UK General Election - May 7th 2015

[ChrisDR68]

No-one on this thread has mentioned the effect of Labour having Ed Miliband as leader will have on the result of the next election. Personally I think if his brother David had won the Labour leadership in 2010 and had made Alistair Darling shadow chancellor they would have walked into 10 Downing Street without even needing to campaign during the 2015 general election.

Ed's personal ratings are very similar to Neil Kinnock's.

If the leader of the opposition is not seen as a credible potential prime minister history shows they tend to lose general elections.

Just ask Micheal Foot, Neil Kinnock, William Hague and Michael Howard.

The exception to the rule is Hugh Gaitskell but that was over half a century ago and he unfortunately died less than two years before probably winning power at his second attempt in 1964.

 

[ChrisDR68]

Getting back to making a prediction of the 2015 election I think there will be another coalition government when all is said and done.

No incumbent government has seen it's share of the vote increase since the Tories did that in the 1955 election after a full term of office so it's likely their's and the Lib Dem's share will both drop.

Labour's share will rise but by not that much due to the public's doubts about Ed Miliband's leadership.

There won't be a single UKIP member of parliament since they need to poll around the same percentage of the popular vote as either Labour or the Conservative before they start winning seats and that's is very unlikely to happen. 

My prediction:

Conservatives ......... 35%   269 seats
Labour ..................... 33%   310 seats
Liberal Democrats ... 17%     44 seats
UKIP ........................   7%       0 seats
Others ....................    8%     27 seats

So despite losing the popular vote Labour will win comfortably more seats than them due to the Tories' desperate weakness in Northern cities, Scotland and Wales. Despite people's major doubts about Ed Miliband he end up getting the keys to 10 Downing Street almost by default.

[ChrisDR68]

Liberal Democrats ... 17%     44 seats

I find it hard to believe the Lib Dems will do that well. Most polls have them in single digits and I expect them to drop to about 20 seats and 9-10% of the vote at most.

After seeing Chris Huhne being interviewed on tv on Sunday (yes he of the driving offence fame) he said the Lib Dems were in a similar position in the polls mid-term before the last election. So I did a bit of research.

In October 2008 they were on an average of 15% in the opinion polls. On election day they achieved 23% which is an increase of 8%.

At the moment the BBC poll of polls has them on 11% so I've guessed they'll be able to increase that by 6% by May 2015.

We're a bit in unknown territory though due to their association with the Tories and the tuition fees issue both of which are very unpopular with a lot of people who voted Lib Dem last time.

[ChrisDR68]

Even though I predict a hung parliament with Labour as the largest party in 2015, perhaps if that happens the Lib Dems should opt for a supply and confidence arrangement with them instead of a full coalition.

Daniel Finkelstein wrote an interesting article in The Times recently explaining why:

A brief extract:

“(In a coalition with Labour) … it is certainly not to argue that the Lib Dems would feel uncomfortable. In fact, quite the opposite. They would feel so comfortable that one would wonder what the point was.

Let me go a little further. On Monday, at the Times fringe meeting here, Paddy Ashdown said that he felt Labour hadn’t begun to understand coalition politics, implying that it might be hard to do a deal with them. Yet I think it would be relatively easy and that the Liberal Democrats’ real problems will begin if they succeed.

It is the contrast with the Conservatives that gives Nick Clegg’s party definition as a centre party. They resist some welfare reform, water down changes to public services, insist on raising taxes on the rich and so on. What is the contrast with Labour? A short-term difference of opinion about deficit targets will not be enough.

In government with Labour, as things now stand, the Lib Dems would quickly lose their identity. They would quickly become fairly pointless. In achieving what many of them would want they might make themselves redundant, leaving slow long-term merger with Labour as the only alternative. They might embark on this while hardly noticing.”

[ChrisDR68]

Conservatives 36%
Labour 33%
Liberal Democrats 14%
UK Independence Party 9%
Others 8%

Tories 294 seats, Labour 291, Lib Dems 36, UKIP 0, Others 29

Anyone's guess what will happen if the result is anything like this. Clegg would probably step down though to be replaced by Farren as another coalition with Clegg there would do the LibDems nothing but more harm.

[ChrisDR68]

Conservatives 36%
Labour 33%
Liberal Democrats 14%
UK Independence Party 9%
Others 8%

Tories 294 seats, Labour 291, Lib Dems 36, UKIP 0, Others 29

Anyone's guess what will happen if the result is anything like this. Clegg would probably step down though to be replaced by Farren as another coalition with Clegg there would do the LibDems nothing but more harm.

294 + 36 = 330 = very tenuous continuation of the coalition. Both Clegg and Cameron have the benefit of incumbency. Cameron could probably quit in his own time under those numbers if he keeps his promise to hold an EU referendum, which will encourage Conservative MPs to keep backing him and the coalition; Clegg steps down once the Lib Dems quit government, to serve as scapegoat for the sins of the coalition. Therefore, Labour and Lib Dems would vote against a Tory minority. I think if the Lib Dems get 36 seats, they'll be delighted, not in a mood for decapitation. I think they are more likely to get about 20 seats.

This is the article ( http://www.iaindale.com/posts/2014/02/05/why-the-libdem-seats-will-win-30-35-seats-in-2015 ) I'm basing my prediction of 36 LibDem seats on. Iain Dale is a Tory supporting journalist so he's no particular friend of the Libs.

[ChrisDR68]

OMG YL, have you seen this

http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2014/may/26/nick-clegg-and-lib-dems-face-battle-for-survival

I doubt it, but it would make my first general election vote extremely worthwhile if I got to uproot a party leader.

A lot of journalistic over-reaction. The EU elections are not taken seriously by anyone in the UK so it's a perfect opportunity for a protest vote. What does the European Parliament do that can't be over ruled by the Commission for example?

I'm not a big fan of Clegg (a third rate actor who comes across as insincere) but I'm guessing the Lib Dem vote will shore-up during the election campaign in April 2015 and they'll win at least 30-35 seats.

After that what happens next depends on the mathematics of the election result just as it did in May 2010.

[ChrisDR68]

I've watched Oakeshott in interviews on numerous occasions on tv and each time he came across as a head strong tetchy idiot.

Ironically the polls he conducted (which used tiny sample sizes) seem to show the Lib Dems would do only marginally better if his hero Vince Cable was leader.

The main problem they have with their ex-voters from 2005 and 2010 is that they went into coalition with the hated Tories and not that Clegg is the party leader (although obviously that is a major problem too).

[ChrisDR68]

The tragic thing about the Lib Dems is they need to be built into a party of coherent ideology, unlike the loosely defined pre-2010 mess. That means either switching to FDP-style classical liberalism or a progressive social democratic party. Clegg, is broadly sympathetic to the former, but his actions in the coalition seem more inspired by bland centrism. To a degree, Farron is the same - bravely umming and erring through this parliament.

I'm not sure it's possible for a centrist political party to have a coherent ideology (by which I take it you mean a rigid ideology more or less set in stone).

All three of the main parties are coalitions between libertarian right and statist left (in terms of economics). Libertarianism dominates in the Tory Party and statism dominates in the Labour Party (although less than it used to).

The Lib Dems straddle the two being more in favour of the public sector and state interference in the running of the economy than the Tories but less than Labour.

A middle of the road position probably mirrored by a good portion (possibly even a majority) of the British people.

[ChrisDR68]

For anyone who's thinking Labour will lose (I'm not, but whatever), Andy Burnham is by far the most popular member of the Shadow Cabinet among the grassroots, looking forward to any hypothetical leadership election.

The worst I see Labour doing in 2015 is a hung parliament with the Tories a few seats short of the 326 seats they need for a majority. For them to get an overall majority they need to be 9% ahead of Labour which I can't see happening.

In that scenario do you see Red Ed standing down?

I see him still as the Labour leader in May 2020 unless something extraordinary happens (the most likely being intense pressure from within his party to resign).

[ChrisDR68]

Yeah, it's number 10 or resign for Miliband.

I can't see Andy Burnham winning a leadership contest in 2015 if there is one. He had very low support amongst his fellow MP's in 2010.

I think it will be one of three:

Yvette Cooper (who is hampered a bit by being married to the unpopular Ed Balls)
Chucka Umanna (who comes across as slightly too slick and sounding like a lawyer)
Rachel Reeves (who often gets very flustered in tv interviews if she doesn't like the question she's being asked. She also has a slightly commical accent (well it always makes me smile anyway lol))

So possibly either Labour's first female or mixed race leader.

All three would be pretty good I think.

[ChrisDR68]

There is really people liking Chukka Ummana? I mean, he sounds like a right-wing version of Tony Blair.

Weird how the only two leaders that have won Labour a general election since Clement Attlee in 1950 are held in such low esteem by so many.

At the same time most of the Labour leaders that failed at the ballot box are generally quite fondly remembered such as Gaitskell, Callaghan, Foot and even Kinnock.

[ChrisDR68]

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If the Labour Party under Michael Foot managed to win 209 seats in 1983 with the manifesto they had at the time I doubt Labour was ever heading for oblivion.

A very long period in opposition yes but oblivion no.

[ChrisDR68]

SD parties just don't change their names, as former Norwegian Labour PM Jens Stoltenberg said when a journalist from Aftenposten (The Evening Post) asked him if the name wasn't outdated and ought to be changed now that only a minority of its voters where workers:

"The Labour Party is called the Labour Party, just as Aftenposten is called Aftenposten, even if its published in the morning".

"New" Labour was bad enough. Progressives in a European context would be awful. European parties that call themselves something with Progress or Progressives are generally reactionaries and/or corrupt.

In a way I agree with you but I also think the name Labour Party is outdated.

It conjures up an image of thousands of manual workers streaming out of the factories at the same time after they'd clocked off after a day's work (with lots of smokestack chimneys in the background belching out thick black smoke).

Oh and don't forget everyone wearing a flat cap and talking in a broad regional accent...

The Labour Party was formed in 1900 to represent the industrial working class but they are now only a tiny proportion of today's workforce.

The obvious alternative name was unfortunately used by a certain gang of four in 1981. Another reason to remember the "Limehouse Declaration" in a negative light.

[ChrisDR68]

Anyway, the nature of class in the UK means that while not many people are employed in stereotypical industrial occupations, the class identities created by them have not gone away. The main electoral effect of deindustrialisation has been lower turnouts (which is partly a consequence of lower TU membership) and higher swings, rather than a dissolution of the old patterns.

Yes it's still very striking how you can go on a half hour drive and instinctively know whether you're in a Labour or Tory area. Inner cities just feel like Labour strongholds. When you go through many leafy suburban towns you can't imagine anything other than a large Tory majority.

Having said that the class divide is quite a bit less stark than when I was growing up in the 70's and it seems to be gradually lessening with time.

[ChrisDR68]

From John Rentoul in his Independent blog:

The Kinnock Comparison

The point of the Newark by-election for Ed Miliband, however, is that Labour was nowhere. The relevant comparisons for Labour are the Monmouth by-election in May 1991, won from the Conservatives by Huw Edwards for Labour, and Langbaurgh in November 1991, taken from the Tories by Ashok Kumar, Labour.

Those were before Neil Kinnock went on to lose the general election in April 1992.

Last Sunday I asked if in Miliband Labour has got its Kinnock back. Actually, it is not even doing that well.

[ChrisDR68]

The first 600-proposal was indeed bad for LD, I don't know, how the Tories wanted to come through with it in Parliament. The second version then was - what coincidence! - clearly better for the LDs.

I thought the Lib Dems voted against the new boundaries because Cameron failed to get his fellow Tories to accept House Of Lords reform. 

[ChrisDR68]

The 1980s were different; the Alliance had many friends in the media and received much (glowing) coverage.

Plus the Labour Party was in as bad a state as you could possibly imagine a major political party to be in for practically the whole of that decade...

[ChrisDR68]

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The old Liberal Party under Jo Grimmond only achieved 7.5% of the popular vote in the 1970 general election. Then a combination of the incompetent Heath government and Labour's slide to the left in the early 70's produced a surge in support under Jeremy Thorpe by the time of the two elections of 1974 which has largely held firm during all subsequent general elections.

We're in an unusual situation at the moment as the Libs haven't been a part of government since WW2 and many of their ex voters hate the fact they're in coalition with the Tories. Couple that with the rise of UKIP and it's easy to see why they're struggling in the polls.

I still expect they'll achieve a limited recovery though probably to around 14% by May 2015.

[ChrisDR68]

Boris Johnson wants to become Tory leader an MP again.

I predict David Cameron will remain as PM after the next general election so Mr Have I Got News For You will have to wait a few years yet for his chance

[ChrisDR68]

English devolution or only English MP's voting on English only issues is a massive trap for the Labour party.

Apart from exceptional elections like 1997 and 2001 the Tories generally have a majority of MP's in England.

If Labour has a majority in the House Of Commons in the future but only with the help of their Scottish MP's then they are likely to find passing laws for England largely unworkable.

On the other hand denying devolution for England at Westminister would likely be very unpopular with English voters.

How will they square the circle?

[ChrisDR68]

Labour won a majority of seats in England in 2005.

Yep Tony Blair was the Labour Party's Heineken... reaching the parts other Labour leaders failed to reach

[ChrisDR68]

Some form of regional government makes sense, but it's fairly clear that the regions should not be the current official ones (which are essentially statistical entities). Possibly it would make sense to dust off the Redcliffe-Maud report and then adjust accordingly.

I read a paper once that suggested that post-war, one of the best measures of local attachment was through the power of the tellybox; the old ITV regions were surprisingly powerful. Might be a strange place to start.

I like this idea. With a little tweaking these regions could work...

[ChrisDR68]

Nonetheless, not a bad starting point.

It's an interesting idea. Many of the regions themselves were in many ways defined by geography; signal strength being dictated by hills etc.

In terms of 'federalising' England, The North East is fine as it is, though it might make sense to re-establish the border with Yorkshire at the Tees. Yorkshire is a defined entity; the current region but excluding North Lincs. The North West is broadly fine. Cumbria is a bit of a problem I suppose but it's links are certainly south rather than east. The West Midlands makes sense too as does the East Midlands. It's once we get south that things get problematic.

The South West actually makes sense but perhaps it would be better served by having 'the peninsula' as one area and then unite the rest with Oxford, Bucks etc into a central southern region. The Sussex's, Kent, Surrey can be the rest. Perhaps I don't care enough about the South anyway

This is probably the best map I've found for dividing England up into 8 regional assemblies. Lincolnshire has a lot in common with East Anglia (flat agricultural land, sparse population etc) so combining those areas into one regional assembly makes sense. My personal preference would be for a single Midlands region rather than East and West as shown here as people who live there define themselves as of being from the midlands.

The South Of England region could be moved west slightly so as not to make the West Country's area too large and meandering (again as shown here). The only thing this map doesn't show is London as a separate region but that devolved area already exists and is fairly obvious.

In the north it's simpler. The North West would include Cumbria (although I'm open minded about whether it could be combined with the North East to make a North Of England region) as shown here. Yorkshire is probably the easiest region as it's already a defined area as already stated.

[ChrisDR68]

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As for names here are my thoughts:

North East (based in Durham due to the Newcastle - Sunderland rivalry)
North West (based in Warrington due to the Liverpool - Manchester rivalry)
Yorkshire (based in York)
Midlands (based in Birmingham)
Eastern England (based in somewhere like Cambridge due to it's central location within the region)
Greater London (based in the Gherkin lol)
South East (based in Eastbourne due to the Portsmouth - Southampton rivalry)
South West (based in possibly Yeovil due to it's central location)

You could change South East to Home Counties and South West to the West Country. I'm open minded about both.