;-)

[Editor]

Voting has now closed at the polling stations and on this thread!

[PassingThru]

176

[PassingThru]

dang i shud read last comment!

[Richard]

Do we get a special election results thread for the "live blogging" at 10PM?

[Richard]

10 results declared already according to the BBC. That was quick!