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CHELGATE OFFERS CASE OF BUBBLY FOR PREDICTING ELECTION RESULT
21 March 2005

A case of champagne is on offer from a London public relations consultancy in a competition to predict the outcome of the upcoming general election. The individual closest to guessing the vote margin between the winning party and the second placed party will be sent 12 bottles of the stuff. A winning entry made a month or more before the date of the election will earn an extra bottle of malt whisky.

This is the second time Chelgate have staged this competition. At the last General Election, more than 500 entries were received and participants ranged from famous politicians to professional bookmakers. Chelgate Chairman Terence Fane-Saunders thinks the firm may have stumbled onto something: "If you place your trust in opinion polls, you probably also check your star sign every day. But at the last election, the mean average forecast by our contestants was eerily accurate, as you might expect when you combine well-informed, finely tuned political opinion with simple raging thirst."

The quest to find the political pundit to put Jon Snow's Swing-o-meter out of business is on the website of Chelgate [www.chelgate.com]; who offer their clients advice and access in government relations and public affairs while remaining party-neutral. Chelgate offers examples of the vote margins from the last three elections, adding the advice to bear in mind that it is possible for the party with the most votes not to win the largest number of seats.

All guesses will be kept strictly confidential and the winner will be notified as soon as possible after the election itself.

General Election 9 th April 1992. Electorate 36.1m. Turnout 78.04%

General Election 1 st May 1997. Electorate 43.8m. Turnout 71.46%

General Election 10 th June 2001. Electorate 44.4m. Turnout 59.38

Ends