For the last month the opinion polls have been suggesting a hung parliament is the most likely outcome of the forthcoming general election. This has spooked some of those “pin-striped Scargills”, who would much rather their Tory friends were able to start slashing public spending without the restraining need to build consensus ahead of what will be inevitably painful cuts.
It’s an odd argument: in previous serious crises, whether war or depression, most people in Britan have recognised the need for petty tribal differences to be set to one side. After all, we are supposed to be all in this together.
But in the last day or so, there seems to have been a slight upswing in support for the Tories on the back of Alistair Darling’s third budget. It’s far too early to say yet that it’s a real trend, but still – it looks more likely this week than it did last week that the Tories will sneak back in with a slim majority.
And that’s the result that should worry everybody.
Let’s have a look at a possible result to illustrate the problem. Let’s suppose, for sake of argument and neatness, the Tories poll 40%, Labour 30% and Lib Dems 20%, with Others sharing the remaining 10%.
On the basis of uniform national swing, the Tories would be just short of an overall majority. But, in reality, it’s quite likely they would do well enough in the key marginals to sneak over the 326 seats threshold needed to form a majority government.
Which means we are looking at the inexperienced David Cameron and George Osborne taking over the running of Britain and her economy at a delicately fragile moment – and being beholden to a handful of Ulster Unionists and right-wing Tory backbenchers for keeping their party in power.
Just a few weeks ago, President Bush II was driven out of political retirement to make a direct plea to the Tories to take a firm line with their Northern Ireland electoral partners. Meanwhile, the new intake of Tory MPs will be the most hardline Thatcherite batch ever elected.
It’s a truly frightening thought: this country’s government too weak to exert any real authority, held to ransom by special interests and unrepresentative idealogues. But that’s the reality of what a first-past-the-post general election may well deliver.
In contrast, coalition government with electoral reform and fixed-term parliaments delivers stability, and politicians with a popular mandate to govern effectively – as happens in Germany, and almost every other democracy in the world.
The general election result that seems most likely, and which would be most damaging for this country, would be a small Tory majority. If you want strong government – government able to deliver on a policy programme that commands majority support – you must hope for a hung parliament.
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14 Comments
Not sure that Germany is currently providing best support for this argument. It generally works, though…
The German government is more united than this government has been since 2003.
If you take a long view perhaps the outcome that would give the Libdems more clout to get PR and fixed terms established would be a hung parliament with the party having a clear cut role. This assumes it is unlikely the party will get a clear majority. If as the polls seem to indicate the two main concerns in the country are the economy and a discredited political system; the LDs have some strong arguments. Vince Cable is highly rated and the other two parties have controlled the the political system for generations and are largely to blame for it’s current state.
No need for Lib Dems to just hope for a hung parliament. They should be:
1. Fighting for every vote in seats where they start first, second or a close third
2. Voting Labour in Lab-Con marginals where Labour start 10-20 points ahead, to block a Tory majority
3. Voting Tory in Lab-Con ‘micro-marginals’, to remove Brown’s majority
Still banging that drum, Hugh? It’s nonsense. Tactical voting on a large scale for a specific outcome is impossible to coordinate, and you ain’t gonna achieve it by posting this message again and again on political websites, read overwhelmingly by the tiny proportion of the electorate made up of political activists. Targeted campaigning is entirely sensible, of course, and has been effectively employed over 20 years to create a situation in which a hung parliament with substantial influence for the Lib Dems is a serious possibility. But it hasn’t been achieved by saying “vote for us if you’re in constituency A, for Labour if you’re in constituency B, and for Tories if you’re in constituency C”; and a campaign on that basis now would be both dishonest and counterproductive.
“coalition government with electoral reform and fixed-term parliaments delivers stability, and politicians with a popular mandate to govern effectively ”
Perhaps a more appealing message than previous articles that the Lib Dems should rule out coalitions, deals etc.
especially as the Tories are already painting a hung parliament as very bad news.
I think your wrong re Cameron, a small majority or minority Government would be ideal for him. Firstly, it leaves open the option of a fresh general election whenever the polls look good. Secondly,conventional wisdom is that party discipline is easier to maintain when votes are tight. Having scrambled to get to power, even the head bangers will not want to give it up.
As PM, and with a shell shocked opposition, Dave will be able to push through reform of party funding to stop the unions bankrolling Labour and reduce the number of MPs (particularly in Labour voting areas) effectively rigging the system in favour of the Tories once again.
The real danger though is trying to implement bigger cuts than Thatcher with even less electoral support. Either Dave will get the benefit of the doubt and a grateful public with turn to the Tories or given that his support is lukewarm in the first place, he will be down in the 20-25% range as the cuts sink in and the economy faulters.
Remeber Thatcher wasin 1981 the most unpopular PM ever, until Brown that is.
It’s far from clear who these people will vote for. It may be great for the Lib Dems, SNP or BNP. I can’t see it being good for Labour.
Sooner of later people might realise than when Osborne says he will half the deficit in 4 years, what that means is
that by 2014 the Government will ONLY be spending £70 billion more each year than it gets in income.
I don’t think Osborne gets this himself. Otherwise he wouldn’t be offering an £6 tax cut.. Given the size of the national debt and the scale of government spending, £6 billion is margin of error stuff.
There’s a PR election going on at the moment in the Netherlands – where 25% of the vote would probably top the poll. Yet their government works pretty well – three or four-party coalitions get put together; voters generally get a sense that their vote influences government formation, parties that lose elections get kicked out of government.
It’s a more complicated story than the German one – entirely down to the Dutch voting differently; the Netherlands has a 4% quota to Germany’s 5% so the incentives on party size are practically identical. But the Dutch system just makes more sense to me than either ours or Germany’s; I know what the parties stand for. Well, apart from the CDA, but the CDA doesn’t really know what it stands for either.
Liberal Democrats could have a landslide victory in the election if they promised to cut the national debt, by taking our troops out of Iraq and Afghanistan. Be different. Be brave. Win.
There is no question that the eurosceptic headbangers are interested in nothing other than a referendum on pulling out of the EU. They did for Major and they already have a major concession with the Tories in bed with anti-semitic, homophobic political parties in the European parliament. And all this is before the fox hunters come galloping over the horizon to support the Tories. It may well be that Cameron will only be able to command a ma\jority in Parliament with the help of the LibDems, whose numbers will probabalby exceed the extreme eurosceptics.
Bit of a faux pas, NOT filtering out the conservative adverts from your google ads feed?
Suspect the only way the Libdems are likely to get a foothold in govt with the ability to influence policy is if they gain enough seats to hold a balance of power, preferably without having to rely on Wales, Scotland and N Ireland etc. If the party can get into such as position they have will be in a better position than for years. No point in speculating about Germany or other coalition countries. Get the message out that if this country really wants a fundamental shift in direction, the only way is to let in some fresh air after generations with the other two parties. And please don’t use the word ‘change’.
In relation to Scotland. What’s the party line on independence? For sure the ScotsNats would get rid of Trident.
I don’t think I’ve ever seen this “Hugh” character say a single thing on this site except suggest that Lib Dems should vote tactically for Tories and Labour, sometimes regardless of the topic. Quite often, Reading is mentioned. Weird. What is he or she trying to achieve?
If the Conservatives want to advertise on our site, we’re only too happy to take the money Richard 🙂
Alix,
have you studied past results for my fair town?
Did I say that between the two of them our two seats are a pretty excellent barometer of national opinion? 2005 was the first time ever they’d been split and not both swung behind the party which went on to form the government, which says something in itself.
Though I must add I hadn’t noticed any connection between ‘Hugh’ and RDG, otherwise I’d’ve been on his case like nobody’s business.