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Monday 21 May 2012

So, Britain, What the Hell is Going On?

Sunday, 18th April 2010

As Sunder Katwala tweeted* this evening, years from now children will ask: Daddy what were you doing the weekend the Liberal Democrats were winning the election?

Tonight's Yougov poll reports that the Liberals are in the lead on 33%, a point ahead of the Conservatives with Labour languishing on 26%. If the election actually produced these results on a uniform swing (which it won't) we'd have a ticket to Crisisville as the Tories would win 251 seats, Labour 230 and the Liberal Democrats 137. Hello electoral reform!

So what the hell is going on? Obviously the exposure on the national stage - and the opportunity to look an equal player rather than a tagged-on afterthought - was an enormous boost for Nick Clegg, better still has been the tsunami of free media and positive coverage that followed all of which has helped foster a sense that it's actually perfectly respectable to vote Liberal Democrat. The liberals, after all, have suffered from a kind of collective action problem: there are plenty of people who'd be happy to consider them only if they could be sure that sufficient numbers of other people were also prepared to endorse the third party. Absent that assurance it's just a wasted vote. Well maybe not anymore.

Perhaps that's happening now. Because otherwise it seems silly that everything we know about British political life can be turned on its head simply by a personable young chap saying "Hang on, you do realise I'm not one of the other two?" And yet that's what seems to have happened and with just 18 days until polling time there's not much time for the madness to wear off. Besides, as John Rentoul and Iain Martin each argue, if the Lib Dems can win the approval of 33% of voters today why shouldn't they rise to, I don't know, 36% by election day? Just because something can't happen doesn't mean it won't.

No surprise then that Gordon has been attacking the Lib Dems today. But I don't know if this will have much effect. People aren't taking another look at the Lib Dems because they like their policies, they're doing so because they loathe the government and remain unconvinced by the Conservatives. Sure, the Liberal proposal to raise the income tax threshold to £10,000 is popular with 66% of voters and gives Clegg and Cable something that's easy to talk about and easy to sell but this isn't why the Lib Dems are surging either.

This then is Brown's great achievement: taking Labour into third place. At least for the time being. Lost a little amidst the Cleggerama is the fact that Labour are polling at 26%. That's actually worse than they did in the 1983 general election. At present, if flesh were put on today's bones come election time, Labour would celebrate their worst result, in terms of vote-share, since 1922.

Exhaustion and an unpopular Prime Minister will help contribute to that but both main parties - as we used to refer to them, oh, four days ago - seem crippled by the low reputation of politics. The public, not without some reason, loathes Westminster and much of the political class that sits there. Somehow, however, the Lib Dems are less affected by this withering scorn. Among other things they are the party for people who don't like politics** and politicians and, these days, that's a lot of people.

This being so it's not actually impossible to suppose that Clegg's ratings will remain sky-high and that the Liberals could have their own best result since 1983 when the old SDP-Liberal Alliance won 25% of the vote.

Certainly their current message that it' OK not to vote for parties you don't like seems both perfectly sensible and fitting for our times even if it also asks voters not to look too closely at the Liberals' own policies for fear that you'll find something daft or ruinously expensive lurking there. (Though, again, it should be stressed that their approach to civil liberties is markedly more appealling than anything offered, alas, by the Tories. Labour, of course, are a disgraced cause in these matters.)

Can it last? Surely not! But let's enjoy the nuttiness before it fades.

*Sunder's feed is here and, for that matter, mine is here.

**This is one reason why people in the professional - that is, media - racket often disdain and sneer at the Lib Dems. There's also the yoghurt-knitting but that's another matter entirely.

Filed under: Clegg (61 more articles) , Election 2010 (599 more articles) , Lib Dems (101 more articles)

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Jeremy Street

April 18th, 2010 11:47pm Report this comment

I've often wondered how we have the nerve to mock the American system when at least, more often than not, the winner there is the person who gets more than half the vote. Here, that's only happened once since universal suffrage, and that was the National Government in 1931. 2005 was enough of a farce (Labour 35%, Tories 32%, translating to a healthy 60-seat majority for Labour), but we could be in for a serious clusterfuck this year.

ndm

April 19th, 2010 1:47am Report this comment

-- I've often wondered how we have the nerve to mock the American system when at least, more often than not, the winner there is the person who gets more than half the vote.

Getting more than half the vote is much easier when there are only two parties. Indeed, that is one reason the big parties really, really don't like "serious" third-party candidates in the Presidential election -- even if the press does.

Peter Holland

April 19th, 2010 8:14am Report this comment

I believe there are two important things happening in British politics right now:
First, the elephant in the room is the deficit and no party has seriously addressed what they will actually do about this. It is beyond most people's comprehension and describing to people how you are going to take their money or job away from them isn't a great way of encouraging people to vote for you! Thus: silence, apart from Vince Cable who hasn't exactly shared the detail of the pain to come with his fans.
Second: the fragmentation of British politics today compared with only a few years ago is palpable - Greens, UKIP, NF and others. They may not win many seats but they may deprive other parties of theirs! Whoever "wins" the election will have been positively supported by less than 40% of the voters; if Labour "wins" it will be in spite of having fewer votes than the Tories. Time for electoral reform, I guess.

Naomi Muse

April 19th, 2010 8:48am Report this comment

On Today this morning, even Tim Montgomerie of Conservative Home admitted that what we are seeing at the moment is an anti-politics attitude from the electorate.

That's it, in a nutshell. Anti politicians, anti political system, anti-party politics too. And, the majority of the electorate are also EU-sceptics.

Obviously, successive governments who have governed whilst holding a minority of the votes but a majority of the seats, have left it too late to put the political system right in time for the next election.

Whether we end up with a hung parliament or a majority, whoever does govern will need to put the system right, keep the election pledges and build trust.

Hopefully properly constructed feedback from those footing the bill (the electorate) will be listened to, taken on board and acted upon.

For as the Sun always says, the public is always right.

Sir Graphus

April 19th, 2010 10:16am Report this comment

Can it last? you ask.

You're right; it can't. But it can last until after May 6th. And the fall-out from that (proportional represenation) will be permanent.

We must remember we live in extraordinary times; the credit crunch, the £175bn deficit, MPs expenses, the rise of the EU susperstate; all these at once. I suppose we shouldn't be surprised by the electorate being a tad excitable.

Nick Bibby

April 19th, 2010 10:20am Report this comment

Viewing this from afar - Korea as it happens - I can't help but be reminded of the last Scottish election, when the electorate were looking for a stick to beat labour and the SNP were the biggest stick. Votes for the SSP and Greens collapsed, flowing back to the SNP, as did those for independent like Jean Turner. Established faces survived (Patrick Harvie and Robin Harper for the Greens and Margo MacDonald as an indie) but ootherwise people headed towards the biggest political bat they had to beat up on Nu Labour.
There will be surges fo other parties(conceivably the BNP in the NW of England, the Greens in Edinburgh East and Brighton and Hove and the LDs in many places) but I think in the determining constituentcies voters who won't admit to a pollster that they will vote Tory will still use the biggest stick they have when they're in the polling booth.

PS Alex, I hope you're well, it's been a few years but we should catch up when we're next on the same continent.

Pramston

April 19th, 2010 1:31pm Report this comment

People need to remember that the Lib dems are not 'new' and are not blameless. They support everything Europe and were supportive of the Lisbon treaty and the betrayal of Brown in that respect. This 'bounce' on the back of Cleggs performance is he most ridiculous thing I've ever seen in politics. He really wasn't that good (none of them were) and if shouting 'yah boo sucks' from the sidelines qualifies you for political influence in Modern Britain I fear the electorate is going to get what it deserves. Unfortunately it will be the current electorates children that will be paying for it!

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