Philip Cowley

Numbers, not arguments about legitimacy, will decide who enters No.10 after May 7

Lyndon Johnson’s first lesson of politics was to be able to count. It’s something that many of those commenting on the various post-election scenarios could do with remembering. Let’s start with those who think that there is some overriding importance in being the largest single party and that this gives you the right to form a government, even if you lack a majority. It is never clear what people expect the other parties to do in such a scenario.

Assume, for example, that after the election the Conservatives are the largest party but without a majority, and there is an anti-Conservative block that is larger. Do we really expect the anti-Conservative parties just to shrug their shoulders, say ‘oh well’, and put the Conservatives into power? And even if they did that, then what? Given that there will be a Commons majority against that government, do we expect the opposition parties to abstain on votes just to let the government get their way? This is ‘After You Claude’ stuff, but it’s not how politics works. Just remember LBJ’s lesson: numbers, not bogus arguments about legitimacy, will determine who gets in to Number 10 after the election.

Similarly innumerate are those in the SNP who claim that they can work with Labour’s more left-leaning MPs to help push a minority Miliband government in the right (by which they mean left) direction. True, there will be a lot of Labour rebel MPs after the next election. Those of us who study these things will not be short of work. But however large the SNP contingent at Westminster and however large the ructions within Labour’s ranks, the parliamentary arithmetic is such that the SNP will only be able to defeat a Labour government – whether it is a minority or majority government – if SNP MPs are willing to vote with the Conservatives.

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