The Tories Need to Court Plaid Cymru & SNP

So here are the latest election results from across the pond:

Conservative - 285
Labour - 234
Liberal Democrat - 50
Democratic Unionist Party - 8
Scottish National Party - 6
Sinn Fein (Northern Ireland) - 4
Plaid Cymru (Wales) - 3
Social Democratic & Labour Party (Northern Ireland) - 3
Green - 1
Alliance Party (Northern Ireland) - 1

As of this writing there are 54 more seats to be declared.

Despite the fact that the Tories have the largest number of seats they are very unlikely to win the 326 seats necessary to have a majority in the House of Commons.

This means the Tories will have form some kind of alliance with one or more of the smaller political parties. It wouldn't necessarily mean a coalition government but it could mean adopting some of their policies.

Frankly, at this stage of the game I think Labour has a better chance of forming an accord with the smaller parties than do the Tories.

Now at the moment the Labour Party and the Liberal Democrats don't have enough combined seats to overcome the Tories. Despite Nick Clegg's debate performances the Lib Dems have a net loss of six seats. But nearly all of the other parties have social democratic inclinations. The only other smaller party listed that could be construed as conservative is the Democratic Unionist Party from Northern Ireland.

However, if I were a Tory strategist I would focus my attention on the Scottish Nationalists and Plaid Cymru in Wales. Despite their social democratic leanings it must be remembered that their main competitors in the regional assemblies in Scotland and Wales is Labour. If the Tories can convince Plaid Cymru and the SNP they have no more love lost for Labour than they do then they have a fighting chance of heading up a new government. If they can't then Gordon Brown could stay in power despite losing more than 80 seats.