ELECTION ANALYSIS
So, who won? Well, hopefully we all did in the gambling sense but that election result was probably the first ever that could genuinely be claimed as either a victory or a defeat for all three parties. From a wider political perspective, a sterile and cynical election campaign resulted in another derisory turnout. At 61.3%, just 2% higher than 2001 despite the vast expansion of postal voting, it is clear that often repeated commitments by the political class to re-engage the public have either been wholly ineffective or are merely lip service.
Whereas widespread apathy, boredom or disillusionment with the political process is obvious from the low turnout, those who did vote also registered the biggest rejection of the two main parties in post-WW2 Britain. Labour and the Conservatives managed to poll just 67.7%, compared to 74.7% in 2001 and a peak of 96.1% in 1955. The Liberal Democrats are obviously the main beneficiary of this trend, but minor parties
also now account for over 10% of the vote. Most commentators have noted that Britain’s first-past-the-post (FPTP) electoral system has again delivered a perverse result in terms of the distribution of parliamentary seats, with Labour attaining 55% of the seats on only a 35% share of the vote. The FPTP system clearly encourages voters to choose either Labour or Conservative so one has to wonder just how badly they might perform under proportional representation. Both are beginning to resemble professional political machines whose reasons for existence are disappearing along with their mass memberships.
Labour are justified in celebrating an historic third term. Despite the loss of seats and further erosion of their vote to the left-leaning Liberal Democrats, the government still managed a comfortable win despite the inevitable hostility generated by long-term incumbency and crippling controversies such as the war in Iraq, the introduction of tuition fees and a chaotic immigration system. However, the consensus amongst most non-partisan commentators is that the victory was achieved in spite of Tony Blair, whose popularity has diminished considerably over the last 8 years. Power within the Labour Party has now shifted irredeemably to Gordon Brown, who will surely take over the leadership at some stage during this term. My reckoning is that Blair will resign after a catastrophic defeat in next year’s referendum on the EU constitution, should it take place. Even without that, Blair will do very well to last into 2007.
Brown will inherit an electoral headache ahead of the next election. Though it remains possible at this stage that Labour may be able to reclaim some of its lost votes next time under a different leader in different circumstances, one has to expect that after 3 terms in these disillusioned times, more voters will be looking for a change. After this result there are dozens of Labour seats now held by a very small majority that will probably fall to the Tories next time. Most notably in Kent, Labour managed wafer thin victories in Gillingham, Dartford, Medway, Sittingbourne & Sheppey and Thanet South and will do extremely well to hold on next time in such seats.
The wider long-term problem for Labour, though, is their disconnection with traditional working-class voters. The trend across Labour’s industrial heartlands is desperately low turnout accompanied by pincer movement from the Lib Dems on the Left and in some areas a surge in support for the BNP on the Right. The New Labour project appeared to take such voters for granted and its metropolitan leadership seems to have no idea how to communicate its message to them. While redistribution has remained central amongst Labour policies, the party’s lack of willingness to talk about it and failure to adopt the language of the Left means the issue has lost electoral salience. Very few voters seem aware of the redistributive nature of tuition fees, tax credits or the Sure Start nursery scheme, for example. During the campaign, while the Tories and their media allies were able to complain endlessly about increased taxation as if the burden was equally shared, Labour were unable to press the point that vast swathes of families on low pay were better off under the tax credits system. Equally, I didn’t notice much media or government scrutiny of the Tory plans for public services, which amount to little more than redistribution from poor to rich.
Here lies the central problem facing New Labour. Blair has moulded an electoral machine that attempts to appeal to all sections of society with an ideology-lite brand of managerialism. While this is all well and good when in opposition or the early days of government, a political party or movement requires a clear set of principles that the public permanently associate with it. Brownites like Foreign Office Minister Douglas Alexander and Robin Cook seem to understand this better than many of their counterparts, arguing for the government to reclaim the moral high ground with value-driven policies that would stress Labour’s timeless commitment to social justice. I wish them the best of luck but they will have their work cut out setting this agenda so late into a Labour government that has almost certainly passed its peak of popularity.
As for the Tories, despite a controversial election campaign Michael Howard does deserve some credit for his management of the party. I’m sure most of their supporters would have settled for a gain of 32 seats when Iain Duncan-Smith was leader two years ago. The party’s campaigning machine looks far advanced from 2001. Swing seats were ruthlessly and successfully targeted and a credible slate of candidates resulted in numerous new faces whose task will be to modernise the parliamentary party’s staid image.
Smart campaigning tactics have disguised the scale of the task still faced by the Tories, though. The party’s share of the vote flat-lined again at 33%, more or less the level it has been at since 1992. Again, its focus on core issues such as tax and immigration has rendered the party unelectable to many centrist voters, particularly outside the South-East. The seats they gained were mostly a result of either the swing away from Labour to the Lib Dems (largely due to Iraq, so far from certain to be repeated next time) or dissatisfaction with Labour in the overcrowded, overpriced South-East. In order to form a government, the opposition have to do a lot more than simply capitalise on discontent, and there is little evidence to suggest a credible alternative agenda that could appeal to a majority of Britons is around the corner. With a potentially divisive leadership contest now under way, where the irreconcilable differences between traditionalists and modernisers will rise to the fore again, Tory prospects still look pretty bleak.
Next time, boundary changes should guarantee an increase in the number of Tory MPs, as some of the pro-Labour bias in the current electoral map is reduced. But even if, using the most positive estimates, this can yield another 30 seats, it still doesn’t look feasible that the Tories could win the 324 seats required to form an overall majority. My initial calculations suggest that there are now 88 Labour seats that they can realistically target, but in practice they will do well to increase their tally by more than 50. Again, the Tories made less headway the further one travels from London, obtaining less than 30% in every region north of the East Midlands. 25 years of what former Tory minister Lord Gilmour describes as “One-nation in the South-East Conservatism” has clearly left its mark.
At the heart of the leadership debate will be the question of whether the Conservative Party chooses to move back towards the centre-ground of British politics in terms of both policy and language. My suspicion is that they will again reject such an approach and prefer to continue as a socially authoritarian, Eurosceptic, low-tax party that talks endlessly about crime and immigration. If so, it will be difficult to engage the millions that have deserted them since 1992. Furthermore if they begin to be perceived as a potential government, (unlike this time where Labour supporters felt free to abstain or register a protest), then they will leave themselves open again to tactical voting from moderate and left-wing voters.
One of the issues left open to debate is exactly who won the battle between the Tories and the Lib Dems. Indeed, interpretation of that answer is central to how each party shapes its future strategy. Many commentators have seized on Lib Dem losses in places such as Guildford and Newbury plus the failure of the decapitation strategy in Maidenhead, Dorset West and Haltemprice and Howden as evidence of the danger of Charles Kennedy’s left-wing stance on tax. There is almost certainly some merit in this but it only tells part of the story. The Lib Dems will indeed be very disappointed by the clear swing away from them in Surrey, but will equally be delighted to have held on to Romsey, Cheadle and particularly with the stunning gain of Solihull.
Its very hard to judge the decapitation strategy as it may well be the case that David Davis, Oliver Letwin and Theresa May were rewarded for campaigning much harder in their own constituencies than previously, while Michael Howard clearly benefited from the electoral boost that party leaders always tend to receive. Elsewhere, apart from the ‘Surrey swing’ and the overall net gain of 2 seats the Tories enjoyed, it is possible to argue that the Lib Dems actually came off better in the battle. There were four tight three-way marginals where voters had a clear opportunity to choose which party they preferred to Labour. In Bristol West, Falmouth & Cranbourne and Leeds North West the Lib Dems won, while Labour held Watford. The most notable fact was that in all of them the Tories finished third.
Despite the relatively small improvement in the number of seats won by the Lib Dems, I would argue they had the best night of the three main parties. Optimists had been talking about 75 or more seats but, as I argued in my election betting guide, there really weren’t that many realistic targets. 62 is admittedly the low end of expectations but the Lib Dem strategy is primarily about the long-term. Their dominance of the student vote suggests they are continuing to thrive among younger voters that will bode well for future elections with generational replacement, but the most promising aspect of the 2005 election is their growing foothold in the cities.
Just as Tory supporters appear to be vacating the main urban centres outside London, the Lib Dems are growing and could present a genuine threat to Labour in such areas in future elections. The party’s strategy is clear. Firstly, gain council representation and then gradually establish a presence using their army of young activists and constant propaganda via the Focus newsletters. As the party’s profile rises and campaigning spreads across local constituency borders, they begin to be taken more seriously as an alternative vote to the two dominant parties. After this election, the number of seats where the Lib Dems are in second place and therefore the main threat has risen considerably – even if most seats where Labour is the target they will start from a long way behind. Time and again we have seen how much better the Lib Dems do when they are seen by voters as having a chance and not as a wasted vote. I strongly fancy them to again increase their seats total again next time and genuinely bring about an era of three-party politics. At the very least, they are capable of scaring Labour in their heartlands and ensure that government doesn’t take such voters for granted.
Since the election, there has been a fair bit of media discussion about the unfair electoral system and the case for proportional representation though this now seems to be restricted to the campaign in the Independent. I’ve always been an advocate of PR and frankly, I can’t see how any fair-minded individual that could defend a system that grants 85% of the seats to two parties that received 67% of the vote (and this is before we get on to the subject of the ludicrously unfair distribution in favour of the government). The difference now is that the pragmatic electoral case for reform should be clear to all three parties. The Tories look unlikely to ever win enough seats to form a majority on their own without a radical shift in their positioning. The Lib Dems clearly need PR as the only way of receiving the seat share that their vote share deserves. And now Labour, with the boundary changes looming, must surely be tempted to forge an alliance with the Lib Dems that would probably deliver a permanent progressive coalition government rather than wait for the electorate to use the country’s bizarre electoral system to give them a kicking. First past the post works well in a two-party system, but is an anachronism in a multi-party system, that we now very clearly have. Sadly, I’m not holding my breath for the day Labour and the Tories actually realise this.
P.S.
Apologies to the Nationalist parties, whom I’ve overlooked. This is basically because their scope is so clearly limited. The SNP performed well in their target seats if poorly overall but remain unlikely to ever seriously contest more than about 8 seats while for PC the number is even fewer. Northern Ireland, on the other hand, remains fascinating but not particularly relevant to this article which is mainly concerned with the battle between the three main parties of mainland Britain who don’t compete there.
Whereas widespread apathy, boredom or disillusionment with the political process is obvious from the low turnout, those who did vote also registered the biggest rejection of the two main parties in post-WW2 Britain. Labour and the Conservatives managed to poll just 67.7%, compared to 74.7% in 2001 and a peak of 96.1% in 1955. The Liberal Democrats are obviously the main beneficiary of this trend, but minor parties
also now account for over 10% of the vote. Most commentators have noted that Britain’s first-past-the-post (FPTP) electoral system has again delivered a perverse result in terms of the distribution of parliamentary seats, with Labour attaining 55% of the seats on only a 35% share of the vote. The FPTP system clearly encourages voters to choose either Labour or Conservative so one has to wonder just how badly they might perform under proportional representation. Both are beginning to resemble professional political machines whose reasons for existence are disappearing along with their mass memberships.
Labour are justified in celebrating an historic third term. Despite the loss of seats and further erosion of their vote to the left-leaning Liberal Democrats, the government still managed a comfortable win despite the inevitable hostility generated by long-term incumbency and crippling controversies such as the war in Iraq, the introduction of tuition fees and a chaotic immigration system. However, the consensus amongst most non-partisan commentators is that the victory was achieved in spite of Tony Blair, whose popularity has diminished considerably over the last 8 years. Power within the Labour Party has now shifted irredeemably to Gordon Brown, who will surely take over the leadership at some stage during this term. My reckoning is that Blair will resign after a catastrophic defeat in next year’s referendum on the EU constitution, should it take place. Even without that, Blair will do very well to last into 2007.
Brown will inherit an electoral headache ahead of the next election. Though it remains possible at this stage that Labour may be able to reclaim some of its lost votes next time under a different leader in different circumstances, one has to expect that after 3 terms in these disillusioned times, more voters will be looking for a change. After this result there are dozens of Labour seats now held by a very small majority that will probably fall to the Tories next time. Most notably in Kent, Labour managed wafer thin victories in Gillingham, Dartford, Medway, Sittingbourne & Sheppey and Thanet South and will do extremely well to hold on next time in such seats.
The wider long-term problem for Labour, though, is their disconnection with traditional working-class voters. The trend across Labour’s industrial heartlands is desperately low turnout accompanied by pincer movement from the Lib Dems on the Left and in some areas a surge in support for the BNP on the Right. The New Labour project appeared to take such voters for granted and its metropolitan leadership seems to have no idea how to communicate its message to them. While redistribution has remained central amongst Labour policies, the party’s lack of willingness to talk about it and failure to adopt the language of the Left means the issue has lost electoral salience. Very few voters seem aware of the redistributive nature of tuition fees, tax credits or the Sure Start nursery scheme, for example. During the campaign, while the Tories and their media allies were able to complain endlessly about increased taxation as if the burden was equally shared, Labour were unable to press the point that vast swathes of families on low pay were better off under the tax credits system. Equally, I didn’t notice much media or government scrutiny of the Tory plans for public services, which amount to little more than redistribution from poor to rich.
Here lies the central problem facing New Labour. Blair has moulded an electoral machine that attempts to appeal to all sections of society with an ideology-lite brand of managerialism. While this is all well and good when in opposition or the early days of government, a political party or movement requires a clear set of principles that the public permanently associate with it. Brownites like Foreign Office Minister Douglas Alexander and Robin Cook seem to understand this better than many of their counterparts, arguing for the government to reclaim the moral high ground with value-driven policies that would stress Labour’s timeless commitment to social justice. I wish them the best of luck but they will have their work cut out setting this agenda so late into a Labour government that has almost certainly passed its peak of popularity.
As for the Tories, despite a controversial election campaign Michael Howard does deserve some credit for his management of the party. I’m sure most of their supporters would have settled for a gain of 32 seats when Iain Duncan-Smith was leader two years ago. The party’s campaigning machine looks far advanced from 2001. Swing seats were ruthlessly and successfully targeted and a credible slate of candidates resulted in numerous new faces whose task will be to modernise the parliamentary party’s staid image.
Smart campaigning tactics have disguised the scale of the task still faced by the Tories, though. The party’s share of the vote flat-lined again at 33%, more or less the level it has been at since 1992. Again, its focus on core issues such as tax and immigration has rendered the party unelectable to many centrist voters, particularly outside the South-East. The seats they gained were mostly a result of either the swing away from Labour to the Lib Dems (largely due to Iraq, so far from certain to be repeated next time) or dissatisfaction with Labour in the overcrowded, overpriced South-East. In order to form a government, the opposition have to do a lot more than simply capitalise on discontent, and there is little evidence to suggest a credible alternative agenda that could appeal to a majority of Britons is around the corner. With a potentially divisive leadership contest now under way, where the irreconcilable differences between traditionalists and modernisers will rise to the fore again, Tory prospects still look pretty bleak.
Next time, boundary changes should guarantee an increase in the number of Tory MPs, as some of the pro-Labour bias in the current electoral map is reduced. But even if, using the most positive estimates, this can yield another 30 seats, it still doesn’t look feasible that the Tories could win the 324 seats required to form an overall majority. My initial calculations suggest that there are now 88 Labour seats that they can realistically target, but in practice they will do well to increase their tally by more than 50. Again, the Tories made less headway the further one travels from London, obtaining less than 30% in every region north of the East Midlands. 25 years of what former Tory minister Lord Gilmour describes as “One-nation in the South-East Conservatism” has clearly left its mark.
At the heart of the leadership debate will be the question of whether the Conservative Party chooses to move back towards the centre-ground of British politics in terms of both policy and language. My suspicion is that they will again reject such an approach and prefer to continue as a socially authoritarian, Eurosceptic, low-tax party that talks endlessly about crime and immigration. If so, it will be difficult to engage the millions that have deserted them since 1992. Furthermore if they begin to be perceived as a potential government, (unlike this time where Labour supporters felt free to abstain or register a protest), then they will leave themselves open again to tactical voting from moderate and left-wing voters.
One of the issues left open to debate is exactly who won the battle between the Tories and the Lib Dems. Indeed, interpretation of that answer is central to how each party shapes its future strategy. Many commentators have seized on Lib Dem losses in places such as Guildford and Newbury plus the failure of the decapitation strategy in Maidenhead, Dorset West and Haltemprice and Howden as evidence of the danger of Charles Kennedy’s left-wing stance on tax. There is almost certainly some merit in this but it only tells part of the story. The Lib Dems will indeed be very disappointed by the clear swing away from them in Surrey, but will equally be delighted to have held on to Romsey, Cheadle and particularly with the stunning gain of Solihull.
Its very hard to judge the decapitation strategy as it may well be the case that David Davis, Oliver Letwin and Theresa May were rewarded for campaigning much harder in their own constituencies than previously, while Michael Howard clearly benefited from the electoral boost that party leaders always tend to receive. Elsewhere, apart from the ‘Surrey swing’ and the overall net gain of 2 seats the Tories enjoyed, it is possible to argue that the Lib Dems actually came off better in the battle. There were four tight three-way marginals where voters had a clear opportunity to choose which party they preferred to Labour. In Bristol West, Falmouth & Cranbourne and Leeds North West the Lib Dems won, while Labour held Watford. The most notable fact was that in all of them the Tories finished third.
Despite the relatively small improvement in the number of seats won by the Lib Dems, I would argue they had the best night of the three main parties. Optimists had been talking about 75 or more seats but, as I argued in my election betting guide, there really weren’t that many realistic targets. 62 is admittedly the low end of expectations but the Lib Dem strategy is primarily about the long-term. Their dominance of the student vote suggests they are continuing to thrive among younger voters that will bode well for future elections with generational replacement, but the most promising aspect of the 2005 election is their growing foothold in the cities.
Just as Tory supporters appear to be vacating the main urban centres outside London, the Lib Dems are growing and could present a genuine threat to Labour in such areas in future elections. The party’s strategy is clear. Firstly, gain council representation and then gradually establish a presence using their army of young activists and constant propaganda via the Focus newsletters. As the party’s profile rises and campaigning spreads across local constituency borders, they begin to be taken more seriously as an alternative vote to the two dominant parties. After this election, the number of seats where the Lib Dems are in second place and therefore the main threat has risen considerably – even if most seats where Labour is the target they will start from a long way behind. Time and again we have seen how much better the Lib Dems do when they are seen by voters as having a chance and not as a wasted vote. I strongly fancy them to again increase their seats total again next time and genuinely bring about an era of three-party politics. At the very least, they are capable of scaring Labour in their heartlands and ensure that government doesn’t take such voters for granted.
Since the election, there has been a fair bit of media discussion about the unfair electoral system and the case for proportional representation though this now seems to be restricted to the campaign in the Independent. I’ve always been an advocate of PR and frankly, I can’t see how any fair-minded individual that could defend a system that grants 85% of the seats to two parties that received 67% of the vote (and this is before we get on to the subject of the ludicrously unfair distribution in favour of the government). The difference now is that the pragmatic electoral case for reform should be clear to all three parties. The Tories look unlikely to ever win enough seats to form a majority on their own without a radical shift in their positioning. The Lib Dems clearly need PR as the only way of receiving the seat share that their vote share deserves. And now Labour, with the boundary changes looming, must surely be tempted to forge an alliance with the Lib Dems that would probably deliver a permanent progressive coalition government rather than wait for the electorate to use the country’s bizarre electoral system to give them a kicking. First past the post works well in a two-party system, but is an anachronism in a multi-party system, that we now very clearly have. Sadly, I’m not holding my breath for the day Labour and the Tories actually realise this.
P.S.
Apologies to the Nationalist parties, whom I’ve overlooked. This is basically because their scope is so clearly limited. The SNP performed well in their target seats if poorly overall but remain unlikely to ever seriously contest more than about 8 seats while for PC the number is even fewer. Northern Ireland, on the other hand, remains fascinating but not particularly relevant to this article which is mainly concerned with the battle between the three main parties of mainland Britain who don’t compete there.
posted by Paul Krishnamurty at 4:54 AM
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