Euro and local elections: the Stay At Home party will win a landslide victory
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Version 0 of 1. The Americans have a big voting date on their calendar called Super Tuesday. For the leaders of Britain's parties, this week's elections are Sweaty Thursday. Being neither a clairvoyant nor the owner of a reliable time machine, I am not going to forecast the precise vote shares each will secure in the Euro and local contests. But I do make one prediction with cast-iron confidence. I am sure who will win. I also know that the winner will not be represented on the ballot papers. The runaway victors will be the Stay at Home party. They may not be as noisy as Nigel Farage's gang, but they will express their disengagement from mainstream politics just as potently by declining to participate in these elections. The turnout on Thursday will be above expectations if more than a third of the potential electorate bothers to cast a vote for anything on offer. The headlines on the night will be grabbed by Ukip, a party that most of its own supporters never expect to form a government. Much the biggest proportion of voters will belong to the None of the Above party, those many millions of people who don't think it's even worth expressing an opinion. In the losers' corner will be the Lib Dems, who are fighting only to avoid obliteration, and the Tories who expect to come third. Labour will take seats, but it will also look like a loser without the sort of gains necessary to convince us that Ed Miliband is on his way to Number 10. Labour people sound increasingly anxious that they may be beaten into first place in the Euros by Ukip. Ed Miliband's decision to turn some fire on the Farageistes late in the campaign betrays those nerves. I also find Labour people jumpy that they are leaking votes to the Greens. In his recent conversations with David Axelrod, the Obama strategist recruited by Mr Miliband, the Labour leader was struck by Mr Axelrod's label for the current mood. He calls it "the Age of Alienation". These elections will be a manifestation of that, exaggerated by the low turnout. That will give an alibi of sorts to David Cameron and Ed Miliband. Both will respond to failure on Thursday by shrugging that surges of support for insurgent parties are only to be expected in low-participation contests that are perceived to be a cost-free way of thwacking the political establishment. Both leaders will aver that there is only one election that really matters and that is the one that will be held next May. Yet what the opinion polls are saying about that doesn't hold much comfort for either of them. Being paid to keep an eye on the polls, I am interested when this one suggests that Labour is clinging to a slender advantage and when that one indicates that the Tories are nudging into a small lead. But on a longer perspective, the most striking thing is how badly they are both doing. It is a good day for one or other of them if they can find an opinion poll awarding them the backing of 35% of the electorate; throughout this parliament, neither David Cameron nor Ed Miliband has managed to achieve the sort of sustained breakthrough above 40% that used to be typical for the main parties. This is of a piece with a much longer and deeper trend of disaffection. Back in 1951, the vast majority of Britons backed one or other of them. You were with Winston or you were cleaving to Clem. Only a tiny minority of voters did not march behind either the blue tribe or the red clan. As I like to point out from time to time, at the 1951 election they won more than 96% of the vote between them. The turnout exceeded 82%. This was the high-water mark of two-party politics. By the two elections of 1974, a quarter of voters were supporting someone other than Labour or the Tories. This decline in the red-blue duopoly came to its head at our last general election, when more than a third of voters rejected both of them and more than a third of the potential electorate declined to vote for anyone at all. Labour went down to its second worst defeat since the First World War, but that did not translate into a triumphant swing of the pendulum to the Tories. David Cameron was the poorest winner in his party's history, moving into Number 10 with the support of a smaller proportion of the electorate than any previous Tory prime minister. There are several plausible explanations for this erosion of their position from the decline of class-based party allegiance to the evaporation of respect and deference towards Westminster that the two of them have dominated for so many decades. For most of the time since 1945, discontent with the red-blue duopoly manifested itself in spikes of support for the Lib Dems and their predecessors. It also helped boost Nationalists in Wales and Scotland. The Lib Dems were the beneficiaries at the last general election. That came to a stop when the Lib Dems turned into a party of government themselves. Now it is Nigel Farage's turn. When Ukip fades away, it will probably be someone else. The result is that we have a multi-party politics wrestling within a system still set up for two-party politics. One way to respond would be to change the way we do things, including the way in which we elect governments. That is off the table for the foreseeable future. Earlier in this parliament, Britain was offered some reform, a pretty modest reform to switch from electing MPs by first past the post and instead choose them by the alternative vote. That proposition was clubbed to death in the 2011 referendum. Another way to respond would be to accept that we may be in for a long period of coalition governments and adjust our expectations accordingly. Obviously, since they would expect this to mean prolonged spells in office for them, the Lib Dems would love that. Neither the Tories nor Labour wants to embrace that idea and neither does a substantial section of the electorate. The recent unedifying knife fights – no, make that cat fights – between the Tories and the Lib Dems have not been a sparkling advertisement for coalition government. Or the two main parties could attempt to restore their duopoly. This they will try to do as we approach the general election. Tories will endeavour to squeeze the Ukip vote, not least with the slogan: "Vote Farage, Get Miliband". They will effectively say to those of their supporters who have gone over to Ukip: you have had your bit of fun with Nigel, now it is time to get serious about whom you want to govern the country. Trying to polarise the next general election as a straight blue-red choice is at the core of the Tory re-election strategy. Labour will be attempting something similar with anti-Tory voters by telling those considering other choices that the only sure way to turf out David Cameron is to back Ed Miliband. I expect it will work to an extent. The classic "two party squeeze" on their smaller competitors usually has some effect. But it will not work to anything like the extent necessary to revive the red-blue duopoly of old. The squeeze is a tactic for maximising their support in one election rather than a strategy for broadening their support over many elections. In neither party is there any expectation that David Cameron or Ed Miliband can assemble behind them the sort of winning coalition of voters that delivered hat-tricks of election victories to Tony Blair and Margaret Thatcher. David Cameron looked like he might have the capacity to reach beyond his own tribe when he was in opposition, but has retreated to a narrower appeal in office. Labour likes to talk about "One Nation", but can't claim to speak for it on its current poll rating. I can find quite a lot of Tories who sound genuinely confident that economic recovery will tide them through to the general election and they will emerge as the largest party in the next parliament. I come across hardly any Tories who think they will win with a convincing vote share or form a government with a decent parliamentary majority. I can find a respectable number of Labour people who are confident that they will be in government after the next election. I meet very few Labour people who think they will get power with the support of a impressive proportion of the electorate. Trying to turn a problem into an excuse, some senior Labour figures argue that it is reasonable for them to try to win the next general election with around 35% of the vote because multi-party politics makes it too difficult for them to do much better. The conclusion they are both likely to draw from this Thursday's contests is that it is futile to endeavour to be a properly majoritarian party. They will instead concentrate on trying to cobble together just enough votes to scrape them over the line into Number 10. It is desperately unambitious and a recipe for getting a government without a solid mandate. In the Age of Alienation, it appears to be the best they can do. |