Wednesday, August 24, 2011

Why The Tories Will Almost Certainly Win A Second Term

Guido has recently had a post up questioning whether we are witnessing a one-term Tory government. While the points raised are relevant, I can’t help but feel that Guido is hedging his bets to some extent. If the Tories win outright, he has a whole host of posts highlighting the failure of Labour to get anywhere. If the Tories lose, he can point to this post and again be “proved” right. But that could just be my natural cynicism (which is generally rewarded where Mr Fawkes is concerned, though). The point of my post is that, as things stand, I think the Tories will go on to win a second term.

There are three reasons for this. Firstly, while things may get worse in terms of the economy, there is also the possibility that things will get distinctly better – especially if George Osborne clocks that economic recovery is aided by tax cuts as well as spending cuts. A recovering economy tends to reward the incumbent government; if Cameron & Co can pull it off, there’s no reason why they shouldn’t reap the rewards in the ballot box. And, after a year and a bit in office, there is still a lot of time to do it before the country has to go back to the polls in 2015.

The second reason is that the Tories aren’t really campaigning at the moment. They’ve got other stuff to do. Like govern. And, of course, muzzle their coalition partners as much as possible. However, come the next election (and they will effectively decide when that is – don’t rule out the possibility of a snap poll if a Tory victory looks likely in one), they will be coming out all guns blazing, using the healthy war chest to try to dominate the core messages of that campaign. And I think they will be emphasising the compromises they have made for the supposed good of the nation (for example, going into the coalition), the difficult choices they believe they have made (cuts etc) at the same time as hammering Labour for leaving them such a fucking mess to deal with in the first place. In the meantime, Labour have little else to do but campaign. And how well are they doing at that? Well, they are attracting back some of the supporters they lost during the long, messy years they spent in power, but those people are coming back for no real reason other than they don’t like the Tories and the reality of that party being ineffective control of the country narks them a bit. Labour, despite having all the time that no longer governing affords a party, are struggling to effectively vocalise any sort of popular message or image.

Which leads me to the third reason why a Tory victory still looks likely – Ed Miliband is just plain shit at the job of being Leader of the Opposition. And if you are shit at that job you have precisely no credibility when it comes to pitching for the promotion to the top job. Especially when the guy you are fighting for that job is already in it. Cameron may be compromised by, say, his association with Rebekah Brooks, but he still looks a lot more credible and Prime Ministerial than his Labour counterpart. Of course, Miliband Minor might be binned before the next election. But who would they replace him with? The reason he won the last Labour leadership election was because he appeared to be the least shit of those running in it. That situation hasn’t changed; there appears to be no-one in the upper echelons of the Labour party who could look credible against even that lightweight David Cameron.

Of course, lots could change, politics is constantly changing blah blah fucking blah. And yeah, something could happen that radically changes the political landscape. But as things stand, I think that enough of the British people will decide, in balance and when faced with the reality of voting in the ballot box on Election Day, that they prefer the devil they know rather to the one they don’t. The Tories will, most likely, benefit from a grudging refusal on the part of the British people to embrace change unless they absolutely have to or have grown utterly repelled by the incumbent government.

After all, that’s what allowed the odious Tony Blair to be re-elected. Twice.

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8 Comments:

At 10:08 am , Blogger James Higham said...

Roadkill Diaries:

Remember when we said (yesterday) that Germany will soon balk over the fact that it is pledging its entire economy to bail out an insolvent Europe? Well, that moment has come. More post-downgrade international news at Zerohedge, but take an extra anti-depressant before clicking.

It appears to be going the opposite way, not to recovery, TNL. Cityunslicker:

http://cityunslicker.blogspot.com/2011/08/gold-bubbles-away-to-1900-and-ruins.html

The financial people appear to be saying we're going down, including the previously bullish ones.

http://jessescrossroadscafe.blogspot.com/2011/08/guest-post-central-planning-its-not.html

When business obtains an inordinate amount of power over the social fabric of regulation and governance, the creation of an oligarchy distorts the real economy through the accumulation of too much power in too few hands, in the manner of the central planning bureaucracies of the old line communist nations.

And this is why the standard economic solutions of both stimulus and austerity for normal cyclical excess can be doomed to failure, as they are at this time. The system itself has become distorted and broken, and is badly in need of reform. Whatever one puts into it will come out badly, and be turned to fruitless purposes, corrupted by the unprecedented concentration of power in the hands of the few, the partnership of the Wall Street banks, big media, multinational corporations, and their servants in the government.

 
At 2:06 pm , Anonymous Jim said...

Don't underestimate the UKIP effect. Its arguable that the UKIP vote cost the Tories an outright majority in 2010. Even without a majority they might have managed with a few Northern Ireland MPs voting with them and governed that way, if they had won a handful more seats.

I'm a lifelong Tory voter, and I plan to vote UKIP next time. Its obvious now that the 3 main parties are a cartel. Slightly differing policies on the surface, but the same general attitude of government underneath. The few things new/different things they promise when in opposition get diluted once in power (the DNA database/free schools/elected police chiefs for example).

If I am going to vote UKIP I suspect others may be considering the same.It won't take many to swap sides for the Tory candidate to lose to Labour or the Lib Dems.

My best guess for 2015 is Labour and Tory equal seats, with LDs as kingmakers (again). And they will go with their true instincts (leftish) and form a coalition with Labour.

 
At 3:58 pm , Blogger The Nameless Libertarian said...

See, I'm not sure that UKIP are ever going to be able to make that breakthrough. I've been told that they have been on the cusp of it since back when they were the Referendum Party in 1197, but each and every time they have had a breakthrough or we have heard that the right funding/candidates/both are in place they've failed. The most they do is make a limited impact in some marginal seats. Maybe the next election will be the breakthrough but I'm not holding my breath. And I won't be voting for them either.

While I hate the phrases and would argue passionately that they have no use, there is the space for a genuine party of the left and a genuine party of the right to outflank Labour and the Tories respectively. The Greens could (and, with the election of Lucas to Parliament to some extent, are) do it to Labour, but UKIP seem to be struggling to do it to the Tories. I can't help but think that they should have rebranded themselves ages ago to get rid of the stigma of being a single-issue party.

TNL

 
At 4:22 pm , Anonymous Michael Fowke said...

I've seen enough of Cameron. Not sure I can take much more.

 
At 5:56 pm , Anonymous Jim said...

UKIP don't have to make a headline 'breakthrough'. They're not going to win any seats under FPTP. But if they garner another 500 votes per seat, mostly taken from disgruntled Tories then the effect will be huge. There are around 20 Tory MPs with less than 1000 majorities (link: http://www.politicsresources.net/area/uk/mps-maj.htm). If the Tories lose most of them thats them down to 290ish seats and Labour up to 280-90ish.

I think the Tories vote is very weak. I think a lot of people voted for them grudgingly last time, and will be disappointed and likely to go elsewhere, either back to Labour or jump ship entirely for UKIP.

 
At 6:08 pm , Blogger The Nameless Libertarian said...

But that's in part what I mean; yeah, they don't have to win seats in Parliament to have an impact, but I've been hearing about the serious damage they are going to do to the Tories at each of the General Elections I can remember with real clarity, but it has never really happened. And there is a sense in which the longer they go without having a real impact, the more likely it is that people will see voting for them as a wasted vote, and therefore not do it.

But that's just my opinion. Time will tell. It always does.

TNL

 
At 7:34 pm , Blogger andy janes said...

One factor you need to take into account is what will happen to the Lib dems and nationalist parties next time. Most LD v Labour races will probably go to the latter (as happened in May's local elections), while in Scotland and Wales Labour just need to campaign on a 'vote us to get the tories out' platform.

Given it will also be a smaller Parliament of 600, Labour could well be the largest party, maybe even a slight majority.

 
At 8:09 pm , Blogger The Nameless Libertarian said...

The fate of the Lib Dems will be interesting to watch; Clegg appears to have grown back a bit of a spine recently and at this rate he might just be able to get his core vote to distinguish him from his coalition partners by the time we next all go to the polls. His party is still going to take a kicking; I think that the Lib Dem vote might be end up in the Tory camp in some constituencies, though.

The "get rid of the Tories" stance in Wales may well be enough, but I think it is a tougher sell in Scotland. The drubbing Labour took in the Scottish elections earlier this year has not been highlighted as much as it should, and I think it will be far tougher for Labour to win in one of the heartlands than they think.

Of course, it all remains (in theory, anyway) a long way off and a lot could change. As things stand, when push comes to shove, I think Labour will flatline, the Lib Dems will suffer and the Tories will just be pushed to majority government the next time we go to the polls - in part aided, I think, by a shy Tory factor just as happened in 1992.

TNL

 

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