Every political commentator, whilst waiting for the results from London to come through, is talking about the national picture, after yesterdays vote . The big question; that everyone seems to be asking is what if the predicted national share of the vote was seen at a general election.

Well thanks to the BBC, and their general election seat calculator (from the 2005 general election), as well as the exit poll/research they used last night we can see how many seats each of the three parties would have had if it had been a general election. Last night the national (predicted) vote went; 44% Conservative, 24% Labour, 25% Liberal Democrat and 7% went to other political parties.

Based on those results the Conservatives, not surprisingly would form the new government, with a massive 459 (up from 192 MPs) seats in the House of Commons. Labour would be on 107 (down from the current 351 MPs) and the Liberal Democrats, despite polling 25% of the vote would only be on 56 seats (down from 63 MPs). The other political parties would make up the remaining seats in Parliament, with a combined 24 MPs. This would mean the Tories would have a majority of 272 MPs according to this projection. To form the government, under the current number of seats in the House of Commons which is 646, the majority party needs 324 seats, and clearly the conservatives pass this margin spectacularly.

Now obviously this wouldn’t be the full make up of a new parliament, because last night only saw elections in selected areas and there were no elections in either Northern Ireland (which has 18 MPs on its own and none of these are from the main political parties) or in Scotland (where the Conservative party has only a single MP, out of the 59 which represent constituencies in the country).

Add to that, no matter what is said at the end of the day these were local elections, and for these local issues are the most important. Yes national policies come into affect but there are places throughout the country where the threat to council run public services or the performance of the council over the last year takes priority over what is happening in Westminster.