So my prediction..?

Well before the day ends, I guess I should at least answer the two questions people have been asking each other for the last month:

1. So what do you think the outcome will be?

And, if people are feeling a little a more forward:

2. Who are you going to vote for?

Sadly, my prediction is that the Conservatives will be the largest single party. David Cameron has, apparently, already intimated that he would be happy to lead a minority Tory Government. If they win a psychological 300 seats, albeit not the 326 needed for a majority, they will surely claim a ‘moral victory’ and mandate to govern. Add all the Ulster Unionists to this figure; subtract Sinn Fein (as they don’t take their seats), the speaker and deputies from the opposition and you can see the figure getting closer to that needed for a real majority.

The polls have been consistently tight throughout the campaign and the Tory lead has widened slightly towards the end. Everything points to them being short of a majority – but by how much?

Another interesting imponderable is would Labour and the Liberal Democrats win enough seats to form a majority coalition? I think that option is now, sadly for me, very much on a knife edge.

Who really will come second and third in the sheer popular vote?

Despite these I fear David Cameron will be our next Prime Minister, though I won’t rule out a cabinet including figures from the Liberal Democrats and others – and I think that will very much depend on the ‘magic’ 300.

There are still a handful of seats that won't start counting until Friday morning as well - so depending on how close the result it, we may not even know until Friday evening! Then, there may well be a weekend of "negotiations" before we see a new Premier doing the ritual posing outside No 10.

In answer to that second question that you’ve probably been asking for a while now, when reading my blogs (and if you haven’t I’m going to tell you anyway): I voted Green.