Monday Call - August 23 2004 [next planned update Wednesday September 8]
August 22nd, 2004
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My General Election Bets
In this last article before my holiday I thought I would set out my personal General Election bets. These are mostly in line with the calls that we’ve made on the site. Some now look silly, some look really good value and some look over-priced - but they all seemed a good idea at the time of being made. They also reflect how attitudes to political outcomes have changed over the past year.
Labour to win most seats at 2/5 at the next GE. This is a banker but, alas, the price means no rich pickings and it’s nearly halved to about 1/4 since June - but this is a better return than the building society. Could it be almost as safe - judging by his actions Tony Blair seems to think so!Prices.
Lib Dem spread BUY bets at 58 and 60 seats which should give me a really big pay-out - the more seats above the bigger the winnings though with this form of betting it works the other way round if you’ve called it wrong. But the markets has moved so much that these bets could be closed down today and there’d still be a big profit. I’m staying in for my jackpot! Prices.
Sell spread bet on number of Labour seats. This will be the big GE bet and I’ve been waiting for the sell price to reach 350 seats before going in but now think that I missed my chance at 346 four weeks ago. I’ll bet when I think the price is best for maximum profit and minimal risk. Labour start with a notional 403 seats so the current sell price envisages 61 losses. Prices.
The Lib Dems to win most seats at the GE which thanks to a free bet for opening an account with the Blue Square is at effective odds of 132/1. Probably the most certain loser on the list but, heck, everybody has dreams and given the electorate has now fallen out of love with Labour as well as the Tories then anything could happen - but don’t put your shirt on it! Prices.
Labour to get less than 336 seats at 2/1 combined with the Tories getting less than 221 seats at 7/4. Unless there’s a big collapse of LD and Nationalist seats at least one of these bets is almost certain to come in and most likely both of them will. What’s elegant is that if Labour gets more than the stated level then the Tories are almost bound to get less - and vice versa. Whichever way you should win. As soon as I mentioned this on the site the bookmaker changed the odds to make it not worthwhile. Bet365 link.
The Tories to get 245 seats or more at 3/1 placed six months ago when YouGov had them at 39-40%. The often repeated claim that YouGov is biased to the Tories doesn’t stand up to scrutiny. The pollster underestimated the party at the ‘01 GE, the ‘03 Scottish Parliament elections and June’s Euro Elections. The Tories have now slipped 6% and the bet is probably a loser. Bet365 link.
An autumn 2004 General Election date at 5/1 placed when the talk was of Blair standing down and a new leader who could go to the country straight away. The alternate scenario was that if Blair stayed it would be a good way for him “to draw a line” under Iraq and its aftermath. This might sill be right and prices have tightened.
100 bets and lays on Betfair “still party leaders” market that was set up while IDS was fighting for his job. On each of the four remaining options - Blair & Kennedy to be still there; just Kennedy; just Blair and “none” I have very substantial winnings to come. This has been a great market to trade in - buying and selling Blair and Kennedy with huge fluctuations whenever either has been under pressure. Prices.
Michael Howard to be Tory Leader at the GE - a range of bets from 5/4 to evens all placed on the afternoon of the IDS confidence vote when the David Davies betting exchange price just collapsed and it was obvious a deal had been done to bring Howard in without a contest. That afternoon you could follow precisely what was happening by looking at the live betting exchange prices. Barring an accident this must be a certaintly now. Prices.
Jack Straw to be “Labour leader at the General Election” at an average of about 30/1 placed when the talk was of Blair going and I’ve never been convinced that Gordon Brown will be his successor. It still could pay off but realistically Blair is going to stay and the bet is a loser.Prices.
And in the US - Democrats to take the White House. After, sadly, winning with a Bush bet in 2000I started backing the Democrats at more than 2/1 on the night of the Iowa caucuses in January. That event seemed to demonstate the determination of the party to put aside faction fighting to focus solely on winning back the White House on November 2. The price has now tightened to less than evens. Prices.
All told I think I’ll end up well in the black although I get really hammered on the BUY LD spread bets if they fall far short. 45 LD seats would be a headache - 35 seats a disaster.
Next planned article on September 8. Keep the comments coming in - they are the best part of the site and there are enough issues above to start many different threads.
Mike Smithson
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What about recent events in Hartlepool? The recent communication from the Labour candidate, apparently published officially by the Labour Party, that the country is facing a LibDem-Conservative Government after the next election, contains - for me - two powerful messages (although probably unintended ones).
1. The Labour Party thinks the electorate is stupid beyond belief. If you make a short list of critical issues (the war in Iraq, continued privatisation, two tier systems in the health service and in education, a refusal to contemplate an increase in tax rates for the super-rich, resistance to electoral reform, restrictions of human rights, to name but a few) - it is clear that the Lib Dems are miles apart from both Labour and the Tories. So how many electors are going to be taken in by such a stupid suggestion as the Hartlepool Labour candidate is now putting forward? If the Labour Party sees fit to insult the intelligence of the electors in this way, it can only result in the loss of more votes and more seats. I think there are implications here for readers of this list.
2. Even more significant, perhaps, is the implied recognition on the part of the Labour leadership that they are set to lose their overall majority at the next election. When one takes into account that the mastermind behind the Labour campaign in Hartlepool is now none other than a Government Whip, the candidate´s message is converted almost into an official admission of defeat.
If the Labour Party is now contemplating the loss of its overall majority at the next election, this leads to all sorts of fun and speculation. This site has already given consideration to the possibility of a \”Ginger Alliance\”, which at least is not altogether inconceivable. Surely, with this latest development, pressure is now turned on sitting Labour MPs and the question to ask them becomes:
\”If no one party has an overall majority after the next general election, would you prefer to follow the leaders of the present government in an alliance with Howard´s Tories (after all there is not much difference in their policies: see above), or would you prefer an alliance with the Lib Dems under Charles Kennedy?\”
All speculation, of course, but I think it´s a bit more real than what is being churned out by the Labour Party machine in Hartlepool.
What Ian Wright is saying is really quite accurate; Liberalism is by its nature a Philosophy (broadly speaking) of the right which favours a minimalist states coupled with a Laziefair Libertarian approach to social issues.
The Liberal Democrats under Kennedy have swung to the left largely as a means of attracting leftwing voters disaffected by Labour under Blair, but this is merely an electoral ploy IMHO, when the likes of David Laws, Mark Oaten and Simon Hughes write in favour of scarping the NHS for a national health insurance system and when the Liberal Democrats have opposed the national minimum wage and the “new deal” it is clear that they are a party markedly to the right of the Labour Party.
Its a breath taking lie that the Liberal Democrats are a “progressive party” in the traditional sense of the word, Libertarianism (in its mainstream form) is a perfectly reasonable philosophy however it is not a leftwing ideology. But as with most by-elections the Liberal Democrats still find it very hard to be honest in Labour Seats they are the “radical alternative to new labour” adopting a lot of “old labour” terminology while in the “shires of Tory England” they are very much the party of free trade and the small state. I welcome the fact that the likes of Oaten and Law are a bit more honest about this, however the sooner Kennedy dispensed with this deceit the better for all involved, a Libertarian Liberal Party could very possible displace the Conservatives as a viable Party of the Right in UK politics but Kennedy seems posed to chase short term, opportunistic, gains from Labour and allow this chance to slip past the Liberals once more, despite the fact that both his shadow cabinet and Liberal think tanks have counselled him that although the party may \”ride the crest of Labour\’s unpopularity\” at the next general election it risks being damaged by current policies \”inconsistent with our principles\”. (both quotes from the Liberal Future think-tank Newsletter)
As for “Liberal-Conservative coalitions” they would be more than likely witness what has happened when the Liberal Democrats have taken control of local government, they have invariably (When an overall majority has been lacking) formed coalitions with the Conservatives and then happily introduced cuts in local services, here again this is perfectly in line with their belief in a “small state” yet at odds with their rhetoric when the prospect of gaining votes from the Labour Left presents its self. All I ask is that the Liberal Democrats be honest about this rather than being so opportunistic and deceitful. Is that too much to ask?
As for Labour losing its overall majority, I find such an idea very unlikely with the government’s standing slowly improving in the polls and the conservatives still floundering. As for the Hartlepool contest I’d give Wright a modest edge over his competitors however this is a by-election and you only have to have look at the by-elections in “labour strong holds” between 1964-1968 to see that Labour seeing massive swings to the oppositions and losing these “safe seats” is not a new phenomenon, then again in this case it is to a “protest party” rather than the actual opposition.
The problem of course is that the Liberal Democrats are that the roots of the Lib Dems lie in the alliance between the (left wing) SDP and the (right wing) Liberals. The irony is that the Liberals are currently in the ascendency in the policy forums of the party, whilst as an electoral force it is the SDP. Bit of a dilemma to get round, that one.
I don\’t think John\’s point was that the outward signs are necessarily that Labour is going to lose its majority - it is merely interesting (and revealing?) that the spectre is being raised from within the party. I wonder if Hartlepool is being used as a dummy run for a possible run in an election, if nothing else to stop the Labour->Liberal tactical votes which could harm the moral strength of a future government (if they become a majority Govt on a small proportion of votes)?
Alex, I agree that the recent by-elections have allowed the Social Democrats within the LibDems (such as Kennedy) to attack Labour to its left much to the chagrin of the \”Big-L-Liberals\” such as Law and Oaten… however this flirtation with Leftwing populism is likely to be short lived with the SDP\’ers aging and the younger generation of Liberal MPs being more right leaning in their views.
The problem for the Liberals is who will control the manifesto for the 2005 contest? and will Kennedy try to both take Tory seats while targeting the Labour heartlands? if so he risks undermining both ventures and ending up with very little to show for a campaign where the Liberals where expected to do well… however if he accepts the recommendations of the likes of Hughes, Law and Oaten as well as the Liberal think tanks, he can move his party to a position where they can legitimately claim to be the real \”right of centre party\” to offer an alternative to, as they would characterise it, a \”discredited conservative ideology\” and a \”failing Labour ideology\”… and this could allow them to slowly but surely displace the conservatives and then turn to take on a Labour government in a the space of a few elections…
But the question remains, \”what will Kennedy do?\” will he adopt a truly Liberal approach with the prospect of finally driving the Conservatives into third place or will he discard this prospect in favour of a more opportunistic short term approach?
I\’m not so sure that adopting a coherent right wing philosophy would necessarily suffice to replace the Tories. In many respects it could be argued that searching for such a philosophy or ideology has been one of the reasons (other, obviously, than Tony Blair) for their problems over the last ten years. The strength of the Tory Party throughout the 20th century was it\’s ability to adapt, and with it\’s ability to adapt it\’s inevitable incoherence. The British people are conservative, the Tory base even more so, therefore the Tory Party drew success as the embodiment of this. It meant, to take two of the key issues in most elections, that they were opposed to the NHS before it came into existence, but responsible for running and developing it throughout most of its life, in favour of the Grammar School system when it was the norm, but the biggest expander of comprehensive education when the tide had changed.
Radical ideas have rarely been welcomed by the British people, and even when necessary need to be constantly couched in terms reflecting how nothing has changed.
Where will a radical Liberal manifesto fit in with this? My guess is that it will go down like a lead balloon, in much the same way as the last great Liberal Manifesto (Lloyd George in the 30s) did. Too radical they said, and the best bits were covertly swiped and adapted by the other parties to accord with what could be sold politically (in much the same way as Blair has stolen and adapted most of the Tories\’ best ideas over the last 5-10 years).
Apologies for dire punctuation.
*searching for such a philosophy or ideology has been one of the reasons (other, obviously, than Tony Blair) for their *(the Tories\’) problems
Alex, I’m afraid I have to disagree about how effective a radical liberal manifesto could be…
A Bold, Original and Practical Liberal Manifesto would show the Liberal Democrats as no longer a party of opportunism, what Mark Oaten referred to as a “Guerrilla Army”, but instead a party with inventive and sensible polices to help deal with the country’s problems. For the middle class conservative voters who despair of the Tories ever being able to challenge Labour such a manifesto would help convince them that the Liberals where a viable party of government who shared their concerns over restricting the seize of government and tackling public service reform while at the same time for many middle class “swing voters” who where critical to the Labour victories in 1997 and 2001 a viable Liberal alternative to Labour could be appealing as many of these voters still see the Conservative Party as, quite frankly, hopeless. Such a Manifesto would call for a huge effort by the LibDems against the Tories and marginal, suburban Labour seats in traditionally conservative areas and could reward the LibDems with a brace of Tory and Labour seats at the next election.
However if Kennedy where to attempt to go after the Conservatives from the centre while going after Labour from the “old left” the campaign would run the risk of collapsing under the scrutiny of the press much as happened to the alliance in 1987 with the inherited contradictions of such an approach being to inviting a prospect to be ignored by the media. And in the end such a result could lead to the Liberals making only poultry gains or even seeing a net-loss of seats despite a probable rise in their share of the vote. Either way such an approach would be to throw away the latest chance of a real “liberal revival”. Even more worrying for the LibDems, after a contest where they tired to go to both the left and the right they could face a contest in 2009 with a resurgent Conservative Party (that would have been spared a full blooded LibDem assault in the previous election and been given time to recover and reform under Fox or Davis or even Howard) and a Labour Party probably lead by Gordon Brown more united and identifiably Labour (in style probably more than policy) and the end result would be for Kennedy’s successor to see his Party crushed from the right by the resurgent Tory Party and on the left see the disillusioned Labour supporters of 2002-05 drift back to the Brown lead party leading to a sharp drop in support for the LibDems and many MPs potentially losing their seats.
You have a point that the lack of the kind of philosophy that the likes of Law and Oaten seem to be espousing as an original and radical alternative to Labour is a major reason that the Conservative Party has been unable to recapture the initiative, in addition the Conservative Party also lacks the credibility to convince the many voters of its intentions… and don\’t worry about the spelling my own is pretty poor at time with out spell-check
I have no doubt they could attract middle class \”swing voters\”. Swing voters tend to be those most open-minded - and therefore prepared to look at the details of, and be attracted by, Radical policies. However you cannot become an electoral force with swing voters (who make up a small proportion of the electorate) though. You need a firm base of 30%+ who will vote for you whatever (the swing voters are what you need to combine with these to form a government). This is conservative (little \’c\’) England, be it Working Class Labour or Middle Class Tory, and these people do NOT want radical manifestoes. In the Tory Heartlands they support the NHS(!), the BBC, the Monarchy (and the Established Church?) and the Armed Forces - and you attempt to radically change these institutions at your peril. The Tories (or Labour- similarly, and in different areas) can and need to take the risk - because their bases are long and well established - to the extent that they will put their trust in their own particular party (within reason). The Liberals need to build up their own base IMO, which means keeping a lid on the radicalism, before jumping the gun in pursuit of greater things.
I agree, the Liberals do need to build up some kind of a base, but i think this base is mostly to be constructed from traditionally conservative voters who have lost faith in their party but are unwilling to support Labour and a radical manifesto with a strong Libertarian slant would have a very definite appeal to this group of disaffected conservatives while at the same time appealing to moderate “swing voters” IMHO… over time such an approach might mean relinquishing gains from Labour initially however this would be outweighed by growing gains directed at the Conservatives…
Further to Ben\’s comment (2), it is also interesting to note that the LDs favour privatisation of the Post Office (if anyone doesn\’t believe me, just look this up in their policy document, Setting Business Free, approved by their party conference). Needless to say, they keep quiet about this in constituencies where they raise hell about post office closures (whether Leicester South, Birmingham Hodge Hill, or indeed the constituency in which I live).
I think another interesting straw in the wind is Mark Oaten, who used to be an SDP councillor in Watford, describing himself as a Gladstonian Liberal. As a future leadership contender, he can obviously see where the wind is blowing.
Opposition to the Iraq war plays very well with many disillusioned Labour voters, but is it necessarily a purely left-wing cause? Let\’s not forget the strain of right-wing thought which believes in the sovereignty of individual states (no matter how bad the human rights record of the rulers), and that we should keep out of foreign quarrels (Niall Ferguson applied this argument to the First World War). To sum up, Christopher Hitchens (on the left) supported the Iraq War, while Peter Hitchens (on the right) opposed it. At the Spectator, Boris Johnson was pro-war (although disappointed with the way the government made its case), while Frank Johnson (no relation) and Matthew Parris were anti-war.
So the LD stance may play well with Tory voters opposed to the Iraq war. Unless they\’re living in constituencies where they have anti-war Tory MPs (such as Ken Clarke) or anti-war Tory candidates (like the one in my constituency), their views will otherwise go unrepresented.
Also, what about pro-market, Thatcherite Europhiles? There are such people (Quentin Davies and Robert Walter for example), and up till now they\’ve had no party to vote for. The LD support for a Single Currency fits in well with their general shift to the right. Had the UK signed up to it at Maastricht, not only would we have had no exit from the deflationary regime of the ERM on White Wednesday, but, as Labour MP Roger Berry has noted, meeting the convergence criteria would have meant cuts in public spending equivalent to cutting the entire NHS and transport budgets combined. The single currency represents institutionalised sado-monetarism of the sort Euro-sceptical social democrats such as myself thoroughly dislike, and which Thatcherites should applaud.
Ben & Alex,
A very interesting debate, my view as someone who is a LibDem counicllor, been a member of the Party\’s Exec & is a member of the thinktank Ben has referred to is this:
The old liberal vs SDP split is no-longer very relevant, however, like both other main parties the LibDems do have a left & a right wing - there are old Liberals & old Social Democrats on both sides. The Left wing (represented by Simon Hughes, Lembut Opik & Evan Davies) are social liberals who espouse an agenda not dissimiliar in many ways to old Labour: a redistributive welfare state, higher taxation on the well off & opposition to private sector involvement in public services. The rightwing are closer to the Conservative/Blairite free-market Liberal tradition; they favour small government, are happy with privatisation & tax cuts, favour the end of monopoly state provison of public services (including the NHS) and oppose \”nanny state\” regulations such as banning smoking - this group is led by the likes of Mark Oaten & David Laws.
The LibDems are a coalition & Kennedy sits squarely in the mainstream of party opinion, a pragm,atic centrist. Kennedy isn\’t really in either camp & nor is most of the party. Kennedy comes from the older welfarist school but has moved over recent years towards the right, as evidenced by his dropping of the penny on income tax policy, the appointment of prominent rightwingers to the Treasury posts. The LibDems have moved to the right enough to stop their scaring former Tories but still remain well to the left of Labour on a key touchstone issues such as the NHS & Iraq.
How does this new positioning impact on their electoral chances?
Well, the 2 key LibDem \”populist leftwing\” policies - free care for the elderly & abolishing tuition fees are actually carefully targeted at former Tory voters - as it is the middle class in Tory marginals who actually have to pay these - so they are not overly hurt by that at all - which is why the Tories keep getting into such ideologocial contortionsn trying to steal their clothing on those issues.
Also the LibDems appeal in working class seats is not actually to the left of Labour - if you look to their council victories in Newcastle, Liverpool, Sheffield, Lambeth & Islington they have run as the \”value for money moderates against Labour waste, corruption & extremism\”. Certainly dissillusionment with Blair opens up an opportunity to win Labour votes but a more careful examination of those voters reveals that by & large they tend to be the type of people who were working class always Tories or rightwing Labour people. It\’s important to remember that before Thatcher the Tories were still able to win seats in the inner cities & that today not only have they lost all those seats (principally to Labour at a national level) but they have lost those as Council seats primarily to the LibDems - who now often find themselves challengers to to Labour in those old urban Tory constituencies.
The LibDems new philosphy is emerging as party of an ongoing debate within the party about where it should lie on the political spectrum.However, I think Ben\’s thesis is basically right -the LibDems are slowly replacing the Tories as a centre/moderate right alternative to Labour. The Tories have already been driven out of the inner cities & University towns, they are now trying to fight off the LibDems in the suburbs & the Cathedral cities - they are being driven into their rural heartlands & are increasingly challenged even there. Though I expect them to broadly hold-up their vote & seat share at this election I suspect that a failure to win more than 200 seats would spell their relegation to 3rd place in the lection after next.
As for the LibDems versus Labour - the Iraq has somewhat skewed things - the gradual dirft of old working class Tories & rightwing Labour people over to the LibDems has been hasten by lack of trust in Blair but 2 new groups have joined the swing - Asians, especially Muslims & trendy lefties \”Guardian Man & Woman\”. This new coalition should hand the LibDems a number of Labour seats as diverse as Cambridge, Hornsey & Woodgreen and Birmingham Sparkbrook & Smallheath.
In short there won\’t be a \”radical\” LibDem manifesto but one that edges out the Tories room for maneouvre with the middle classes forcing them to appeal to their core support while allowing the LibDems to mop up the new \”moral outrage\” vote against Blair & continue with their gradual invasion of Labour\’s innercity heartlands.
Thank god for a sensible post from Bullseye.
I was beginning to think Ben and Alex were in fact Tom Watson carrying out a debate with the voices in his own head. It certainly had all the hallmarks of poorly reseaqrched, barely understood and parroted insults that come straight from Labour\’s \’How to deal with the Liberal Democrats\’ handbook.
If that\’s the level of opposition to them then maybe Mike Smithson\’s Lib Dems to win most seats bet doesn\’t look so stupid after all. (On second thoughts….. yes it does
)
I\’m not sure that your analysis is correct Bullseye. There are some areas where the Lib Dems have replaced the Conservatives as the main opposition to Labour at local level, but in general, the Lib Dems have tended to lose council seats to the Conservatives over the past six or seven years, while gaining them from Labour, remaining broadly unchanged overall.
Back in 1997, the Lib Dems held (IIRC) overall control in about 50 local authorities, compared to about 34 now. The former were overwhelmingly in traditional Conservative areas, while the latter are not.
Dan you must have a different idea of the concept of \”insult\” to me then. And any way ultimately I thought (wrongly, who knows?) that Bullseye was reflecting what I suggested - ie. a truly radical and ideological Liberal manifesto would not be a good idea - one that cautiously seeks to appeal to traditional (non-Thatcherite) conservative Tory voters would.
The argument was, I thought, a theoretical debate - not one which necessarily reflects the reality of LibDem thinking. So Tom Watson can go jump.
Sean,
There are 3 distinct patterns to the swings between Tory & LibDems. The seats the Tories have recaptured from the LibDems since 1997 have overwhelmingly been in their heartland rural & commuter belt areas such as Surrey, which were won by the LDs very much on a protest vote & never truly consolidated.
What\’s happened in the innercities & the Unversity towns is materially different, there the Tory vote which in an area like Lambeth would win them 30-35% of the vote has been halved, going almost entirely to the LibDems. This has left the Tories with a hard right rump in most innercities; this together with a swing direct from Labour to the LDs has given the LDs control of a string of Labour Councils. On the face of it it has looked as though this has come through direct gains from Labour (in part thats true - but the declining urban Tory vote at least as significant in those gains.
In the suburbs & provincial University towns the Tory vote has dropped but by nothing like the level in the innercities. Instead, the LDs have squeezed the Labour party & won over swing Tories. (Of course the story here is much more varied with Labour often the challengers to the Tories & the LibDems squeezed but generally the trend away from the Tories is clear.)
The problem for the Tories is that what happened in innercities could easily happen in the suburbs if they fail to make significant headway at the next election. It\’s not that Tory voters will suddenly stop being small \”c\” conservatives, its that the electoral momentum will be with the LibDems and moderate/centre right voters will stop seeing the Tories as an effective vehicle for their anti-Labour vote. When that has happened historically - to the Liberals in the 1920\’s & the Tories in the 1980\’s/1990\’s in the innercities it has happened very quickly - within a single electoral cycle. If the Tories don\’t restore their electoral credibility by winning say over 200 seats next year then they are in real trouble in the suburbs and likely to be reduced to defending their rural hinterland the time after next.
Alex,
I thought I explicitly endorsed your view that the LibDems will produce a steady as she goes, pragmatic centrist manifesto which drops measures that might frighten former Tories, such as a penny on income tax, appeals to the middle classes on tuition fees & free care for the elderly and outflanks Labour to the left on the NHS & Iraq. Most importantly it will position the LibDems (possibly under a new Leader) to take full advantage of any Tory in-fighting should they fail to win over 200 seats. This may not be an ideologically inspiring strategy, especially for those on the free-market end of the party but its one that has a very good chance of up-ending the Tories.
The strange rebirth of Liberal England
I thought mine and Alex\’s argument was more debate over the way forward for the LibDem now that have this broad opportunity … hence the debate between the need for a new radical manifesto or a continuation of the opportunistic tactics of the past or even some hybrid of the two approaches… but I would agree with Bullseye on the fact that sections of the Muslim community and the urban liberals (“Guardian man and woman or gmw’s) that said the former has some real voting power and as a population is higly concentrated in a string of constituencies mostly in the midlands while the “gmw’s” are widely dispersed and only account for a very small number of voters and while in line with the LibDems on Iraq and Social Issues are firmly to the LibDems left on Economic issues… as for the working class conservative and labour voters both seem to be holding up very well for both party’s in the local elections it was in poorer cities and towns where Labour retook control while in towns and cities with large middle class populations the LibDems did well, with these two groups the war remains relativity popular and I can’t really detect any large scale movement towards the LibDems.
The Liberal Democrats are, in terms of their membership, the wealthiest party with most of their members coming from higher income groups than either Labour or the Tories… as a result I would argue that it is the middle class and better off who have in the past held the Conservatives together in their Shire Strongholds who the LibDems need to look to while at the same time in the general their opposition to the war will see them displace the conservatives as the challengers to Labour in a string of “Labour Strongholds” while at the same time perhaps scoring a few upsets.
That\’s certainly possible Bullseye, but the fact remains that the Conservatives have moved up from c.4,500 local council seats in 1997, to c.8,200 today, making them comfortably the largest party in local government.
While your point about the inner cities is correct, the inner cities are a good deal less electorally significant now than they were 30 or 40 years ago, when their population was much higher than today. As the middle classes have tended to move out, so the Conservative vote in inner city areas has declined (bar a few exceptions like Tower Hamlets).
In the biggest urban area of all, Greater London, the Conservatives performed generally very well in the suburbs in this year\’s London Assembly elections, and were not seriously troubled by the Lib Dems in any of the seats they were defending
As I say, what you say *may* come to pass, but I think it is pretty unlikely. Overall, the Lib Dem position on issues like Europe, immigration, or law and order is unlikely to appeal to many people who currently support the Conservatives.
The Daily Mail opposed the war.
Bullseye is right - the terms \”Labour heartland\”, and \”Labour strongholds\” have been seriously debased by the two landslide victories. Many of these so called strongholds had Conservative MPs one or two generations ago and have only returned apparently unassailable Labour MPs through a default combination of the Tory vote collapsing and the superficial appeal that Blair held to the middle classes. A party does not need to be \”left wing\” (ie. traditionally Socialist) to compete in these seats, merely present a moderate right-wing/centrist one-nation conservative agenda. The votes are there they just need finding - and opposing Iraq, far from outflanking Labour on the left (except for the bonus of Muslim votes) fits in very nicely. More Disraeli than Gladstone, but there we are.
Alex - at least we can agree on Tom Watson then;-)
My frustration at your and Ben\’s comments re Liberalism is that you take the easy option of trying to fit it into a simple left/right spectrum - it doesn\’t fit into that spectrum, because it addresses different issues to the capital/labour or collective/individual split. Liberalism is fundamentally about restricting power in all it forms and particularly dealing with abuses of power whether it\’s in the market (anti-monopolistic) or in the political sphere (freedom of information) or socially (improving access to education) - it\’s too simple to simply say that some of these policies are right or left of centre.
It is perfectly consistent to campaign against the current PO monopoly while opposing local post office closures - it is actually perfectly consistent from a purely Tory pro-market position too! Having more local control over the PO or hospital, or bus company or schools is a no-brainer for most Liberals even though all these organisations are owned and organised differently.
Using language such as \’breath taking lie\’ or accusing the Lib Dems of \’invariably\’ forming coalitions with the Conservatives in local government is neither intellectually sustainable or indeed supported by facts - hence my Tom Watson comment.
Having looked back over the posts I realise that they are in fact Ben\’s - who on an earlier thread was accused of being Peter Mandleson - so it\’s not surprising I thought the debate was \’Watsonesque\’. But I probably shouldn\’t have included you in my first post.
Thank you Dan :-). I agree on left/right debates - I agree which is the point I was trying to make when I suggested radical right wing policies were the last thing which would attract traditional Conservative voters. The electorate can not be pigeonholed in such a way and trying to impose left/right straightjackets just serves to lead to the appearance of incoherent policies.
I think the point on the PO though, is that if you put it to most of the \”local post office campaigners\” (non-party political) that the solution to the problem was privatisation they would not be impressed. You may be right, but it would take a long time to convince them. Privatisation instinctively leads to thoughts of uneconomic outlets being closed, which is a problem when the main reason cited for the closures is their apparent non-viability. That is why the LibDems are accused of keeping their policy quiet.
Sean,
I don\’t disagree that the Tory vote is currently holding up - I expect it to at the general elction as well. My argument is that in the suburbs that is a soft vote. When the Tories are thought to have a good chance of winning then they can hold their own - as in the London election when Steven Norris was able to convince most people (incorrectly) that he not Simon Hughes could beat Livingstone - that held the Tory vote in the cities. However, when the LDs can be shown as the main challengers to Labour as in Brent & Brimingham & Leicester the Tories are pushed into 3rd place - even though they start in second.
I\’m suggesting that the same will be true IF the Tories fail to make major headway at the next election. However, if they can show momentum is on their side & that \”1 more heave\” is all they need to defeat Labour in 2009/10 then ofcourse they will hang on & outdistance the LibDems.
I\’m also surprised by Ben\’s assertion that Labour\’s white working class vote is holding up well, all 3 parties are huddled around 30% of the vote in local elections. Where did these LibDem votes come from? Certainly they are not all Muslims - the LibDems have become very skilled at appealing to the white working class - look at Southwark & Bermondsey or Portsmouth South for examples. The Tory working class vote is dead in most parts of the country (Essex being a notable exception)with many of Thatcher\’s recruits through council house sales who swung back to Labour in 1997 has now going to the LibDems in local elections. The issue for the general is to what extent will that local election pattern be reflected in national voting?
Re. the LD replacement of the Tories as the only viable opposition to Labour in the university towns, Oxford is an interesting example of this. While the council has Greens and Independents(are the Independents Tories operating under a flag of convenience, as often happens?), there are no Conservative councillors. Given that two Conservative Party historians, Messrs Blake and Ramsden, were once Tory councillors in the city, this is remarkable. Oxford East was held by the Tories between 83 and 87 (Steve Norris was the MP), yet the LDs beat them into third place in 2001.
Alex sums up my thoughts entirely on PO privatisation, and local post office closures. When the LDs in my area protest against post office closures, they do not mention that their party favours privatisation on the Dutch model. This is almost certainly for the very reason which Alex outlines, that campaigners against closure will associate privatisation with closure of non-economic post offices.
I too have significant doubts about Ben\’s attempt to portray liberalism as a \’philospophy of the right.\’ I can\’t imagine JS Mill or Beveridge would agree with suggestion that liberal want a minimal state - I would say most liberals want an enabling state. Quite a different thing. But this isn\’t a political philosphy forum! I agree broadly with the analysis of the two Lib Dem policies which have been identified, tuition fees and free care for the elderly. But what about two more; the 50% tax band for high earners and the 0.7% GDP to go on international development - I can\’t see how these policies can be seen as pandering to previously Tory voters.
I think the important thing about how many seats the Lib Dems might win at the next general election is the idea that they face a choice between continuing to make progress against the Tories or starting to attack Labour seats is a bit of a false one. Quite a large number of Tory seats, including those of shadow cabinet members who may be \’decapitated\’, can be won by Lib Dems mopping up the remaining Labour votes in those seats. The tory vote can stay static or even increase, but they still risk losing the seat. This happened to some extent in 2001, North Norfolk would be a good example. Clearly making advances in seats where the Lib Dems are trying to challenge large Labour majorities is going to rely on attracting previous Labour voters.
So my view is the Lib Dems can make progress, admittedly due to the electoral system, in winnings seat against both Labour and Tories with one centre-left message.
Another good example would be Teignbridge.
Apart from Beveridge, other examples of Liberals in favour of an enabling state include Lloyd-George and (while a member of the Asquith government) Winston Churchill.
Would it not be the case though Bullseye, that in most Labour-held marginal seats, the only candidate who would have a realistic chance of beating Labour would be a Conservative?
Reading this on my smart-phone I\’m stunned by the Labour attempt to frighten Hartlepool voters with a Con-LD government. It\’s hard for Labour to raise the dont vote for us and you will get the Tories line because the official opposition is apparently so weak. But they need a bogeyman to scare voters.
Maybe the byelection line is a test for the GE? Its problem is that it lacks plausability as a bogeyman.
Richard… this stuff about privatising the Post Office. I\’m aware that this has been circulated to local Labour
parties as something to attack the LibDems on but it is little more than spin. There is a paragraph in the policy
paper saying LibDems are increasingly coming to this conclusion - but that is not the same as a policy. Nor is it remotely accurate in my opinion as most LibDems I know would sell their grandmother into slavery before they would privatise the
PO.
Ben - are you sure you haven\’t ever been an associate of PM?
I think Ben is up in Hartlepool at the moment getting the latest Labour briefing on the \’facts\’ of the Lib Dem policy and position.
His first post on this thread was suspiciously similar to Labour\’s latest attempt to smear the Lib Dems in Hartlepool.
Rather than the arcane discussion of where the LDs fit on a left/right scale, I think that it is more intersting to see where the Labour govt finds itself.
I believe that they have achieved most of what they set out to as far as public services are concerned. How come, when it seems that so litle progress has been made? The answer is that new Labour has set out to maximise equality and fairness. Looking at the NHS, or education, they are a long way down that road. Lip service is paid to \’excellence\’, but the more \’excellence\’ there is, there more unfairness there must be. And if you ever substitute the word \’elitist\’ for \’excellent\’–no thanks, that is not what they want, nor what they are prepared to tolerate. This applies even if it improves average provision and makes these places much more stimulating and \’cutting-edge\’ places to work.
If you accept this, what is left for the new Labour to achieve? In truth, not much. They can throw yet more money at them, and carry on micro managing from the centre. The value-for-money will continue to be poor, and the improvements tiny and incremental. Not very exciting, and not really what the electorate wants. But will they notice?
What I think the voters sense now is a whiff of tiredness and staleness about the govt. This is something the British electorate hates more than anything, and even if new Labour wins the next election with a working majority, that decaying smell will become a stench during the next parliament. Four more one-paced years could lead to a rout at the election after next.
Back to the start. The LDs could choose to target either the erstwhile supporters of a fatigued and dying labour govt, or those of a refreshed tory party looking forward to their first govt for half a generation. I\’ve no idea which they\’ll choose.
Sean,
In reply to your point re: the Tories being the only real challengers to Labour in most marginal seats - ys thats clearly right. My point is that I don\’t expect them to make enough gains in those marginals to create the momentum to kick start their revival. I expect the Tories to hold their vote & win upto 50 seats from Labour (at the very most) but I also expect them to lose maybe 15-20 seats to the LibDems - leaving them with less than 200 seats all told. That won\’t be enough to banish the sense of decay.
It\’s also true that the Tories are in second place in more seats than the LibDems but in large parts of the country there is effectively a \”glass ceiling\” on the Tory vote which means that they can\’t get enough votes to actually beat Labour. However, for the LibDems, once they break the local credibility (a LibDem vote is a wasted vote etc) usually through local election success, then there is no real barrier to their support continuingto rtise because they can take votes from both other parties simultaneously.
That having been said to make the sort of quantum leap in support required to displace the Tories nationally they would need to break the credibility barrier across the country as a whole, or more precisely the Tories would have to lose their credibility through a third crushing defeat & ensuing internecine warfare. If the Tories do better than expected & get well over 200 seats, and then find a credible centrist leader -(John Bercow anyone?) then frankly they are home & dry & the LibDems will once again be left thinking of what might have been.
John Bercow? I take it that that suggestion was intended in a spirit of irony.
FWIW, I think the Conservatives will win above 200 seats at the next election.
Sean, not even the Conservatives think they will win above 200 seats at the next election…
How do you know that Ben?
At any rate, most betters seem to think the Tories will get more than 200.
Sean,
I agree John Bercow is pretty hopeless but who else in the next generation of Tories could be Leader? George Osborn? David Cameron? David Davies? Oliver Letwin? Just to list them shows how hopeless they are. Perhaps Malcolm Rifkind will be a caretaker Leader but he\’s hardly likely tot sweep the nation.
What is your guestimate for the Tory total? My logic for saying under 50 seats is this:
There are between 25-40 seats which Labour won from the Tories on the basis of tactical voting by LibDems, most LibDems will not vote tactically for Blair this time though some still will - so the Tories can expect to pick up 15-30 of those. Then if the Tories hold their vote between 30%-33% but Labour slip between 35%-40% the Tories can expect to pick up another 20-35 seats on the normal swing. So things look good for the Tories, however that doesn\’t take into account probable LibDem gains from the Tories which should range somewhere between 15-25, taking the Tories back below the magic 200 mark.
I suppose that if you think that the LibDems wont do any better than they did last time round (remembering that they are between 7-9% higher in the polls than they were 9 months before the last election) and you think that the Tories are likely to do better than they did last time when they won 33%, the level they are currently at in the polls - remembering that at no election since 1964 have the Tories won a higher % of the vote than than they scored in the polls a year before polling day, whether they were in opposition or government - (that\’s my calculation - so please someone correct me if I am wrong on that one) then I suppose you can expect the Tories to do better than 200 seats but I have to say I doubt it.
50 seats? sorry that shold have been under 200 seats (wishful thinking from me maybe!)
Sean, Damien Green was revealed to the the soucrce who told Andrew Rawnsley that the Conservatives where expecting to get between 175 and 190 seats at the next election… as for what betters are doing, it really doesn\’t matter, that is just a reflection of what betters are confident of and generally they are no more in the know than any one else…
Looking at the latest Mori Poll if an election where tomorrow the results would be (taking into account the loss of nine Labour seats and one SNP seat in Scotland due to redistricting) …
Labour : 374 (36%)
Conservative : 185 (32%)
Liberal Democrats : 57 (21%)
Others (including Speaker and Clerks who rarely vote, but Speak Martin is a Labour Mp, not sure about the Clerks ): 33 (9%)
Labour Majority of - 102
And ICM’s last poll predicted that where an election held now the make up of Parliament would be (again taking into account the loss of nine labour seats and one SNP seat in Scotland due to redistricting) …
Labour : 371 (36%)
Conservative : 187 (33%)
Liberal Democrats : 58 (22%)
Others(including Speaker and Clerks): 33 (9%)
Labour Majority of - 100
…by next May, when a general election is likely, the position for the government is likely to have improved some what. Added to this these universal swings do not take in account the fact that many conservatives such as May, Letwin, Spicer and Bottemley face a tough battle against strong Liberal challengers so the Liberals may do better than these uniform swings indicate and the Conservatives may do a whole lot worse… maybe.
Who the hell are the clerks?
Ben, Martin Baxter\’s average for recent polls is Lab. 34.5%, Con. 32.5%, LD 22.5% and Others 10.5%. On a uniform national swing this gives Lab 367, Con 192, LD 57.
In practice, I doubt if such a result would give anything like a Labour majority of 88, because (a) I think it highly unlikely that Labour would benefit from the degree of tactical voting they enjoyed in 1997 and 2001, and (b) Labour\’s membership and activist base has been sharply eroded since 2001, making it harder to get out the vote.
Like you, I do expect the Labour poll rating to drift upwards a bit in the run up to the next election, but I\’d also expect some upward drift in the Conservatives\’ poll rating as some UKIP supporters shift back.
Bullseye, I would expect the Lib Dems to do better than last time, but I suspect not 7-9% better, as I think polls in the last Parliament significantly understated the real level of Lib Dem support. Some Conservative MPs are vulnerable, but not, I think, as many as 15-25. IIRC, there are 12 Conservative MPs with majorities over the Lib Dems of 10% or less.
Sean
I think you overestimate the drop in active Labour members since 2001, I would say that there has been a noticeable drop but not a haemorrhaging or “general strike” as some conservative spokespersons have suggested.
By and large the Labour Party membership are much younger than the Conservative Party membership, a large number of Conservative members will be unable to be as active as they where once able to be, this is largely to do with only a tiny percentage of Conservative Party members being bellow the age of 40 while many Labour members are still able to be more active within the Party’s campaigns… the LibDems are very limited by numbers being only a third the size of the Labour Party and a quarter the size of the Conservative Party, though all Party’s membership figures are open to debate, but less so the LibDems.
So Activist for Activist I think Labour will have “sufficient” for its campaign and probably more than the Conservatives, while the Liberals will no doubt make the most of their activist, however this will be markedly difference from their stoke-in-trade in by-elections where they swamp a constituency with “the party machine” in a very effective manner and with their “party machine” spread out across 649 seats such dramatic results as in Brent and Leicester are going to be thin on the ground, though I wouldn’t rule out a surprise or two in a few seats while the gains of Leicester and Brent will be tough to defend (though as I see it now, I think the Liberals lose Brent E and hold Leicester South with a majority between 800-2,000)… the fates of the likes of Letwin, May and Bottemley are going to be interesting to watch but I think Tanton, Wells, Bridgewater, the Isle of Wight and Dorset West will all go to the LibDems from the Tories, however some consolation for the Conservatives is available in that North Norfolk is likely to be won back from the LibDems this time around and some gains from Labour, such as Kettering, Wellingboro, the Wrekin and Braintree are nearly inevitable.
In the end I think Labour will emerge with a majority of between 88 and 110 with the Conservatives under 200 seats and the LibDems around 60 seats. Howard is forced to resign by the end of the year and Malcome Rifkin attempts a come back facing David Cameron, Liam Fox, Damien Green and David Davis. While Blair retries on May 1st 2007 and is quickly succeeded by Gordon Brown who beats both Peter Hain and John Reid by a comfortable margin to take the Labour Leadership.
David Martin was a Labour MP, Ben, but last time round he was elected as \’the Speaker\’. As for the Deputy Speakers, Sylvia Heal is Labour, Alan Haselhurst is Conservative, and Michael Lord is Conservative.
As for the hopeless ones, could we take David Davis out of the hopeless category, and put Tim Collins in? Davis is criticised by some journalists for being a poor speaker in the House, but (the depths plumbed by IDS notwithstanding) it matters less than it used to. It certainly didn\’t stop him claiming the scalp of Beverley Hughes (one of the hopeless ones on our own side - Blunkett\’s not exactly a brilliant talent spotter, what with having asked for her as Minister of State and persuading TB to make Estelle Morris Education Secretary!). I imagine his conversational style and classless accent will go down quite well with quite a few uncommitted voters. Slightly puzzled by his linking the Human Rights Act with litigation - if we\’ve got a compensation culture, I\’d say it\’s due more to the introduction of \’no win no fee\’. He\’s earned himself one of the increasing number of Independent front page editorials masquerading as reportage - its old policy of separating comment from reporting went out of the window a long time ago. It seems more preachy than the Guardian these days. As for Europe, it\’s about as trustworthy as Pravda reporting tractor production figures under Brezhnev.
I\’m not sure about Letwin. He can come across as reasonable and conversational, but then spoils it by tactless comments about the state school in his neighbourhood, and letting burglars into his house to use the loo. The voters might wonder if they want someone so easily conned and gullible (if apparently good-natured) running the country.
You make a generally good point about the Tories facing difficulty from the Lib Dems. Bottomley doesn\’t need to worry, though, as she won\’t be standing next time. The loss of whatever personal vote she\’s got might count against the Tories in Surrey South West.
One problem for Rifkind might be his accent. He\’s got a particularly plummy version of the Morningside accent, and he\’s already known as the Lloyd Grossman of the Lothians. It could count against him, just as William Hague\’s bizarre version of a South Yorkshire accent did. Then again, Major\’s pronunciation of want as \’wunt\’ and a general style of speech which sounded like some colonial subject who\’d learnt English from a phrasebook (\’peddling untruths\’, \’withwhomsoever I I happen to be\’, \’fine phrases butter no parsnips\’) didn\’t stop him winning in 92. Blair\’s occasional forays into Belgravia Cockney (or Estuary English) rightly earn him ridicule - his normal accent is so upper middle-class that he pronounces Coventry as \’Cuventry\’.
Someone asked in an earlier thread (under another heading) whether Dr Richard Taylor would stand again in Wyre Forest. My understanding is he will. Whether he will get in again is an interesting question - his Kidderminster Health Concern party has lost ground in recent local elections.
Will another Independent candidate achieve a 44% swing as he did in 2001, and Martin Bell did in 97? Will Ginger Crab stand again in K & C?
Davis\’s problem seems to be within the Tory party rather than the general public. I agree he would come across pretty well as leader and would certainly reach beyond the base Tory vote much better than Howard does. By all accounts though his colleagues haven\’t the slightest trust in him.
I also agree Letwin comes across as too unworldly, though to my mind he was unfairly vilified for the comprehensive school comments. As we\’ve seen in the annual A Level \”debate\”, the party in power (and the Tories did it just as much as Labour do now) will always spin any criticism of the education system as an attack on teachers and children, of the type that only Bad People make.
(Just as, according to the Independent, if you oppose federalism you are a Bad Person who has misinterpreted the draft EU constitution, and probably commits violent acts against foreigners for fun.)
Perhaps Letwin could, Arthur Balfour-style, become Shadow Northern Ireland Secretary and toughen his reputation. There\’s not a great deal of blood to get on your hands outside government though.
I think Rifkind is probably the only one they can agree on, but he hardly seems the person to turn around the pattern of 2 (shortly to be 3) elections. Nonetheless, as I have said on other threads, Labour is equally bereft of talented successors to Blair.
It was my question about Richard Taylor on an earlier thread. Are the LDs going to decline on standing against him again? If so, I would see him holding on with the substantial number of voters who are anti-Labour not quite as much as anti-Tory.
The deputy speakers (or \’clerks\’ as Ben seems to call them) are not elected unopposed.
Sean,
I\’m not sure why you feel that previous pre-election polling has underestimated LibDem support? the 13-15% rating was consistent across all pollsters & throughout the Parliament. While in this Parliament the LibDems have consistently been at least 5% above their level in previous electoral cycles & in thelast 2 years 6-9% higher. I think we have seen a genuine bump in the level of people supporting the LibDems, this is also supported by the increase of 3-4% in the LibDems local election share of the vote. While I expect the Lib Dems to fall off as we get to the election they should go back up during the campaign as they have at every election since 1970 (except 1987)
What is your estimate for the likely Tory share of the vote at the general? As I say I can\’t see them doing better than the did last time and they would need to to hold off the LibDems in about 20 seats. I don\’t think that the traditional 10% majority as a marker of vulnerability is that relevant with the current level of voter volatility. Realistically I don\’t think that the LibDems will pick up 25 seatsa from the Tories but I would be very surpised if their gains numbered much less than 20.
The problem David Davis has isnt just with his party but also with his constituency, he scraped in by just 2,000 votes in 2001 against an unknown 1st candidate. His seat is the only real LibDem target in Yorkshire & they will be flooding it with activists to get him. I think they will.
If he does hang on though he could well win the Leadership if he can get into the final run-off & frankly who else would represent the right, Fox or Redwood? If he does become Leader he will do so pledging to return the Tories to Thatcherite orthodoxy. However refreshing an accent he might have he will not make the Tories electable because his message won\’t change.
I think Rifkin would simply be Michael Howard redux, he looks more unkempt and stereotypically “toffish” and just generally Tory while his manner is far more cultivated than either Howard or Hauge. In short I think he could be a real disaster as Tory leader, that said he may well end up as the compromise candidate.
David Davis has a good, though not awe-inspiring, style and a classless accent that is very unusual for a Tory. His personal narrative of growing up as the son of a single mum on a council estate is a striking one and his pragmatic flair for populism is a definite plus. However he is not necessarily that strong within the Conservative Party outside of Westminster and even within Westminster he could prove very polarising added to this he holds a seat that is far more vulnerable than that of Michael Howard.
Oliver Letwin, may very well not hold a seat at the next election, he has the unenviable reputation (for anyone wanting to be Tory leader) as the “Guardian’s favourite Tory”, added to this he IMHO is rather overrated and has a terrible tendency to make “gaffes” (as he did in 2001). Added to all this Letwin would not seem to either want the job or, if he did, have the strength of personality to hold the conservative party together.
David Cameron, is young, looks good on tv, fills all the traditional conservative criteria of being euro sceptic and in favour of lower taxes and comes from a “safe seat”. However he only entered Parliament in 2001 and has only received very slow promotion under Michael Howard within the shadow cabinet while remaining the main force behind a lot of the new Tory polices being currently formulated (or so I hear). Certainly he should be promoted but weather he is ready to be leader I’m not so sure.
Liam Fox, a competent style on TV, but as Party joint-chairman with Morris sarchie he has overseen the party’s poor performance in the recent Brum HH and Leicester South by-elections while at the same time seeing the party remain almost static in the polls in the face of serious troubles for both the Labour Government and Tony Blair directly. However Fox performed well as shadow Health Sectary has solid credential on all the “litmus test issues” and has a solid enough seat as well as being a strong supporter of Michael Howard, and loyalty is very much a valued character traint in the modern Conservative Party.
Damien Green, the former shadow education sectary under IDS, demoted by Howard. A former supporter of Ken Clark he represents the old Tory “wets” a social liberal with a more conservative approach to economic policy. Notably more pro-European than is the norm within the modern Tory Party he is still far more pragmatic than his mentor Ken Clark, however he is untested as a regular tv performer and has been less than inspiring in his outings in the commons from what I remember.
My two cents are as follows…
1.)The Conservatives are likely to finish with bellow 200 seats around 185 is my prediction. No amount of debate over the fact that LibDems will no longer vote Labour will take away from the fact that LibDems and some disaffected Leftists will not vote tactically for the Conservatives, so I think that that argument is being very much overstated.
2.) After the next election a brace of Conservative Seats are likely to have fallen to the LibDems bring them to around 65 or so seats in the commons and leading to a very significant battle between the two parties’s for second place at the ensuing election. In which the Party with most coherent philosophy and agenda with emerge on top, on this the Conservatives have an initial head start but the likes of David Laws, Nick Clegg and Mark Oaten are trying hard to put forward a more coherent “ideological narrative” of what Liberalism, that said Charles Kennedy’s percent for leftwing opportunism may actually stall these “Young Turks” and in fact play to the Conservatives advantage.
3.) As far as the Tory leadership goes, Michael Howard has done as well as could be hoped for, but despite this I think it is likely that a second drubbing in the polls for the Tories and the fact that he is not getting any younger will mean Howard will have to give way some time before the 2009/10 contest. Despite his age Malcolm Rifkin seems likely to make a play for the Tory Crown and could attract a good many supporters within the Parliamentary Conservative Party as a “compromise candidate”. That said I think the Conservatives best option is to back some combination of David Davis and David Cameron with Rifkin shadowing the Foreign Office and Letwin (if he is still an MP) going back to the shadowing the Home office and David Willets shadowing the exchequer.
Does the Speaker count as a Labour seat for spread betting purposes? I assume the deputy speakers do count as party seats since the constituency elections are on party lines.
The clerks of the House are not MPs, but civil servants in the HoC. The \”true\” deputy speaker, Sir Alan Haselhurst, is Chairman of Ways and Means. Traditionally this deputy would preside over the budget speech but nowadays the Speaker handles it. The other two \”deputy speakers\” are officially the First and Second Deputy Chairmen of Ways and Means, and not strictly deputy speakers though they function as such.
George Orwell would have a field day with the cliches coming out in some of the recent contributions
Finally a message from Ben I largely agree with.
The only issue that I have with it is the idea that the problem the Tories have is their leader. (Have I misinterpreted what ben is saying?) Certainly they need a more convincing Leader but I don\’t think Davis is it, if he holds his seat - very much in doubt - then he will need to march the party to the centre inorder to make headway - the problem is his support comes from all the headbangers around Erci Forth - perhaps he would do a Prince Hal & ditch his friends if he got in but I see no evidence to support that. rifkind as Leader might want to but wouldn\’t have the strength in the party to do it and as you say cameron is too wet behind the ears.
The fundamental problem for the Tories is that they have been flatlining at between 30-33% for 12 years - unless they can break beyond that base they are doomed because as Ben rightly points out some of the LibDem young Turks (who Kennedy has promoted & supported btw)will be quite happy to occaupy the moderate/centre right ground which made the Tories the governing party of the last century.
Yeah that was what i was saying Bullseye… to be fair I don\’t think Howard is the Tories problem, that said if 9as is most likely) the Tories going into June 2005 with a between 31-33% of the vote and around 170-80 seats then together with the fact that Michael Howard is \”no-spring chicken\” he will probably be gone by the end of 2005 and have to replaced.
I regret to say that Rifkin looks the most likely replacement or perhaps Liam Fox, David Davis by himself would be a good choice but his support is from the hard right and as a result he would probably polarise the party, and so I thought perhaps he would make a good deputy leader under Cameron, but then again Cameron is very young and so probably needs another four or five years gaining experience as a senior opposition spokesperson.
So in the end I think Davis, Green and Rifkin will run and sad to say Rifkin will probably win and the Tories will continue to “sleepwalk into oblivion” despite the best efforts of the likes of Osborn and Cameron who will very probably remain under promoted. And as I said this will give the likes of Oaten and Law a tremendous opportunity to claim the moderate-right of centre agenda for the LibDems in this Kennedy and his left leaning sympathies could be the only road-block sparing the Conservatives at the election after next, but then again people seem divided over weather Kennedy is trying to reposition the LibDems to provide a centrist libertarian alternative to the Labour Party or weather he is fighting the likes of Oaten and Cameron in an attempt to resist any move to the right…. The LibDem conference should be interesting with the likes of Oaten and Law taking on the likes of Campbell, Opik and Hughes, that said I think Hughes may be hedging his bets with an eye to the LibDem leadership next time around.
Ben,
Kennedy is on the side of winning. He doesn\’t really sit in either camp but does recognise that long-term the LibDems opportunity to grow is on the centre right. he was the first serious LibDem player to say that the Tories could be displace back in 1998 before he became Leader. Actually I don\’t expect him to remain as Leader lonh after the next election - not that he will be pushed - unless there is some kind of catastrphe & the LDs get under say 40 seats. He is bored by being Leader & I expect him to jump of his own will having had a succesful election in which the party has gained seats & votes.
If Kennedy goes after the next election there will be a genuinely interesting race to succeed him - with an the party\’s first ever real ideological argument since forming in 1988. Hughes appears to have largely given up hopes of winning the leadership but is still the Leader of the left and would be its candidate if he did decide to run. Campbell btw is very much on the rightwing of the party - he was the key note speaker to LiberalFuture\’s launch event (Kennedy attended but didnt speak). There\’s no chance that he will stand after the next election (though he is widely viewed as the \”under-the-bus\” candidate if something happened to Kennedy.
That leaves the Turks
On the right:
Mark Oaten - babyfaced, thoughtful, a politically sharp but widely distrusted on the left of the party as the main force pushing Kennedy to the right. he is using his Home affairs brief to beef up his social liberalism credentials - expect lots of campaigning against ID cards for instance.
David Laws - very bright, very rich but also very cold - a loner with few friends is just too abrasive a figure for most LibDems even those who agree with him.
In the Centre:
Ed Davey - A dark horse; a bit dull but very popular with activists, comes from left but flexible enough to appeal to some rightwingers in party. As Environment spokesman travels the country speaking to local councillors & campaigning against Council tax - getting lots of exposure with the \”selectorate\”
On the left:
Lembit Opik - is runnng against Hughes for party presidency (kind of party chairman)his vote in that contest will tell us if he is a viable leadership contender. He is certainly high profile, but has a slightly barmy image to say the least. He does represent a strong vein of party opinion though.
Evan Harris - step down as Health spokesman to look after dying girlfriend. Unlikely to run but could do if only to fly falg for the left.
I suspect that both Oaten & Laws would run, splitting the right, Lembit would run but trail badly (the leftwing candidates only got 13% of the vote when Kennedy was elected)but I suspect that Davey would win with the bulk of the centre & left votes but it would be pretty close between him & Oaten. I just don\’t know whether davey would seize the moment & go for replacing the Tories, probably he\’d hedge his bets like Kennedy.
I\’d generally agree… I don\’t think Kennedy is likely to be LibDem leader during the 2009/10 contest, not because he does badly but because he is just not interesting in leading the party into another election and will see his role as having been to re-establish the Liberal Democrats as a party with the potential to be a credible challenger to both the “major” parties, while he may see it as another’s role to sharpen the Liberal Democratic ideological identity and make a determined play to displace the Conservative Party.
So saying a contest around 2007 or 2008… I would imagine that the other party’s will be somewhat different by this tim, Blair may well have stepped down and Brown most likely will have won the nomination after beating Reid (the Blairite candidate) and Hain (the left’s candidate) and will probably have presented a similar agenda to that of Blair in more tribally Labour language which will have mollified many on the left of the party and the trade unions, despite this change in emphasis by Labour I think the Tories may well still be all at sea with a leader such as Rifkin and simmering tensions between the likes of Fox, Davis and Green while the young “stars” of the conservative party remain grossly overlooked and very frustrated. In such an atmosphere the prospects on the right for the LibDems may well be very temping.
I disagree that Hughes would not run, I think the fact that he is running for party president indicates that he is aiming to reseat his place within the party and his position as “leader in waiting” and if he beats Opik, I think, he will see himself as the leader of the party’s left and the natural successor to Kennedy. However I would expect Opik to still nurse ambitions for the leadership that will not be dimmed by a defeat in his bid for the LibDem Presidency, despite his rather weird manner and appearance Opik has a fairly big ego (nearly a match for Hughes… lol) and knows that he represent a not insubstantial section of the party. Both Hughes and Opik, are most likely to face off against one another rather than endorse the other.
Oaten seems like a very skilled politician, he does not mess around he ambition is to be PM, he is probably one of the Liberal Democrats I admire a great deal, I don’t agree with him and barring a major event I would never vote for him, but he is credible speaks well and has done well with the slightly contradictory home affairs agenda of the Liberal Democrats, that said he is not idle on the policy front he has proposed a string of radical and imaginative policy shifts drawing from the tradition Liberal beliefs in a small state and the primacy of individual liberty. He would need to mollify many on the left of the party a little bit more, but it would seem he has given consideration to this and is keen to be seen a close to the centre of the party as possible, as you say ID cards and David Davis’ recent denouncement of the 1998 Human Rights Act. So defiantly one to watch and probably the candidate of the right who will reach the final round of any leadership ballot of the LibDem membership.
Law is less likely to stand he, as you say, is rather isolated outside of the LibDem treasury team and has far less of a hold over the LibDem membership that either Oaten or Hughes, he is most likely to back Oaten and hope to continue as both policy guru and leader of the treasury team under a Oaten leadership.
Davey could be a very interesting candidate ultimately I think he would failing in the first or second round and then back Oaten, however he could have the potential to take votes away from both the left and right and end up as the opponent of either Hughes or Oaten. He would also have the national network from his work within the party and in local government to support such a campaign very effectively. However ultimately I think that he will be unable to eat away at either Oaten’s or Hughes’ base sufficiently to reach the final ballot. But as you say a definite “dark horse”.
In the end I think it will come down to Oaten vs. Hughes and Oaten will win… but it’s a very long way away.
By the way when is the result of the Liberal Presidential election going to be declared? I seem to remember that the current President it stepping down in September, but when exactly? I should I be right to expect a slim Hughes win?
Re. book value\’s comments (46 and 47). As you probably know from my Black Paper like comments in earlier discussions, my own views on education are probably closer to Kingsley Amis than those of David Miliband. The \’leave those kids\’ alone routine comes ill from a government which has so devalued the currency of A-Levels that the brighter kids find themselves jumping higher and higher hurdles, such as taking five/eight A-Levels (or AS Levels). It is also true that many inner-city comprehensives are not attractive options.
I do, however, think that, while Letwin probably made himself popular with many Tory activists, he probably looked rather arrogant to many floating voters. It looked calculating and kneejerk at the same time. From what I\’ve read in the press, the comprehensive in his neighbourhood isn\’t all that bad, and is improving. The comprehensive to which I went was going down the toilet just as I left (liberal headteacher let discipline go, and standards rapidly followed, culminating in a justified savaging by OFSTED), but - after a change of leadership - is now on the up again.
Letwin\’s \’I\’d rather beg on the streets\’ routine just looked arrogant and out of touch, an Old Etonian dismissing state schools out of hand, and catering (along with his comments about sending asylum seekers to a place \’far, far away\’) to the prejudices of Tory activists.
As for Wyre Forest, I honestly don\’t know what the LDs intentions are. You\’re probably right, though, that he may well get in again if they don\’t stand. Half the problem for Martin Bell in Brentwood, apart from looking like a rebel without a cause (if, as he says, Pickles had done nothing wrong, why vote him out?), was that Labour and the LDs stood against him.
Finally, book value, your comments re. the Independent made me cheer! Fair play to you. I\’m glad it\’s not just me who is thoroughly sick of its \’couldn\’t be less independent\’ stance on Europe, and the increasingly shrill and self-righteous front pages. Apart from force of habit, only James Lawton\’s sports reporting keeps me reading it.
The Liberal Party of the 1950s and early 1960s was really a party of the right (on the scale of those times, and indeed today, but not of the Gladstone era). Churchill periodically tried to engineer a Liberal/Conservative merger. The story is told that he met a new MP in the Commons corridor:
\”And what party are you?\”
\”Labour, sir.\”
\”I\’m a Liberal. Always have been.\”
The Liberal revival essentially into a party of protest and scooper of by-election votes really depended on de-emphasising ideology entirely and building an image of clean hands and common sense defined in contrast to the silly bickering big boys of the Labour and Tory parties. (The Young Liberal ideologues of the 1970s, like Peter Hain, probably found a home there because it wasn\’t one of the major parties, more than through any deep harmony with the leadership).
The \”somewhere in between\” message paid off in its way until the middle of the Ashdown years, when the LDs\’ own successes had put them in a position and prominence where it became more difficult to attempt to be all things to all people. Hence, I think, the need for more ideologically committed policies and the swing to the left with the \”penny for education\” and so on. This was fairly uncontroversial with the Tories in power - the less the LDs resembled them the better… and so too for the first Labour term with an anti-Tory consensus more or less intact.
As someone above argued, this is really the first big ideological choice in the LDs\’ history, and I would argue it is down to the convergence of their successes and the lack of public appetite for the other two parties.
So which way to turn?
The British political debate now centres on two narratives. The major one is of \”social justice\” and public services, and the secondary one is of nationalism and authoritarianism. Crudely these compose the populism of left and right, though I don\’t think they\’re necessarily opposed. A Lib Dem move to the right means eschewing both of these. Though there are right-wing votes that aren\’t irrevocably in the Conservatives\’ pockets, many of them are tied much more to social conservatism than economic liberalism. The LDs would, I think, be electorally better off keeping left and appearing to inherit the Labour mantle (or keep the Beveridge tradition) of public services.
It pains me to say so as someone of libertarian inclination, but a rightward swing by the LDs may well turn into prophecy from the wilderness.
Richard - yes, some of the ropey Indy arguments against the \”EU Constitution myths\” were really an insult to the intelligence. However, Simon Carr is one of my favourite columnists on the right and I enjoy most of Philip Hensher\’s cultural stuff.
Letwin did put himself in a situation where he could be portrayed as arrogant. He wouldn\’t have if he\’d said the same in a Cockney accent though! And some of the reason why he appears arrogant is the manufactured Panglossianism of the kind of articles we get every August, with smiling 18-year-old girls arguing \”No, A Levels are not getting easier, and I know this for a fact because I worked very hard for mine.\” You obviously didn\’t take A Level critical thinking, then. Or prepare with any past papers… I did a lot for my A Levels, and they made me very glad not to be 10 years older.
[And if you tried to survey the demographics of A Levels from the pictures in the press, you\’d conclude they were 100% female.]
Yes, the Independent does have some redeeming features. Boyd Tonkin\’s Week in Books is a particular favourite of mine. Carr has his moments, but I\’d happily swap him for Simon Hoggart. I get a bit fed up of how he turns most sketches into \’private sector good, public sector bad, let the former take over the latter, and Labour ministers are crap\’. Then again, he does occasionally attack the Tories, and his accounts of the Quiet Man\’s deficiencies in PMQs were always worth reading. Oh, and I\’d happily admit that some Labour ministers are crap (that some useless tosser like Beverley Hughes should be made Minister of State, while the likes of Yvette Cooper are left stranded at parliamentary under-secretary level, is disgraceful).
I agree entirely re. the A-Level coverage. A mate of mine saw his elder sister\’s O-Level and A-Level papers, and admitted ruefully that they were much harder than the ones we took.
Ben - I\’m afraid your insights into the future of Britsh liberalism is somewhat let down by your lack of knowledeg of the basics.
Whether Edward Davey would win the leadeship or not is a debateable point. What is not debateable is if he stands he certainly will not \”failing in the first or second round and then back Oaten, however he could have the potential to take votes away from both the left and right and end up as the opponent of either Hughes or Oaten. He would also have the national network from his work within the party and in local government to support such a campaign very effectively. However ultimately I think that he will be unable to eat away at either Oaten’s or Hughes’ base sufficiently to reach the final ballot\”
The Liberal Democrats - as you should know if you are going to pontificate about them use STV/Alternative vote for their internal elections - so no exhaustive ballots.
And as for the Lib Dem presidential ballot - anything less than a Hughes landslide would be a surprise.
Oh Ben - one other thing - it\’s Malcolm Rifkind - not Rifkin!
Oaten is not the greatest speaker and is too far to the right to be Lib Dem leader. I am sure Labour would love him to be the next leader though Ben.
No Paul, Labour best bets would be Hughes or Opik, Hughes however Hughes has a manner that could strike many as arrogant and would have little appeal amongst broad swaths of the British public, that said he would be a competent leader but bereft of the “Bumbling charm” that has endeared Charles Kennedy to so many voters and instead would seen as stiff and arrogant. The Best Choice though would have to be Opik, he just be a joke of incredible proportions, his obsession with asteroids his bookish appearance all would combine into a person that would be perceived as well meaning but completely without credibility, and for that reason I doubt the Liberal Democrats will pick him
.
Dan, As for my “lack of knowledge” of the LibDem procedure for selecting a leader, I was aware that there was a system of preferential voting, I was merely saying that both Oaten and Hughes would probably squeeze the other competitors out of the way. And by 2007-2008, when I would imagine that Kennedy would like to stand down, Hughes will have been an MP for over twenty years and will have already been a failed leadership contender however if, as is likely, he wins the LibDem Presidency he will be the de-facto leader of the “Big-L” Liberal Left, however at the same time Oaten will have grown in stature and probably moved to ingratiate himself a little more with the left of the party in a move to expand his base of support, so in the end a Oaten vs. Hughes fight is what would probably be most likely IMHO.
And on “Rifkind”, I got the spelling wrong, so sue me!
Hughes in appearance and manner always reminds me a bit of Alan B\’Stard from \”The New Statesman\”. His honesty and integrity shame a lot of other politicians though. He is my MP and I respect his character enough to vote for him next year though I\’m to the right of him.
As I said, I think the LDs have got to the point where third-partyism and \”bumbling charm\” have run their course. Someone more conventionally political, even pompous in manner could at this point do better than Kennedy in selling the party as a serious proposition.
Book Value, when ever Hughes steps down will Labour probably retake Bermondsey? In 1997 he was nearly defeated and his impressive win in 2001 was largely attributed to Labour selecting a Black candidate, so on the balance of probability i would have imagined that by the time Hughes retires Labour will no doubt retake the seat. Then again while Hughes does get a terrific number of \”personal votes\” that could translate into votes for his LibDem replacement. When you see how he turned a Labour majority of around 20,000 into a Lib-SDP majority of 9,000 in 1982 you can see why people thought the Labour Party was in a state of terminal decline.
As with Oaten I personally quite like Hughes, he has guts. He stood and testified against a criminal mob who beat some guy to death in Bermondsey. This was despite numerous death threats and intimidation. I think that from a LibDem perspective, the only one which really counts in these circumstances
, that Hughes or Oaten would be the better leaders to replace Kennedy, that said I think Oaten would have the best prospect of sharpening the LibDem agenda and presenting a more coherent series of polices and one day returning the LibDems to government while Hughes might be more likely to simply hedge his bets like Kennedy, but then again I get the sense that Hughes is perhaps shifting his policy positions somewhat to the right, perhaps recognising that that is where the Liberals have the greatest opportunity to gain marginal, suburban Labour seats and marginal Conservative seats.