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We know today what we knew yesterday

Friday, 4th May 2007

I tried something different for the elections this year: sleep. For the first time I can remember (going back to 1979) I didn't stay up and watch the results as they came in. I went to bed and woke up as normal this morning. And here's my (not so startling) revelation: nothing is gained by staying up. The results are the same. Indeed, better still, one gets a fresher take, not being swayed by the misleadling ebbs and flows of the results coming in piecemeal through the night.

It seems to me that the correct analysis (I'm concentrating on England) is that of Matthew d'Ancona at the Coffee House:

Hovering around 41 per cent, with patchy gains in the North West, the Tories had a respectable night in the English local elections. But, at this point, Labour seems to have improved slightly upon its 2006 showing of 26 per cent: nothing to be proud of, naturally, but not the meltdown for the governing party that would have triggered a serious leadership challenge to Gordon Brown if there had been a serious leadership challenger left to mount it. David Cameron had a perfectly satisfying night. But he will be concerned that the reviving Tory Party - and it is reviving - could not make greater gains outside its southern heartlands or increase its share of the national vote. There is no 'sea change' of the sort identified by Jim Callaghan as he fell to Margaret Thatcher in 1979 - or indeed the 'new dawn' hailed by Tony Blair on May 2, 1997.
...But at 6:09, looking at the great political chessboard, one is drawn to that resonant phrase of local elections: 'No Overall Control'.

And, er, that's about it. Brown will be the next Prime Minister. Cameron has done a good job as Conservative leader but needs to do a lot better. This morning we know exactly what we knew yesterday morning.

That's what Daniel Finkelstein pointed out yesterday when he wrote:

The local elections will inform you that national opinion is roughly where the national opinion polls say that it is. Of course. If anyone suggests different tomorrow then you will know that they are misinterpreting the results.

There's nowt more to say, really. Not that that will stop me or any other of the massed ranks of pundits from saying it.

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Umbongo

May 4th, 2007 10:18am

Contrary to your opinion, piling up votes south of Birmingham is not a Tory success. However, MD'A is correct to say that " Cameron has had a satisfying night" because this result can be spun into a Tory triumph in general and a Cameron victory specifically. Not reality, of course, but short-term perception. And your statement that "Cameron has done a good job as Conservative leader" is mind-blowingly vacuous. Any leader of the Conservatives now facing a government of corrupt and incompetent shysters would have done as well. This is not due to "Cameron doing well" but because after 10 years the electorate is prepared to listen. And what do they get - a pale reflection of the policies which have delivered the UK to its current parlous state. Thus fewer people bother to vote. Contrast this with the interest in the French presidential elections: there the electorate is presented with a real choice. Here you have 3 lightweights having a mudfight in the "centre" ground with not a wafer of real difference between them.