Before George Osborne took to wearing hard hats and hi-vis jackets, he used to revel in his status as a political insider. In 2004, he wrote a piece for The Spectator setting out his model for forecasting the result of UK General Elections. Adapted from an academic model for predicting US Presidential Elections, it set out the ’13 keys to Number 10’ and argued that if a government held six of these it would win re-election.
Here are Osborne’s 13 tests and how the government is doing on them:
1. Real per capita economic growth during the parliament equals or exceeds the mean growth during the previous two parliaments. Yes: the coalition will just hit this target if the OBR’s forecasts are correct.
2. The economy is not in recession during the election campaign. Yes: the economy might be slowing a bit but it definitely won’t be in recession during the campaign
3. There is no sustained social or industrial unrest during the parliament. Yes: there has been some social unrest during this parliament—notably the student fees protests in 2010 and the riots of 2011—but this hasn’t been sustained. While the days lost to strikes in the 12 months to October 2014, is only mildly up on how many were lost in the year before the coalition came to power.
4. The government has effected a major change in domestic policy. Yes: the decision to opt for fiscal retrenchment plus the pensions, education and welfare reforms means that the government scores a passing grade on this
5. The government has achieved a major foreign policy or military success. No.
6. The government has suffered no major foreign policy or military failure. No: Cameron’s defeat in the Commons over strikes against Syria must count as a major failure even if it hasn’t done the damage to Britain’s relationship with the US that many thought it would
7. The government is untainted by major scandal. No: Debatable this one, but Cameron’s opponents will certainly claim on the campaign trail that the whole Coulson business was a major scandal. One of the most senior members of the Prime Minister’s staff ending up in prison is certainly not a good look
8. The governing party is not seriously divided. No: The Tories are doing a very good impression of unity at the moment, but given that two Tory MPs—along with a chunk of the traditional Tory vote—have defected to Ukip in this parliament, it is hard to call this a party at peace with itself
9. The Prime Minister is regarded as charismatic. No: A rather subjective question and Cameron does have a clear lead on leadership. But YouGov polling shows that only 17% of voters say that charisma is one of the qualities they would most associate with Cameron.
10. The Prime Minister is new since the last election. No.
11. The main opposition party is seriously divided. No: There are plenty of Labour tensions. But for the moment, they are remaining just below the surface. Those who think that Miliband and his approach can’t win have decided to hold their tongues until 10pm on May the 7th. Though, you don’t need a degree in reading between the lines to realise that Tony Blair doesn’t think Miliband is going to win.
12. The leader of the opposition is regarded as uncharismatic. Yes: Only 4 percent of voters say that they associate charisma with Miliband and his overall ratings are poor
13. The government has been in office for less than two terms. Yes.
This means that the government has six keys, just enough for re-election according to the Osborne model. But, of course, this is a coalition—something that this prediction system fails to take into account. So, rather like so many other forecasting models at the moment, it can’t give us a definitive steer on what is going to happen in May.
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