Sep 23 2007
October 25th?
The papers are full of the idea that the UK will have a General Election on 25th October 2007. For readers in the US and elsewhere, the UK Prime Minister can decide when to hold an election, as long as it happens within five years of the last one. The last general Election was 5th May 2005, so we could go for another 2 years 7 months before going to the polls. This Parliament is not yet at its half way point.
The newish Prime Minister would have to justify going this early to the polls on the grounds that he needs his own mandate. He would have to swallow his earlier words that there was no need for him to submit himself to an electoral test, but I guess this government has swallowed so many others that would not be too difficult. If the electorate do not buy this U-turn, he stands accused of opportunism and holding a needless election if he goes early.
Normally none of this would matter, as he could rightly say he is a democrat who wants to hear the voice of the British people. However, this is the man who refuses to grant the people a referendum on the major constitutional change planned in the latest EU Treaty, when his party promised such a referendum to get them through the last general Election on this tricky subject.
The Opposition has several advantages from an early election:
1. The Liberal Democrats are currently very low in the polls. Conservatives should make good gains at their expense, as in many parts of the country the battle is between Conservative and Lib Dem, not Conservative and Labour. There were 62 Lib Dem MPs at the last election. The Conservatives should aim to win at least 25 more seats from them in these conditions.
2. The boundary reviews that come into effect should give the Conservatives at least an extra 15 seats without any change in the voting patterns. Last time the Conservatives polled more votes in England than Labour but received 93 fewer MPs for their trouble!
3. In Scotland where Labour won 41 seats in 2005 to the Conservatives 1 and the Scottish Nationalists 6, the Labour polls are especially weak at the moment. Labour could lose badly in Scotland, where the SNP are currently well ahead of them in the polls. In 2005 Labour polled more than twice as many votes as the SNP in Scotland. They could lose a lot of seats north of the border.
4. In the Labour/Conservative marginals the polls are very volatile, sometimes showing the Conservatives likely easy winners of the 30 most marginal ones, sometimes showing Labour doing better.
5. The Conservatives have a unique selling proposition in an early election, offering a full referendum on the much hated EU Constitutional treaty. This should unite more of the Eurosceptic vote around the Conservative cause, squeezing the 2.38% that voted UKIP last time - a significant percentage in a close contest, but one which only earned UKIP 451 lost deposits and of course won them no MPs. This offer has more force in an early election beore the Treaty is ratified, and is important given the government’s broken promise on this very subject.
The press tells me today that the "new" government has handled a succession of crises well and this will help them in an election. That strikes me as odd.
The new government is coming over as a very unlucky government. We have had terrorist attacks, floods (in both the north of England and the south at different times) pestilence (two lots of foot and mouth and now blue tongue for cattle) and a run on a bank (for the first time in more than a century). Worse still, from the government’s point of view, it has not found lasting solutions to these problems:
1. Flooding - there has been no announcement of how in future the government will make a better fist of keeping drainage ditches, streams and conduits clear. There has been no big programme of public works put out to tender to ensure better capacity for dealing with future flooding. The Environment Agency did not do well in the run up to the last inundations.
2. Cattle disease. The government claimed it had handled the outbreak in Surrey brilliantly, and celebrated with spin the "ending" of the outbreak, returning things to normal just in time for a further cases to be identified. Now the Prime Minister is less in evidence as new controls are belatedly imposed. Meanwhile the government has had to acknowledge that the virus came from a government laboratory facility shared with one of its own contractors!
3. The run on a bank. The Chancellor has had to intervene with the so called "independent" Bank of England. In his search for someone or something to take the blame for the crisis he has decided to criticise the tripartite structure Gordon Brown set up for banking supervision when he first came into office. He will spend his next weeks trying to unpick his master’s work, without wanting to highlight the architect of this malfunctioning structure.
If this is all success, I am very glad we are not having to live with failures!
The latest national polls show a Labour lead over the Conservatives of around 6%. In 2005 the final polls showed Labour with a lead of 5-6% . The ballot result was a Labour lead of only 2.9%. Labour’s vote share of 35.2% in the election compared with several late polls putting it at around 38%. Voters are not very committed to any main party,are far more likely to switch and individual contests can now deviate from any so called national swing by large margins.
RSS Feed
John Redwood has been the Member of Parliament for Wokingham since 1987. First attending Kent College, Canterbury, he graduated from Magdalen College...
The Tories have GOT to stop treating UKIP like village idiots.
Most of them are clean and blameless ex-Tories (compare with the recent alleged activities of one of your most marginal MPs), who have been pushed out by the unrepresentative Europhile elite in your Party.
Reply: The Conservative party is pro a referendum on the Constitution, anti the Euro, anti powers to Brussels, pro repatriation of powers - at a certain point if you want these things you need to vote for them in a way likely to bring them about! A vote for UKIP HELPS THE FEDERALIST PARTIES.
And never underestimate the anger at the destruction of Europe’s finest pensions system (not that that says much). Many of those who voted for new labour have seen the value of their pensions contributions seriously devalued. They will remember who started this national disgrace, step forward Mr Brown and be judged.
I agree with this well put analysis. Labour were elected last time with only 22% of votes from those who were eligible to vote. So in reality 78% of the voting population did not want a Labour government. So in spite of the snapshot polls, which often depend on the question asked, there is no great level of support for Labour in the country. The Liberals look certain to be squeezed at the next general election. The British public will be faced with a straight choice ‘More of the same’ or ‘Change under a proactive Conservative government.
Gordon Brown has nothing new to offer to our people. Only the Conservative party has a broad-ranging programme for government that covers economic and social issues. My great fear is that if Gordon Brown wins a fourth term for Labour he will see that as a mandate to go ideological. The state will become even bigger and government interference in every aspect of life will intensify. The next election is about the future direction of the country, even about the liberty of the individual.
It’s a shame that more isn’t being done to inform the wider public and counter Brown’s spin on the recent problems. He’s being allowed to get away with deceit and half-truths, apparently virtually unopposed.
In his interview with Andrew Marr this morning he effectively claimed that his tripartite banking supervision structures were, over recent days, responsible for averting a banking crisis. Of course, we know that they were, in part, the very cause of that near-crisis. But that message is not getting out to the wider public. Your appearance on Question Time was very welcome, but the attack against Labour, their flawed policies and their spin needs to be stronger and better orchestrated.
REPLY:I agree - I use what air time comes my way
Brown certainly gets an unjustified easy ride from the media. He is reported as having resolved problems which have not been properly dealt with and the litany of serious mistakes he made as Chancellor are dismissed from memory. There is a lot of sloppy and lazy journalism, quite happily propounding whatever propaganda is fed to it by Brown and co. without any objective critical analysis. On the other side, Cameron and the Conservatives appear comparatively silent and when reported there appears to be a far more critical presentation. The conclusion I reach is that the media has decided that Brown is a winner and Cameron a loser and they want to keep in with Brown so that they can be spoon fed with stories when, as they expect, he wins the next election.
Oct 25 th is mid half term - a lot of families will be away on holiday. I wonder who benefits ?
Thanks for your reply. If you were in charge, I’d trust you. But as you aren’t in charge…
What’s happening with Cameron’s promise about leaving the EPP, for example?
__________
(You may delete the following from the published version)
The sort of thing I’d favour is to pick 30 (or 40?) of the seats that you need to win to form a Government, but are very unlikely to be won on your own this time.
Offer UKIP to make an alliance over these seats such that a mutually acceptable joint candidate would stand, having a specific relaxation of the Tory whip on European issues to allow him/her to unreservedly propose UK Independence where appropriate. Many UKIP policies are standard Thatcherite ideas anyway. I imagine many of the existing Tory PPCs in those kind of seats would be more than happy to go along with that if it made them win.
In return for this effective offer of (say) 20 UKIP seats (instead of losing their deposits everywhere), they would throw all their resources into fighting those seats, withdraw all their other candidates and instruct their members to vote Tory elsewhere to get their virtual-MPs into the governing Party.
Of course, they would probably want to stand anyway against the top (negotiable - say 50?) most blatantly Europhile candidates regardless - well so be it.
If necessary, sweeten the offer by offering Farage a very winnable seat - what about Croydon Central if Pelling gets the chop, for example…? Labour have just gerrymandered thousands of prime Tory voters out of Croydon Central into Croydon South (which Richard Ottaway could still win without even bothering to get out of bed).
You really are the best communicator the Tories have and it was rather unkind of me to have suggested earlier that you’re crying in the wilderness.
Last week saw the nationalization of a British bank, yet recent polls seem to be saying that people approve of this frightful development.
I hope you get prime billing at Blackpool.
I heard excellent reports of your QT appearance, too.