On 27th August, LDV will be 10 years old. In that time, we’ve brought you over 24,000 posts and published over 337,000 comments. Over the Summer holidays, we’ll take you on a nostalgic meander through a decade of Liberal Democrat history, seen through the eyes of our editors and contributors. We hope you enjoy our choices.
As the party gears up for a potential snap election called by a Prime Minister on honeymoon, we can look back at the last time we thought, with a bit more certainty, that we were in this boat. I kid you not, one candidate actually cancelled a holiday to China because he didn’t want to be away for any of the campaign.
Of course, then, it never happened. Here is Stephen Tall’s analysis of the situation:
100 days in power, and the toughest decision yet faces the Prime Minister: does he seek a mandate, or does he delay calling an election?
A week ago, the decision looked a formality. Labour was riding high in the polls on the back of their ‘nobody mention the Blairs’ party conference, and a couple of polls suggesting double-digit leads over the Tories. Spool forward, and it’s all looking a lot less rosy, with a slew of polls indicating a narrowing of Labour’s lead.
If there’s one thing more stupid than taking too much notice of opinion polls, it’s taking no notice of them. You can bet the last penny in your Northern Rock account that Mr Brown and his advisors will be poring over every single psephological detail.
If – and it remains a big if – Mr Brown decides it’s too risky, and rules out a November election, he leaves a wide open door for the Lib Dems and the Tories: the carefully cultured image of a strong Prime Minister in complete control of events will be impossible to maintain after weeks of dithering culminating in a conclusion that he’s not popular enough to win, even with the following wind of a 100-day honeymoon.
It’s not only his prestige with the public and the media which will take a knocking – so too will his credibility among the party faithful, who have so far shown themselves to be devotedly in thrall to Mr Brown. He’ll have marched them up to the top of the hill, only for them to discover he forgot to mention there’s another peak beyond. Pretty demoralising stuff. The Labour party has trusted their leader to know exactly what he’s doing. That Mr Brown’s now boxed himself into a corner suggests he’s not the political genius too many people have assumed on the basis of not much evidence.
Of course, he may well still call an election for November. Until now, I’ve thought Labour would be sure-fire winners of such a snap poll. Not any more. Mr Brown is obsessed, it seems, with trying to understand the British psyche – in which case he should appreciate the very real possibility that the public could react in a ‘bloody sod yer then’ way to any cynical attempt to bounce them into casting their votes before they’re good and ready.
If there’s one lesson of the last three weeks’ opinion polls it is that the public has still to make up its mind about any of the parties, and wants to see all their leaders properly tested in the coming months. Force-feeding voters a diet of under-cooked policies in a rushed general election will just give everyone indigestion.
But what of now? I expect Lynton Crosby is champing at the bit to persuade Theresa May to go to the country. She has the chance to kill her opposition. I hear that senior Labour people at Westminster are pretty gloomy with some even thinking that they would be lucky to win 100 seats. The Tories are ahead in the polls and we’re in that Brexit phony war situation. The economy is likely to take a major knock. Things are going to get bad. If you were Theresa May, would you not want to secure yourself another five years before things get terrible?
On the other hand, Theresa May is not known as someone who goes back on her word. She said there wouldn’t be a general election. Unfortunately, she also said that Brexit means Brexit. She is known for being consistent. She’s also wanting to give the impression that the grown-ups have taken over – although appointing Boris as Foreign Secretary is not necessarily the act of a grown-up.
The other calculations for May are around her very small majority and how much trouble the right of her party will cause if she is seen to be delaying on triggering Article 50. At the same time, there are still misgivings among some pro-Remain Tory MPs. Might she even manage to get that through the Commons? Might she be forced to seek a specific mandate so that she can get not just that but the vast amount of legislative “conscious uncoupling” that would be necessary to leave the EU completely?
My instinct is that she won’t go to the country unless she absolutely has to. The new PM does not seem to be enough of a political opportunist to take advantage of Labour’s woes. But what do I know? Possibly not more than The Voice knew on 2nd October 2007 when it confidently predicted Gordon Brown would call a 1st November election on 3rd.
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* Caron Lindsay is Editor of Liberal Democrat Voice and blogs at Caron's Musings. You can find her on Bluesky at caronmlindsay.bsky.social
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5 Comments
Stalin to Mr. Bean?
In the summer of 2007, I was absolutely convinced that Gordon Brown would call a General Election within a few months of becoming Prime-Minister. I was Chief Executive and Chairing our General Election Campaign with Ming Campbell as Leader. We geared up most effectively that summer, and would have won at least 50 seats, whilst Gordon Brown would have won a reduced majority. The party agreed a ‘snap election plan’ and a Manifesto was ready to print. The following General Election might then have been in 2012 with us potentially being in a much stronger position and able to negotiate on the basis of a coalition being viable with either of the other main parties. But Brown ran scared, and probably blew his his only ever chance of winning a majority. For Theresa May now, she may be worried that she does not have enough of a majority to last four years. It will be easier for her to bring about a General Election outside the fixed term than many people realise. See my letter in the Telegraph this week (amongst those about Hinckley): http://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/2016/07/29/letters-the-surprise-delay-on-hinkley-point-may-yet-save-french/
well at the moment TM would gain only really a year ‘extra’ by holding an election. She also wouldn’t then be able to use an election card again.
suspect she’ll wait, partly to see whether any opposition emerges, but also because, frankly, she doesn’t need an election yet. if the tory right plays up, or there is erosion of the majority she has, we might see something diffent. as it is, she’s probably expecting that corbyn will continue destroying the opposition for her right up until 2020. we are likely to recover seats from the tories by then, but they will more than make up from that from labour …
Once again: the PM cannot simply “call an election.” She needs two thirds of the House of Commons. One third can block an early election. There are, admittedly, ways around this, but they are complicated, lengthy, require a great deal of political manœuvring, and could be politically disastrous. It is difficult to imagine any intelligent politician attempting them, especially when four election-free years, with a generally supportive Parliament, and a good likelihood of another victory in 2020 (or so they say) so temptingly beckon.
Normally, a government that wants an early general election will get it. Imagine the taunts against an opposition that, given the chance to prove their attacks were supported by the people, given the chance to get rid of the government, bottled it. Governing majority plus main opposition party will easily pass 2/3. But now? If May tried to call an election before Labour’s leadership contest was over, Labour would have an excellent excuse not to co-operate. Once the contest is over, I think they’d be in the same bind. Corbyn would look extremely weak if he refused an election. Owen Smith would look even weaker.
But I think there’s a simple good reason why a snap election is unlikely. If as is likely Corbyn wins, May can enjoy the idea of him leading Labour into the 2020 general election. Why ruin that by calling an election in which Labour’s disaster would probably lead to a new leader who might be a far stronger opponent in 2021? If Smith wins, whatever the polls say, a snap election would be very risky because the voters might like him.