A Conservative Win or a Labour Collapse?

A new poll from Britain shows the Tories maintaining their lead over Labour.  The poll is interesting both for the obvious message - the Tories will crush Labour and Cameron will be the PM - and for the between the lines findings.  Note that 18% of those polled would vote for "other" parties (i.e. not Labour, the Conservatives or Liberal Democrats).  That includes 6% for UKIP, 5% for the BNP, and 3% for the Greens.  All of those totals are double to triple what those parties got in 2005.  The second interesting thing is the poll contains no results for the four Northern Irish parties.  That won't matter for Parliament, but it does affect the popular vote.  In 2005, 2.5% of the total U.K. vote went to the four Northern Irish parties.  Adding those totals into this poll means that 21% of the total U.K. vote will go for parties other than the big three, the highest total by far in modern English history.  That means Cameron is not really on 39, he's more like 37, only a 4.5 percent gain on Michael Howard.  He'll win his crushing Parliamentary majority because Labour has collapsed and the Lib Dems can't appeal to working class Britain, which is going largely to protest parties.