Timothy Sykes is a Labour Party member at the University in Hull. Here he offers his take on what the local elections mean for the Lib Dems…
In the 2013 local elections, the Liberal Democrats did much better than many people were expecting. The loss of 124 council seats is less of a mid-term slump than the significant loses inflicted upon the Conservatives, or the disastrous election results that Labour suffered in 2009. The only clear winner was UKIP, which really had an astonishing night, gaining around 140 seats.
The reason the Lib Dems did not suffer quite as embarrassing a defeat as the Tories is simple. In 97% of the areas that the Lib Dems retained their councillors, the Tories ended up in second place and there was little or no chance of a Labour victory. As this was the case, the Lib Dems managed to hold on despite their majorities being squeezed because the Conservatives were having at least as bad a night, with the Labour Party getting a better share of the vote but not doing well enough to win.
The fact that UKIP has done particularly well in these elections has meant that the Conservative share of the vote has been cut. Even though there are UKIP converts from all of the main political parties, it is more significant for the Conservatives because they are more politically aligned. If UKIP were to continue to be as popular in 2015, this would significantly impact on the number of votes that the Conservatives will get in marginal constituencies, thus allowing Lib Dem MPs to hang on in those areas. In areas where Labour is the second biggest party, this effect may not apply but as previously explained, for the majority of Liberal Democrat MPs this just is not the case.
This means many more Lib Dem MPs than expected will hold on because their closest opposition is also doing particularly badly. However in three-way marginals such as Cambridge in 2010 for instance, the Conservatives came second to Julian Huppert, whilst Labour finished only marginally behind that. In this situation, Labour might come from third in 2010 to finish first in 2015, due to the factors that I have previously explained — but three-way marginals like these are the exception and by no means the rule.
In conclusion, despite the fact that Liberal Democrats will lose votes and may even lose seats at the next election, there is a real possibility if Labour does not have a truly exceptional night that the party will still end up with a significant number of seats after 2015. In short, you will not have the disastrous night that many, including some in your own party, are predicting.
* Timothy Sykes is a Labour Party member at the University in Hull. He blogs at shoutingpolitics.
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19 Comments
All sorts of things will happen between now and 2015, a major war in the Middle East for example.
That is all very much dependent on the assumption stated in the third paragraph:
“If UKIP were to continue to be as popular in 2015 …”
Surely the key question is whether that will happen in a general election. I don’t see it.
The economy recovering (it already is);
Labour going into meltdown as it actually has to define what policies it proposes and how it is going to pay for them (it already is);
The Tories fighting among themselves as the knives come out for Cameron (they already are);
The next two years are going to be so full of twists and turns that predicting events in 2015 is virtually impossible, least of all by drawing a straight line from events now and extrapolating into the future.
This is of course correct, the real electoral disaster for us Liberals will come in 2020 after 5 years where we are effectivly excluded from the media narrative completely (again).
However, FPTP is just as undemocratic when it protects us from the publics anger as it is when it hampers us from turning votes into seats. The fact that we can hold on at the next election is no rason for complaicency. The inevitable slump in votes is enough to constitute a disaster in itself for anyone who truly upholds the values of democracy.
Thanks for a generous article though I disagree with the conclusions. Certainly the rise of UKIP introduces a new factor but their main effect will probably be to drive The Tories to the Right, making it harder for them to take votes from The Libdems.
2015 will be about the Economy & who is more trusted not to screw it up, there lies Labours major weakness, not helped by divisions between The PLP, mostly Centrist & major Unions controlled by The Far Left.
Far from being driven back The Libdems can make real advances.
Modest losses, I expect. Reputations of individual MPs could prove crucial in tight races. Labour’s economic policy, to invest in public services to help get the economy moving (and thus repay the deficit faster) is, in my view, the correct one, but it will take immense skill and discipline to sell that to a sceptical electorate, and I am not convinced current Labour leaders have it in them.
Who knows what will happen in 2015, although guessing is fun. I know what happened in 2013 though, and it wasn’t such fun. And please will people stop bigging up ukip’s performance, 120 local council seats is really not that exciting -we’ve been here so many times before, the Greens in89, BNP in 2009, Lib Dems more times than I care to recall.
I do find it odd that the other parties have allowed ukip to remain unchallenged on their ‘men of the people’ and ‘maverick outsiders’ guff. If scrutinised even a little, their schtick really won’t wash outside of the south of England.
We can’t wait for our rivals to meltdown. They might not they may recover, especially the Toeies.
One thing we are missing as a party is a big idea that motivates voters to think! Yes, the Liberal Democrats are me as they will make my life and that of my family better. Stronger economy, fairer society is a good start but David Laws and his team need to develop a big idea leading up and supporting our manifesto.
We know Nigel Farage doesn’t support this coalition, but even he would admit every extra vote for UKIP makes coalition more likely.
Would Cameron accept an electoral pact with him if it guaranteed a right-wing government after 2015?
All i know is, the next year (until Euro/ London Boroughs/ Metropolitain elections) and until 2015 General Election, is going to be heads down, hard graft!! An ‘old’ Liberal slogan comes to mind, ‘a worker a winner’ 🙂 But, it will be fun and i think will yield us results that will pleasantly suprise us 🙂
@Peter Kemp
Sadly with a leadership whose only contribution is to make things harder, I fear your idea of fun does not accord with my idea of fun, or anyone else’s idea of winning. As for pleasantly surprise us – how many Lib Dem MPs after 2015 would you regard as being a pleasant surprise?
Lib Dems will retain more MPs than their polling indicates thanks to local popularity of MPs and left-wing tactical voting. Ironically, it’s FPTP will ultimately save the Lib Dems, because I don’t see the national share recovering.
It still won’t be pretty, though. There will still be significant losses.
Yes, I think we are all apprehensive about the 2015 elections but I was far more pessimistic 2 years (or even 6 months) before the 2010 elections, including as a result of the Tory landslide in 2009.
David Evans,
if you don’t find it fun to be able to change the world around you in positive ways then a darkened room with a bottle of whisky might be better place.
You seem to have forgotten that LibDems are not funded by big business or trade unions – we are a grassroots organisation of volunteers, so complaining about leadership is a boomerang attack on the supporters and activists on the ground.
It’s a silly statement to say you’re sitting down because you won’t stand up. Look in the mirror, mate.
“You seem to have forgotten that LibDems are not funded by big business or trade unions – we are a grassroots organisation of volunteers, so complaining about leadership is a boomerang attack on the supporters and activists on the ground.”
Obviously it’s all the fault of the membership.
Then again, where Nick Clegg’s concerned, whatever goes wrong it’s always someone else’s fault, isn’t it?
While we will not lose seatss in proportion to the drop in vote share we will still be very unlikely to have the share of seats that our share of the vote would justify. So we will not be “saved” by FPtP but will still lose out. UKIP are likely to be big losers to FPtP and Labour could have a majority in Parliament with vote share in the low 30s %. I wonder if Labour could really justify that or the Tories still defend FPtP?
I am glad that this had caused some discussion amongst you all. It is still far too early to tell which way the election will go. I think though it is difficult to imagine a conservative majority. Anything else is possible including another coalition. As a Labour Party member, it is not my place to comment on whether the leadership of the liberal democrats are to blame, but merely to point out the questions that the electorate are asking. Its for those of you who are members to decide what the next step should be in trying to improve the reputation of the Party.
Chris,
are you a responsible person? then why play the blame game?
Excuses are easy, answers are more difficult.
“why play the blame game?”
It’s no game, believe me.