Will the meek inherit anything?

Some of these polls are ridiculous. A ComRes poll is putting the Greens third, beating the Lib Dems (bar chart), talk about building expectations! This election is being good to us and things are wide open but I'm not going to allow myself for even one moment to buy into this, I'm just going to keep working.

I went into the election hoping we'd be able to keep hold of our current two MEP's and now people are making it sound as if we only double their number we'll have done badly! For the record I'll be very happy if we have four MEPs next week - very happy indeed. All the rest is fantasy.

Anyway, all these polls are terribly mean because there are a whole load of parties standing at this election that never even get a mention. Whether it's the Christians, Arther Scargill or the English Democrats it seems awfully rotten that they've gone to all the trouble to stand and yet no one seems too bothered.

Well I'm here to rectify this example of the unfairness of the world with my predictions on how the minor parties are going to do. There are six parties in this league that are standing in all the regions. There are some lists standing in just one or two seats, I'm going to leave them out for now as it would be unfair to use their national 'score' as we would not be comparing like with like. You can find them here.

Bear in mind this isn't who I like the most but my estimation of which order they'll come in and on Sunday we'll see how accurate my predictions have been - you may well disagree with my estimations;

1. Christian Party/Christian Peoples Alliance

The only party in this section who'll get their deposit back in more than one region (you need 2.5% for that), they might even manage it in the majority of seats. Despite the fact that their leaflets are decidedly unchristian attack propaganda and their election broadcast was bizarre I'm pretty certain they'll get an interesting vote and top the league of the 'others'.

2. English Democrats

They want an English Parliament and don't like immigration. They are the choice for Nazis who don't like to be called names. I doubt they'll get their deposit back anywhere but on past performance they should get a small slice of the nationalist cake. Their vote may well vary wildly on who the opposition is in any particular region.

3. Socialist Labour Party

Arther Scargill is rightly a legend on the left for his sterling work as leader of the National Union of Miners. Sadly the last decade or so has not been kind for him and the ego that made him such a resilient opponent for the Tories has developed into a psychosis. I voted SLP in the Euro election of '99, it seemed reasonable at the time. A combination of hanging around for ages, a lack of a substantial hard left alternative and name recognition may get them around 1% of the vote.

4. NO2EU - Yes to democracy

Bob Crow is another admirable union leader and NO2EU's election broadcast has gone down quite well. However, launching a party with a weird name in the middle of the election period is not a recipe for success and Bob's grumpy venture doesn't really come across as fun for all the family so they will probably poll around the same as the SLP. At a guess I'm putting them just below.

5. Jury Team

A party without policies, profile or purpose. They are unlikely to poll even half a percent nationally.

6. Libertas

The most positive of the anti-EU alternatives this venture has absolutely no resonance in the UK. It may poll well in other countries but here they are invisible and irrelevant. I predict they will come last of the six minor parties.

Of course, if I was sitting round a pub table and found my companions were voting a mixture of NO2EU, SLP, Mebyon Kernow, SPGB and the very impressive Jan Jananayagam I'd know they were on the side of the angels, not that we wouldn't row. Best of luck to them all.