Yesterday, I laid out my gut feeling about the British election:

Before the campaign began, I said that I thought David Cameron would get a small majority. I am not so confident now. I believe he will be just short of a majority (and note this point from an academic expert), but will be able to come to an arrangement with conservative parties from Northern Ireland that will get him to the level where he will be able to run a minority government that only a lockstep alliance between Labour and the Liberal Democrats — which would be likely to prove damaging to the Liberal Democrats — would be able to bring down.

Looks like I should trust my gut. The Conservatives will end up with around 308 seats. With the Democratic Unionists’ eight seats from Northern Ireland, this rises to 316 reasonably reliable votes, when around 323 are needed for a majority, owing to the Sinn Fein MPs regarding Britain as a foreign country and therefore refusing to take their seats. It is therefore plausible, but unlikely, that a grand alliance of all the other parties (a “coalition of the defeated” in Michael Gove’s terms) could be formed to keep the Conservatives out, but I can’t see that working. So, when the dust settles in a day or so and Gordon Brown finally resigns as prime minister, we should see David Cameron enter Number Ten Downing Street.

However, this is not really a victory for David Cameron. He should have been able to gain a working majority given the poll figures at the beginning of the campaign. What happened, I think, was that two of Cameron’s signature policies backfired.

First, the “love-bombing” of the Liberal Democrats, erm, bombed. Of the Tories 50 top target seats, they won all but one that were Labour held, but only three of the ten (with one still to count) that were LD held. This is where the effect of agreeing to debates can be seen. Although the Lib Dem surge failed to show up nationally, there was enough of a Lib Dem vote to keep the Tories out of the seats that would have guaranteed them a majority. There simply wasn’t enough reason for people to switch from Lib Dem to Tory, even as people were switching from Labour to Tory in droves. Compare the performance in category 2 here to the performance in category 1.

Secondly, the “A-list” of new-style candidates (in American terms, carpetbaggers) badly underperformed. Many of the seats in the Top 100 targets that the Tories failed to get were being contested by A-listers. In some cases, this was not the candidate’s fault, but merely being part of the A-list attracted significant negative attention from the media and perhaps fueled resentment among local activists. The A-list probably cost the Tories half-a-dozen seats. With such a tight election, that was crucial.

James Delingpole takes a more trenchant line.

The final question is whether this Cameron minority government can survive for long. I think it can if it governs from the center. That, of course, would be an utter disaster for small-c conservatism and the nation, which needs a dose of fiscal conservatism now more than anything else. However, that is the core conservative policy least embraced by Cameron’s Conservative party. If the party grows a backbone, we might see a tough budget rejected, a vote of confidence and a new election. More likely, I fear we’ll see a “nice” budget that will gain majority support and weak government from the center.

One final point. If I had my druthers, I’d offer a deal to the Scottish Nationalists for a referendum on Scottish independence. The Scots have clearly and decisively rejected unionism, so it is time for them to taste the consequences of that rejection. The public finances of the United Kingdom of England, Wales, and Northern Ireland would improve markedly and the Conservatives would have a solid majority. I can’t see why this option isn’t on the table.