I know that the UK General Election will not occur until May 2015 but things are starting to heat-up, so let's take a look at the current state of play.
The 'elephant in the room' many would suggest is UKIP (but see below). I am not so sure. I can see that UKIP will damage both major parties but perhaps the Conservatives a little more. Can they though make a breakthrough? In by-elections, as former MP Louise Mensch has pointed out, they have done well, where the UKIP candidate is a defector. They won in Clacton and seem to be ahead in Rochester and Strood. However, will they fare as well when they come-up against a sitting MP with a reasonable majority? Especially if that MP is Conservative and an overt Euro-sceptic? My sense is that faced with such a choice, people will look beyond UKIP's headline 'out of Europe' and 'no immigration' policies and consider that there isn't much policy meat there. And, what there is, has a distinctly socialist taste to it.
I accept that there is disillusionment with the main parties but I think that on the day, people will stand in the voting booth, see the Conservative or Labour incumbent and either vote for them or for their opposite number, if the opposite number has a chance of winning. That is, in Conservative or Labour seats, where the other of the two main parties were second, the voter will consider switching between those two. Where there existed a large majority, at the last election, for either party, then they will consider moving their vote to UKIP. So it is the 'protest vote' in such cases that is movable and not the core.
No doubt UKIP enthusiasts will say I am wrong and that Nigel Farage is 'breaking the mould' of British politics but I just don't see that happening. The British are very conservative, when it comes down to it. Those of you with a long memory will recall the same being said about the Social Democratic Party and the so called 'gang of four' - much was written and said by the political pundits but come the day, people didn't fall in behind their SDP candidates and eventually the party merged or was subsumed, depending on your viewpoint, into the Liberal Party to form the Liberal Democrats.
So UKIP? Good local MPs like Douglas Carswell will likely hold onto their seat. Maybe Farage will be elected and maybe also a few others. One problem that they have though, is that their most well known personalities are elected members of the European Parliament and so if they stand in the UK General Election, then they will be open to accusations around their having their noses firmly stuck into the EU trough or, if they resign and stand, as causing unnecessary expense for the British taxpayer, etc..
The Lib Dems? Not sure that they are entirely in terminal decline but a post election merger with Labour wouldn't be too outrageous. Many, some would say most, Lib Dem policies are very socialist. Indeed, in some areas, the Lib Dems seem to outdo the Labour party in their interventionist, nannying kind of way. The Lib Dems will suffer badly (and rightly in my view) at the next election and will lose significant numbers of seats, perhaps even, being wiped-out in Scotland.
So to the Conservatives. They are very trusted on economic matters but there is a strong sense that on the very important issue of the EU, David Cameron cannot entirely be trusted (this indeed is a big part of the reason for the rise of UKIP). On crime, the Conservatives have a good story to tell. Similarly so on Welfare, where people see the 'welfare cap' as a good thing, (though still too generous) and other welfare reforms as long overdue, and on Education, where there is a quiet revolution underway - Trojan horse school scandals, notwithstanding. On defence matters people are trying to square the idea of defence cuts with an increasing need for military engagements around the globe. The partnering approach to this is being accepted (grudgingly). On the environment, there is not much 'clear green water' between any of the parties. All slavishly follow the highly flawed IPCC reports and the fatuous EU Carbon Emission Targets, though I sense that there is a growing sense of scepticism within Conservative ranks - not least because of the economic costs involved. You can expect that scepticism to soar if there are power outages during the coming UK winter.
All said and done, I believe that the Conservatives will be the largest party at Westminster after the next General Election. Though they will likely be short of an overall majority and with a much diminished Lib Dem party, have difficulty in forming a coalition. Given the passing of the Lib Dems favoured legislation on fixed term parliaments, this will present the UK with a period of political instability!
Which just leaves us with the Labour Party. Prior to the Scottish Independence Referendum, Labour probably thought that the Conservatives were their main opponents. Keep banging-on about tax cuts for the rich and so on and Labour would sweep to power. The way of the UK system certainly favours them. Notionally, they require just over 35% of the votes to be in Number 10. However, that is much less certain now. The SNP, who, in my view, are the real 'elephant in the room' are expected to make very significant gains at the expense of Labour. To many Scottish voters, they are faced with a choice between a socialist Labour party that represents the whole of the UK and a socialist SNP that puts Scotland's interests, first. Why would a Scottish socialist vote for Labour?
And that is before you take account of the turmoil in which Labour finds itself, in Scotland. The Scottish Labour leader, Johann Lamont, has resigned and in the process lambasted Ed Miliband and the London-based Labour elite. While Ms Lamont has lost a Christmas fraternal greetings card from Ed, she has done Scottish Labour (and the people of Scotland) a great service, with her exposure of Miliband's inadequacies.
It is not only in Scotland that Labour is coming apart. On the economy, their solution of 'what we need is more debt and more borrowing' doesn't resonate. People know that this is how we got into the mess in the first place. And they don't forget who was in charge at that time! On Europe, the charge is that 'Labour don't trust the people' and not agreeing to a referendum, indeed opposing the Conservative backbencher attempts to enshrine one in law, just reinforce the view that Labour are pro-EU. On immigration, a very hot topic for voters and a vote winner for UKIP, Labour are seen as the architects of the current situation. The Conservatives don't get off scot-free but immigration is a stick of rock with Labour written all the way through it!
Thinking about that - the two big UKIP issues - immigration and the EU, see them diametrically opposed to Labour. So if these are key issues for the electorate, one would expect to see Labour suffering more than the Conservatives. The latter certainly lean more UKIP's way on these issues.
Back to Ed Miliband. What a sorry excuse for a party leader. One who owes his fratricidal elevation to union block votes and who is now in a continual sniping war with the very same union bosses who 'annoited' him and whose unions bankroll his party.
The silent support for Miliband, from his front-bench colleagues is deafening in its absence. The buffoonish Ed Balls thinks he should be party leader, while ignoring his exceedingly close proximity to the Treasury, when Labour were in power and ruining the economy. The Labour deputy leader, Harriet Harman, is fixated on pushing a 'feminazi' agenda by wearing slogan shirts in parliament. When she is not seeing evil intent in every utterance by or action of, a male she must sit, in her quiet moments and ponder how foolish she and her husband, fellow MP Jack Dromey, were to push a Paedophile Information Exchange agenda, when they were on the executive of the National Council for Civil Liberties. It is a sign of great concern that she would think how foolish they were rather than how wrong. This alone should be enough to consign her (and him) to the rubbish bin of political history.
So while these Labour heavy-hitters are so otherwise engaged, Ed continues to flounder. Some people say that politics is about policies and, they are largely right but don't discount the personality factor. Nick Clegg came out of the 2010 Election debates so much better than Gordon Brown and David Cameron because of his 'niceness'. Brown was seen as arrogant and less competent than he himself believed, and Cameron's message was delivered in a manner that was perhaps uncaring.
The 2015 General Election debates will see a personally confident Cameron versus a bumbling Miliband. Miliband's speaking, the nasal and whiny delivery just grates on one. Whatever message he is trying to put across gets lost in a general annoyance with the delivery! Farage will do okay, in his matey, ' I might drink in the saloon bar but I am in touch with the views of those in the public bar' approach but I doubt he will have the breadth of subject grasp that will survive scrutiny. Clegg? He will be caught between a rock and a hard place - trying to defend the Lib Dems time at the top table and to differentiate. (Incidentally, a much better analogy that rock and a hard place is 'being between the dog and the tree'!)
The issues? The economy, immigration, EU and welfare. Funded tax cuts rather than debt-funded ones will appeal. I don't think the NHS will loom as large as in previous elections. Labour will bang on about it but are very susceptible on the fiasco of Labour-run NHS in Wales and the truly shocking incidents at Mid Staffs hospitals and elsewhere.
So a hung parliament in 2015 and a further election later that year or early in 2016, once Labour have a new leader. Oh and not forgetting a much improved Westminster presence for the SNP.
File this one away and come back and see how accurate I am!!
The 'elephant in the room' many would suggest is UKIP (but see below). I am not so sure. I can see that UKIP will damage both major parties but perhaps the Conservatives a little more. Can they though make a breakthrough? In by-elections, as former MP Louise Mensch has pointed out, they have done well, where the UKIP candidate is a defector. They won in Clacton and seem to be ahead in Rochester and Strood. However, will they fare as well when they come-up against a sitting MP with a reasonable majority? Especially if that MP is Conservative and an overt Euro-sceptic? My sense is that faced with such a choice, people will look beyond UKIP's headline 'out of Europe' and 'no immigration' policies and consider that there isn't much policy meat there. And, what there is, has a distinctly socialist taste to it.
I accept that there is disillusionment with the main parties but I think that on the day, people will stand in the voting booth, see the Conservative or Labour incumbent and either vote for them or for their opposite number, if the opposite number has a chance of winning. That is, in Conservative or Labour seats, where the other of the two main parties were second, the voter will consider switching between those two. Where there existed a large majority, at the last election, for either party, then they will consider moving their vote to UKIP. So it is the 'protest vote' in such cases that is movable and not the core.
No doubt UKIP enthusiasts will say I am wrong and that Nigel Farage is 'breaking the mould' of British politics but I just don't see that happening. The British are very conservative, when it comes down to it. Those of you with a long memory will recall the same being said about the Social Democratic Party and the so called 'gang of four' - much was written and said by the political pundits but come the day, people didn't fall in behind their SDP candidates and eventually the party merged or was subsumed, depending on your viewpoint, into the Liberal Party to form the Liberal Democrats.
So UKIP? Good local MPs like Douglas Carswell will likely hold onto their seat. Maybe Farage will be elected and maybe also a few others. One problem that they have though, is that their most well known personalities are elected members of the European Parliament and so if they stand in the UK General Election, then they will be open to accusations around their having their noses firmly stuck into the EU trough or, if they resign and stand, as causing unnecessary expense for the British taxpayer, etc..
The Lib Dems? Not sure that they are entirely in terminal decline but a post election merger with Labour wouldn't be too outrageous. Many, some would say most, Lib Dem policies are very socialist. Indeed, in some areas, the Lib Dems seem to outdo the Labour party in their interventionist, nannying kind of way. The Lib Dems will suffer badly (and rightly in my view) at the next election and will lose significant numbers of seats, perhaps even, being wiped-out in Scotland.
So to the Conservatives. They are very trusted on economic matters but there is a strong sense that on the very important issue of the EU, David Cameron cannot entirely be trusted (this indeed is a big part of the reason for the rise of UKIP). On crime, the Conservatives have a good story to tell. Similarly so on Welfare, where people see the 'welfare cap' as a good thing, (though still too generous) and other welfare reforms as long overdue, and on Education, where there is a quiet revolution underway - Trojan horse school scandals, notwithstanding. On defence matters people are trying to square the idea of defence cuts with an increasing need for military engagements around the globe. The partnering approach to this is being accepted (grudgingly). On the environment, there is not much 'clear green water' between any of the parties. All slavishly follow the highly flawed IPCC reports and the fatuous EU Carbon Emission Targets, though I sense that there is a growing sense of scepticism within Conservative ranks - not least because of the economic costs involved. You can expect that scepticism to soar if there are power outages during the coming UK winter.
All said and done, I believe that the Conservatives will be the largest party at Westminster after the next General Election. Though they will likely be short of an overall majority and with a much diminished Lib Dem party, have difficulty in forming a coalition. Given the passing of the Lib Dems favoured legislation on fixed term parliaments, this will present the UK with a period of political instability!
Which just leaves us with the Labour Party. Prior to the Scottish Independence Referendum, Labour probably thought that the Conservatives were their main opponents. Keep banging-on about tax cuts for the rich and so on and Labour would sweep to power. The way of the UK system certainly favours them. Notionally, they require just over 35% of the votes to be in Number 10. However, that is much less certain now. The SNP, who, in my view, are the real 'elephant in the room' are expected to make very significant gains at the expense of Labour. To many Scottish voters, they are faced with a choice between a socialist Labour party that represents the whole of the UK and a socialist SNP that puts Scotland's interests, first. Why would a Scottish socialist vote for Labour?
And that is before you take account of the turmoil in which Labour finds itself, in Scotland. The Scottish Labour leader, Johann Lamont, has resigned and in the process lambasted Ed Miliband and the London-based Labour elite. While Ms Lamont has lost a Christmas fraternal greetings card from Ed, she has done Scottish Labour (and the people of Scotland) a great service, with her exposure of Miliband's inadequacies.
It is not only in Scotland that Labour is coming apart. On the economy, their solution of 'what we need is more debt and more borrowing' doesn't resonate. People know that this is how we got into the mess in the first place. And they don't forget who was in charge at that time! On Europe, the charge is that 'Labour don't trust the people' and not agreeing to a referendum, indeed opposing the Conservative backbencher attempts to enshrine one in law, just reinforce the view that Labour are pro-EU. On immigration, a very hot topic for voters and a vote winner for UKIP, Labour are seen as the architects of the current situation. The Conservatives don't get off scot-free but immigration is a stick of rock with Labour written all the way through it!
Thinking about that - the two big UKIP issues - immigration and the EU, see them diametrically opposed to Labour. So if these are key issues for the electorate, one would expect to see Labour suffering more than the Conservatives. The latter certainly lean more UKIP's way on these issues.
Back to Ed Miliband. What a sorry excuse for a party leader. One who owes his fratricidal elevation to union block votes and who is now in a continual sniping war with the very same union bosses who 'annoited' him and whose unions bankroll his party.
The silent support for Miliband, from his front-bench colleagues is deafening in its absence. The buffoonish Ed Balls thinks he should be party leader, while ignoring his exceedingly close proximity to the Treasury, when Labour were in power and ruining the economy. The Labour deputy leader, Harriet Harman, is fixated on pushing a 'feminazi' agenda by wearing slogan shirts in parliament. When she is not seeing evil intent in every utterance by or action of, a male she must sit, in her quiet moments and ponder how foolish she and her husband, fellow MP Jack Dromey, were to push a Paedophile Information Exchange agenda, when they were on the executive of the National Council for Civil Liberties. It is a sign of great concern that she would think how foolish they were rather than how wrong. This alone should be enough to consign her (and him) to the rubbish bin of political history.
So while these Labour heavy-hitters are so otherwise engaged, Ed continues to flounder. Some people say that politics is about policies and, they are largely right but don't discount the personality factor. Nick Clegg came out of the 2010 Election debates so much better than Gordon Brown and David Cameron because of his 'niceness'. Brown was seen as arrogant and less competent than he himself believed, and Cameron's message was delivered in a manner that was perhaps uncaring.
The 2015 General Election debates will see a personally confident Cameron versus a bumbling Miliband. Miliband's speaking, the nasal and whiny delivery just grates on one. Whatever message he is trying to put across gets lost in a general annoyance with the delivery! Farage will do okay, in his matey, ' I might drink in the saloon bar but I am in touch with the views of those in the public bar' approach but I doubt he will have the breadth of subject grasp that will survive scrutiny. Clegg? He will be caught between a rock and a hard place - trying to defend the Lib Dems time at the top table and to differentiate. (Incidentally, a much better analogy that rock and a hard place is 'being between the dog and the tree'!)
The issues? The economy, immigration, EU and welfare. Funded tax cuts rather than debt-funded ones will appeal. I don't think the NHS will loom as large as in previous elections. Labour will bang on about it but are very susceptible on the fiasco of Labour-run NHS in Wales and the truly shocking incidents at Mid Staffs hospitals and elsewhere.
So a hung parliament in 2015 and a further election later that year or early in 2016, once Labour have a new leader. Oh and not forgetting a much improved Westminster presence for the SNP.
File this one away and come back and see how accurate I am!!
UKIP will make major inroads, as the 'anyone BUT Labour' vote coalesces around them. Whether that will always be enough to get a UKIP MP elected is unclear at this stage (no prizes for coming second under FPtP!) but it's likely to ensure that a large numbers of 'safe seat' labour MPs are displaced and that Labour will need to devote far more of their relatively limited resources to campaigning in hitherto 'donkey vote' seats.
ReplyDeleteThat, in turn, will limit their profile elsewhere.
Much the same can be said of the Conservatives in their Shire heartlands.
Meanwhile the LDs get crushed underfoot as the parasitic political bugs they are.
Interesting set of predictions. I will check back. I suspect you're right about UKIP, they will under perform in terms of seats for exactly the same reason third parties (Liberals, SDP, LibDems) always have - spread of support. However, given a hung parliament (which you predict, and I agree is likely) they could yet hold the balance of power. Indeed one of the more interesting facets of that scenario is that there are at least three potential candidates for balance of power, the SNP being quite possibly the largest of them if recent polling is credible.
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