For the ACTUAL 2015 UK General Election Results (Con 330 Lab 232 SNP 56 LD 8 DUP 8 SF 4 SDLP 3 Plaid Cymru 3 UUP 2 UKIP 1 Green 1 Others 2) see:
The 2015 UK General Election Results

In the final, detailed (top 3 parties in every constituency) UK-Elect forecast, the Labour Party are forecast to win 275 seats, five ahead of the Conservatives, with the Scottish National Party on 54 seats, the Liberal Democrats 27, the Democratic Unionist Party 9, Sinn Fein 5,Plaid Cymru 3, SDLP 3, UKIP 1, Green 1 and Others 2. This forecast (although showing a small Labour lead) again predicts that both main parties will be very close, around 50 to 55 seats short of an overall majority.

This forecast was made using the new, improved, UK-Elect v9.4 method which takes account of even more factors than previously. Among the inputs taken into consideration by this forecast were: national opinion polls, regional opinion polls (for Scotland, Wales and London), the exact candidates standing in each seat and whether they were the incumbent, and if so, whether they won that seat for the first time at the previous election, by-elections, constituency opinion polls by Lord Ashcroft and others (adjusted according to how many days ago the fieldwork was done), and the change in the regional and national polls since the poll fieldwork or by-election.

In additional to individual seat forecasts, UK-Elect is capable of calculating seat-win probabilities for each of the parties in every seat. This method is preferred by many academics. When these seat-win probabilities are summed and rounded, the overall forecast result is:
 
UK-Elect Statistical Forecast:
Labour 275
Conservative 274
SNP 50
LD 26
Plaid Cymru 3
UKIP 2
Green 1
Speaker 1
NI Parties 18

The difference between the two methods can quite easily be seen by imagining the situation where party A has a 60% chance of winning each of 10 constituencies, party B a 30% chance, and party C a 10% chance. Under the usual constituency-based forecasting system party A would be predicted to win all 10 seats, whereas under the statistical method party A would be forecast to win 6 seats, party B 3, and party C 1. UK-Elect usually uses the constituency-based system, in part to avoid answering questions such as "You forecast that party C will win 1 seat - which one is that? Show me on your map..." with "actually, party C is not expected to win any particular seat" and then having to explain at length... However, the statistical approach does have its advantages, and it would be no surprise if it were better able to forecast the overall seat numbers, in particular those for the SNP, UKIP etc.

The GB percentages input for this forecast were Con 34%, Lab 33.5%, UKIP 12.5%, Lib Dem 9.5%, Green 5.5%. For Scotland the percentages used were SNP 47%, Lab 26.5%, Con 15%, Lib Dem 6%, UKIP 2%, Green 2%, for Wales the percentages used were Lab 39% Con 26%, Plaid Cymru 13%, UKIP 12%, Lib Dem 6%, Green 3%, and for London the percentages used were Lab 46%, Con 33%, Lib Dem 9%, UKIP 8%, Green 3% Other parties votes were not specifically set.

What will happen if there is a Hung Parliament? Despite some confusion propagated by the media, the rules are very clear and defined in the Cabinet Manual: "A government holds office by virtue of its ability to command the confidence of the House of Commons, chosen by the electorate in a general election." You can read the full details for yourself here: The Cabinet Manual A guide to laws, conventions and rules on the operation of government.

The principles of government formation
2.7 The ability of a government to command the confidence of the elected House of Commons is central to its authority to govern. It is tested by votes on motions of confidence, or no confidence..
..
Parliaments with no overall majority in the House of Commons
2.12 Where an election does not result in an overall majority for a single party, the incumbent government remains in office unless and until the Prime Minister tenders his or her resignation and the Government's resignation to the Sovereign. An incumbent government is entitled to wait until the new Parliament has met to see if it can command the confidence of the House of Commons, but is expected to resign if it becomes clear that it is unlikely to be able to command that confidence and there is a clear alternative.
..
2.19 Under the Fixed-term Parliaments Act 2011, if a government is defeated on a motion that 'this House has no confidence in Her Majesty's Government', there is then a 14-day period during which an alternative government can be formed from the House of Commons as presently constituted, or the incumbent government can seek to regain the confidence of the House. If no government can secure the confidence of the House of Commons during that period, through the approval of a motion that 'this House has confidence in Her Majesty's Government', a general election will take place.

Why not forecast the General Election, Scottish Parliament, Welsh Assembly, London Assembly or other UK election yourself? UK-Elect has a huge amount of functionality, data, maps etc. related to all types of U.K. elections. Make UK-Elect the core of your election experience - Forecast It All!

See also latest statistics, graphics and maps:
Constituencies: UK   Scotland   Scotland (by maj)   Wales   London
Percentages: Main Party Percentages In Every Constituency
Maps: UK   UK (With Gains)   Scotland   Wales   London   E England   SW England   SE England   NW England   NE England   West Midlands   East Midlands   Yorks and Humberside   Gains   Losses   Swing To   Swing From   2nd

Party Seats Change Labour 275 +18 Conservative 270 -33 SNP 54 +48 Liberal Democrat 27 -29 UKIP 1 -1 DUP 9 +1 Sinn Fein 5 - SDLP 3 - Green 1 - Plaid Cymru 3 - Others 2 -4 Lab Short By 50 - Hung Parliament See UK-Elect Latest Forecast for the UK-Elect 'Latest Forecast' page.

UK-Elect Election Forecast Maps Click on image to enlarge. See also more maps.

Additional UK-Elect generated maps and screenshots (Click to enlarge)
Hover cursor over map for more information, click on image to enlarge

Notes: The forecast base was the 2010 General Election, although gains are compared with the current situation (May 2015). The forecasting was made using the new, enhanced, UK-Elect v9.4 method, on a separate regional basis for Scotland, Wales, London, and Great Britain, with many other factors taken into consideration, including the number of days until the election, by-election results, local constituency opinion polls, and the changes in the national poll percentages since the by-elections and constituency opinion polls. Incumbency support was enabled, and configured to take account of whether or not the incumbent was standing again or standing down, and they were standing again it also took into consideration whether they had won the seat for the first time at the preceding election. (This is because some academic studies have suggested that the incumbency effect is greater for first time winners.)

The final candidates list was used for this forecast - UK-Elect adjusts all seat forecasts to take account of exactly which candidates and parties have been nominated.

See UK Election Forecasting Theory, Techniques and Controversial Discussions and UK Election Forecasting - A detailed explanation of the techniques used by UK-Elect for more details of UK-Elect forecasting techniques.

UK-Elect v9.4 users will be able to reproduce the above forecast when using the latest, most up-to-date version of UK-Elect. All users of a recent version can produce a similar result by downloading the latest data update from the UK-Elect downloads page, and then doing a "Guided Forecast" specifying the separate percentages for Scotland, Wales and London together with the overall GB percentages. Note that the method used was the UK-Elect v9.4 method with all the default UK-Elect settings for that method enabled, but date-specific adjustments (adjusting the calculation target percentages depending on the number of days until the election) were used for this forecast.

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