How many of the cabinet will lose their seats in 2015?
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Thanks to David Cameron’s reshuffle, there are now quite a few more cabinet ministers at risk of losing their seats at the general election. Remarkably, not a single member of Gordon Brown’s last cabinet was defeated in 2010. I think that’s unlikely to be repeated next year.
If you take Ladbrokes’ constituency odds, we can calculate the percentage chances of any MP being defeated. Based on that, here are the top ten most vulnerable members of the cabinet and their chances of being evicted from Westminster in May 2015:
| Cabinet Member | Party | Constituency | Chance of losing seat |
| Danny Alexander | LD | Inverness | 56.9% |
| Esther McVey | CON | Wirral West | 54.5% |
| Nicky Morgan | CON | Loughborough | 52.2% |
| Ed Davey | LD | Kingston & Surbiton | 36.6% |
| Nick Clegg | LD | Sheffield Hallam | 27.1% |
| David Laws | LD | Yeovil | 26.7% |
| Stephen Crabb | CON | Preseli Pembrokeshire | 25.4% |
| Vince Cable | LD | Twickenham | 17.7% |
| Alistair Carmichael | LD | Orkney & Shetland | 6.4% |
| Justine Greening | CON | Putney | 5.6% |
There is some evidence that party leaders tend to get a vote share bonus in their seats. I’m not aware of any analysis of whether being in the cabinet helps an MP’s electoral performance. I expect it would have a small positive impact; Esther McVey and Nicky Morgan will be hoping so. However, I won’t be surprised if it has the opposite effect for the Liberal Democrats in this list..
