Obama bloodied as Republicans snatch House of Representatives

When John Boehner, the Ohioan Republican representative who is expected to replace Nancy Pelosi as Speaker of the United States House of Representatives, addressed cheering crowds last Tuesday night, he burst into tears.

On a night which saw Republicans gain control of the lower house with a number of spectacular victories, his were not tears of disappointment, even if the Grand Old Party did fall short of also seizing the upper house, the Senate.

Boehner will become the third most powerful politician in the United States, after President Obama and Vice President Biden, after the Republicans routed House Democrats, gaining 60 seats to split control of Capitol Hill between the two main American parties and deal a severe blow to Obama’s hope of implementing his agenda.

Boehner insisted, however, that this is no time for Republican celebration. This may be seen as a surprise considering the dramatic turnaround in GOP fortunes after their poor showings in 2006 and 2008. However, there may be a tinge of Republican regret stemming from the fact that although the party managed to trim the Democratic Senate majority to four seats, from eighteen in 2008, the results perhaps should have been even more positive for the party.

It is the Tea Party which has caused these Republican headaches. The Tea Party, a phenomenon that has dominated this electoral cycle, is a pressure movement which is opposed to central government interference in the lives of ordinary Americans. The nascent political movement, which competed in GOP primary contests and whose darling is Sarah Palin, may well have cost the Republicans a majority in the Senate.

The Republican mainstream candidate in Delaware, Mike Castle, lost his party’s nomination to an eccentric extremist backed by the Tea Party, Christine O’Donnell, who was even forced to deny rumours that she was a witch. Castle, the moderate former governor of the state, had polled consistently ahead of the Democratic candidate, Chris Coons by appealing to centrists. O’Donnell nullified this effect after her defeat of Castle, allowing Coons to win the state with some ease.

What would have been the most high-profile Republican scalp was the Senate Majority Leader, Harry Reid, who hung on to his Nevada seat. His challenger, arch-conservative Sharron Angle, committed a number of faux-pas on the campaign trail, including her declaration in support of the US withdrawing from the United Nations, in part to protest against the UN’s tendency to promote “fraudulent science such as climate change”. As with O’Donnell in Delaware, Angle isolated moderates and managed to snatch defeat for the Republicans from the jaws of victory in a contest against a very poorly regarded incumbent in Senator Reid.

There were some successes for the Tea Party, most notably for Marco Rubio, tipped as a future GOP presidential candidate, who was elected to the Senate candidate in the crucial state of Florida, comfortably defeating his former Republican colleague and incumbent senator Charlie Crist.

Nevertheless, the movement has had a polarising effect which may prove to be toxic to the Republicans’ chances of regaining the White House in 2012. O’Donnell, Angle, Joe Miller of Alaska (who was defeated by a write-in candidate, incumbent Republican senator Lisa Murkowski) and other right-wing politicians may have benefited amongst traditional conservatives, but have not endeared themselves to moderate Americans.

It may have been that Boehner’s tears betrayed a sense of apprehension at the looming prospect of a civil war for the soul of the Republican Party. That the GOP failed to pick up states that they might have been expected to win had there not been a divisive Tea Party-backed candidate instead of a moderate may have actually pleased the Republican establishment. Time alone will tell if the Tea Party proves to be a busted flush, but Republicans must hope that its influence and its polarising tendencies will have been severely blunted by its failures.

A further difficulty faced by the GOP is the distinct lack of credible, unifying challengers to Obama in 2012. Moderate Republicans such as Mitt Romney may be more appealing to Middle America, but the GOP base is far more enthusiastic for more conservative figures such as Palin. Tea Partyers – Palin was outspoken in her backing for Angle, Miller and O’Donnell – will have had their credentials weakened, however, by last week’s disappointments.

But if the generally positive results were tinged with some frustration for Republicans, then the Democrats find themselves in rather more trouble. Just two years after his triumphant and historic victory, Obama faces the prospect of political deadlock on Capitol Hill.

What will have pained – not to mention worried – the Democrats is the loss of a number of traditionally liberal states to Republican candidates. Perhaps most notable of these was Illinois, the state Obama himself represented in the Senate prior to 2008. The Prairie State, with a population of thirteen million and which gave Obama 62 percent of the vote two years ago, elected Mark Kirk, who won relatively comfortably in spite of allegations that he partly fabricated his military record, to the Senate and came within a whisker of taking the Governor’s mansion.

Obama’s approval ratings have been consistently below 50 percent, and among registered independents – a voting bloc which launched him into the White House – numerous polls have shown less than 40 percent approve of his presidency. Even Democrats have taken issue with their president. In the Democratic bastion of Rhode Island, the Democratic gubernatorial candidate told Obama to take his endorsement and “shove it”. He came third; the victor was an independent liberal.

Indeed, some Democratic victors may prove to be a challenge for Obama and the party hierarchy to work with. Joe Manchin, elected to the Senate to represent West Virginia, is a self-depicted conservative Democrat who has made a great issue out of the fact that he opposed President Obama’s plan to incentivise the reduction of carbon dioxide production.

Yet, in what may be seen as a blessing in disguise, Republican control of the House of Representatives may take some of the pressure off Obama and the Democrats. Obama may well attempt to pin the blame for political deadlock on to a stubborn Republican-led House. In addition, through worsening economic times, Republicans will not be able to wash their hands of responsibility and will have no choice but to share some of the blame. The anti-incumbency wave ridden by so many Republicans may not last now that they are part of the establishment.

In spite of the apparent torrent of bad news for Democratic strategists last Tuesday, the midterm elections still provide Obama and his party with hope. They will know that, but for the influence of the Tea Party, they may well have lost both Houses of Congress. Obama will also be warmed by the slim possibility of a unifying Republican candidate being selected following the long and divisive primary season, which starts in just fourteen months time.

Perhaps it was the thought of the hurdles ahead that drove Boehner to tears. Tuesday’s results were a great success for his Republican Party; but he as much as anyone is aware that there is little scope for celebration.

As the Browne Report is unveiled, Durham students express their views on the issue of tuition fees

AW, 4th year, St Aidan’s, Chemistry:

I think it’s really terrible – I don’t know how my brother is going to pay for his education. I’m glad I have got through before the changes are implemented. If Durham had cost more than other universities, I wouldn’t have been able to come here; my sister has ended up staying at home because of the cost of university.



CL, 3rd year, St Aidan’s, Archaeology:

It might work in a purist economic world, but the education of the individual is of value to society as a whole on more than just an economic level.



DCC, 3rd year, Grey, Politics:

I think that the Browne Report would represent an irreversible change in the affordability and the social mobility of our education system. The changes will create a tiered higher education system, with the debt burden caused by going to a prestigious universities being potentially off-putting to students from poorer backgrounds. I hope that Durham will strengthen its bursary and outreach programmes in order to mitigate against this.



CT, 3rd year, St Aidan’s, Politics:

It reduces education to a personal investment. It puts the entire cost of education onto an individual and neglects the role of both society and industry in funding education. I am very concerned about the idea of variable fees.



MV, 3rd year, St Aidan’s, Law:

The ever-expanding format of the country’s university system is weakening the quality of our institutions and courses. Therefore an uncapped tuition fee is one way of reducing the numbers in the university system and return quality to British education.



Not everyone is concerned though:

Anonymous, Van Mildert:

I haven’t heard of the report. Is it written by Dan Brown, author of the Da Vinci Code?

Labour prepares to enter a new era

Perhaps the 2010 general election will go down as being a good one to have lost. There is a widespread acceptance that whatever complexion the resulting government would have been would have had, as a matter of urgency, to deal with the stunning level of national debt. How hard, indeed, did Labour try to win?

Their last year in office was marked by a series of debacles, including botched leadership challenges, Gordon Brown’s hapless attempts to interact with the electorate and rumours of his temper paralysing the workings of inner government. To say that the previous government followed a scorched earth policy would probably be to take it too far, though Liam Byrne, Labour’s last Chief Secretary to the Treasury, appeared to allude to his government’s reckless spending habits when he left a note to his successor advising him that “there’s no money left”.

It is very hard to imagine a Labour government wishing to face the problems now encountered by the coalition government. One party staying in office for three terms naturally makes the public weary and increasingly attracted by the prospect of change (though the Conservatives failed to fully capitalise on such feelings during the campaign).

Yet the issue of cuts would still have needed to be addressed, in a Labour fourth term, whatever some Labour leadership contenders might pretend. As we are beginning to see, a conflict with the unions would become inevitable, and while this might be seen by some as a predictable result of a Conservative in Downing Street, for a Labour government to be presiding over general strikes might be seen as civil war.

Admittedly, Labour would have been less likely to have been quite so harsh to implement cuts, but the legacy of the winter of discontent, which brought down James Callaghan’s government and brought about eighteen years of Tory rule, still haunts Labour’s relations with the trade unions.

As it is, Labour is now on the verge of choosing a leader who may well be the next prime minister. Unlike the post-1997 Tories, who had three unsuccessful leaders (William Hague, Iain Duncan Smith and Michael Howard), Labour has a realistic chance of returning to office relatively soon, and therefore realises that it must choose wisely.

For the government, it may all seem a little unfair. They have no choice but to reduce the public debt, something which Labour failed to address – (perhaps intentionally) – whilst they were in government.

The problem is the issue of how savagely expenditure should be cut. Public sector workers, perhaps eyeing developments in Greece and France, are naturally very worried about austerity packages, and scorn the Conservatives’ insistence that “we are all in this together”.

Unfortunately there is very little choice. We cannot continue to spend beyond our means. Unfortunately, some services will have to go, or else the situation will continue to be exacerbated for future generations. The sooner the clichéd ‘tough, long-term’ decisions are taken, the better. The later these cuts are left, the closer Britain will get to joining the economic graveyard of the GIP countries.

The previous Labour government, which endowed us with the majority of the problems, including giving bankers such as Fred Goodwin a free rein to borrow far beyond their means, will hope to appear as an innocent party in the sorry tale of the current problems we face. The Conservatives and Liberal Democrats have started the attempts to clean up this mess, and have been predictably pilloried for it.

It is to be hoped that their decisions shall, in time, not be seen to have been taken out of a particular desire to slash public services, but out of an unfortunate forced necessity.

As the end approaches, there are no real signs of great public enthusiasm

And so begins the last full week of campaigning before the General Election. For political junkies, it has undeniably been a fascinating battle so far, with the phenomenal rise of the Liberal Democrats – or perhaps more accurately, of Nick Clegg personally – capturing the imagination of the media.

There has apparently also been a great public interest in this ‘Cleggmania’, with one Facebook group, aiming to recreate the success of Rage against the Machine by propelling the Lib Dems into government, already attracting well over 150,000 members.

This is not necessarily a reflection of the country at large, though. Walking around Durham, signs of an impending election are conspicuous by their absence.

There is a smattering of posters backing the Labour and Liberal Democrat candidates, as well as a couple supporting the Conservative outsider and even one for the BNP. But the streets are hardly awash with indications of party support, in spite of the fact that this is a key marginal.

The media has assumed that since the leaders’ debates began, the level of public interest in the election has rocketed. It is true that this is the case to a certain extent, with fairly high viewing figures of around ten million for the first debate. The second, however, attracted just one tenth of the electorate, a figure so low that it cannot be entirely pinned on the fact that it was not broadcast live on terrestrial television.

Undoubtedly, the debates have sparked some interest in the campaign. However, paradoxically they appear to have taken the focus off issues of policy. Clegg’s strong showing, which has lifted his party into second place nationally ahead of Labour, has raised the strong possibility of a hung parliament, now the most likely result, according to bookmakers.

As such, the news has been led by speculation as to what might happen should there be a hung parliament. Most of Monday’s newspapers’ lead stories recount the parties’ positioning on these matters.

The Conservatives, who for long periods of the last five years looked to be able to start preparing for a majority government (including some polls suggesting a victory equivalent even to Tony Blair’s 1997 landslide win), have had to adjust their message particularly dramatically.

Their slogan, advocating people to ‘Vote for Change’, has been adopted by Clegg, who has called for a completely fresh break from the ways of the “two old parties”. In response, the Tories have tried to convey a ‘Vote Yellow, Get Brown’ message, and have insisted that elements within coalition governments, by their very nature, would bicker and have self-interests at heart – at a time in which tough decisions need to be made.

Labour has an even greater problem, with their current third place under little doubt. Although this does not preclude them from picking up the most seats, Clegg was fairly unequivocal last weekend that he would not prop up Gordon Brown if Labour finished third in the popular vote.

Labour, predictably, have seized on such comments, with the typically articulate Lord Mandelson warning voters that if they were to “flirt” with Clegg, they could end up “married to Dave and George [Osborne]”.

The Lib Dems, by contrast, must be enjoying their elevated status. It is unlikely to last, however. In all probability, the aftermath of the election will result in Clegg having to choose one of either Brown or Cameron to go into coalition with.

This could be a potentially damaging time for the party, with the options of backing Brown, whose party will most likely finish no higher than second in share of the vote, or choosing Cameron. Entering a coalition with the second-place party would surely conflict with the Lib Dem commitments to a fair voting system, while the latter option could split his party, two-thirds of which is more closely aligned with Labour than with the Tories.

It is only nine days until polling day, and postal ballots have already landed on doormats. Yet the parties are continuing to play a complicated game, asking supporters of other parties to vote tactically, warning that a vote for Clegg is a vote for Cameron (according to Labour) or a vote for Brown (according to the Conservatives).

The Lib Dems, for their part, have attempted to overcome such perceptions, insisting that they will not sacrifice their principles if or when they enter a coalition.

The electorate may be fed up of such politicking. But for most political anoraks, speculation over such scenarios has further fuelled interest in this, the most exciting and unpredictable election for generations.

The rise (and rise?) of the Lib Dems

This time last year the polls were fairly steady. One, the fieldwork of which ended on 18th April 2009, gave the Conservatives 45 percent, nineteen points ahead of Labour with the Liberal Democrats a further nine points back.

What a difference a year makes. 52 weeks is an eternity in politics. In nine of the last ten polls published, the Lib Dems have surged into at least second place, even leading in two, ending a sustained period of Conservative domination in which the Tories led in well over 300 consecutive polls.

Who would have thought it? (And who would have thought that this surge – a term the media seems to have collectively branded it, which seems an understatement – would be pushed from the top of the news bulletins by a non-fatal Icelandic volcano – admittedly rather an inconvenient one.)

It is an astounding turn of events. The polls suggest that the Lib Dems have doubled their vote in a matter of days, apparently thanks to the strong showing of Nick Clegg in the first Prime Ministerial debate last Thursday, which has been covered in detail elsewhere on this site.

It is barely believable that 90 minutes of admittedly engrossing primetime entertainment have put such a radically different complexion on British politics. This phenomenon is particularly curious considering that less than a quarter of the electorate actually tuned in, which comprised barely one third of people who were watching television at that time.

It was the creation of a media narrative which provided the greatest lift for the Lib Dems. At times, this has bordered on the ridiculous. One Sunday newspaper declared that Nick Clegg is the most popular politician since Winston Churchill, and this was symptomatic of a hyperbolic reaction from the public.

On Monday, Boris Johnson, in a typically non-politically correct article, compared so-called Cleggmania to the reaction to the death of Princess Diana in 1997.

The reaction should not be dismissed, though. Indeed, with barely a fortnight to go before the electorate trudges to the polling booths, it cannot be dismissed. A hung parliament has suddenly rocketed into being bookmakers’ ‘favourite’ status.

It is equally astonishing that Gordon Brown and David Cameron have been forced to attack Lib Dem policies, particularly their pledge not to renew the United Kingdom’s nuclear weapons, their support for the single European currency and their “unrealistic” tax-cutting promises.

The problems for the Tories and Labour – who can no longer be referred to accurately as the ‘two main parties’ – is that Clegg’s party has picked up support from them both.

From the Tories, this consists of anti-Labour ‘change’ voters who might have been uneasy backing the party still associated with Margaret Thatcher. From Labour, the party has attracted left-wingers who find Clegg and his team far more appealing than the recently-dissolved administration.

It is anyone’s guess as to whether the Lib Dems can sustain their bounce. It was, after all, the first debate that so boosted them initially; there are two more of them to come. The final one of these three, one week before polling day, is on the economy and likely to be Clegg’s weakest.

The Liberal Democrats’ policies will also come under increased scrutiny. There has been speculation that their Europhilia will be at the forefront of this, and this might clash with what is generally accepted to be Britain’s scepticism over the Euro and perhaps even the EU itself. Lib Dem promises to offer an amnesty to some illegal immigrants is another controversial proposal.

Even so, it will undoubtedly take more than this to deflate the Lib Dems. Clegg took to the podium against Cameron and Brown on ITV on Thursday with a message that resonated with a disillusioned British public.

In such a volatile political environment, it would be futile to make a prediction as to what will happen before 6th May. One thing that cannot be disputed, though, is that this election will be one of the most fascinating for decades.

Election race kicks off as Labour launches bid for unprecedented fourth consecutive term

In what must bring a weary smile to the faces of the British public, disillusioned with politicians and their moats, trouser presses and bell towers, Monday marked the official dissolution of Parliament, and with it the close of a particularly turbulent period at Westminster.

There are, technically, no longer any MPs, and will not be until Parliament – in whatever complexion the electorate chooses – returns on 18th May.
With the credibility of politics arguably at an all-time low, today was also the day that Labour set out its blueprint for what they hope will be their record fourth consecutive term in government.

Perhaps the toughest task for members of an incumbent administration – particularly one which has served for thirteen years – is to keep voters inspired to vote for your party. It is easy to go negative, but such an approach probably isolates at least as much of the electorate as it galvanises.

So today’s launch of the Labour Party manifesto was a tricky task for Gordon Brown. Although the polls have tightened somewhat since the beginning of the year, Labour tends to trail the Conservatives by around seven or eight points.

The progress the party makes by continuing negative attacks will be limited. Sunday’s revelations about Labour supposedly targeting cancer patients, in what the opposition has labelled “scaremongering”, as well as the farcical portrayal of David Cameron as Gene Hunt, have demonstrated this.

A further concern for the government is that, in the context of the dire economic situation (whether one blames Labour or praises their handling of the crisis), there is a fine line to be drawn between being positive and appearing to bury the governmental head in the sand.

With these factors taken into consideration, the manifest launch was relatively successful. Granted, the illustration on the cover of the document brings to mind some sort of advertisement for a brand of butter, but most of the contents churned out from the Labour Party dairy are likely to provoke broadly positive reactions from the public and the media.

The headline measures include a pledge not to increase income tax levels, giving parents the right to dismiss failing headteachers and speeding up the time cancer patients have to wait for test results.

On the other hand, the manifesto also speaks loudly by its silence on certain issues. There is no guarantee not to raise the level of VAT, for example, a charge in recent days levelled against the Conservatives, most notably by the Liberal Democrats.

Of course, manifestos ensure that parties become hostages to fortune. The Conservatives have helpfully produced a list of what it describes as 102 broken Labour manifesto pledges from 2005. Such a list is designed to undermine trust in Brown and his party.

The most infamous such assurance was the promise not to return to “boom and bust”. Five years on, emerging from the worst recession since the 1930s, hindsight has revealed that Labour simply provided a stick for the other parties to beat it with.

Likewise, the promise to hold a referendum on the European Union constitutional treaty – which (albeit with some amendments) was pushed though Parliament by Labour MPs – incited similar hostility.

Nick Clegg has waded in and raises the point that Labour will perhaps find the most difficult to deflect: that the government of Blair and Brown have had thirteen years to ensure that there will be “a future fair for all”. If such policies are so meritorious, why, asked the Lib Dem leader, have they not already been introduced?
Despite such inevitable criticism, there is no doubt that Monday saw Labour finally leave the blocks of this election campaign, after being caught flat-footed by a number of episodes last week.

After setting out their stall, they will have to hope that the British people like what they hear and will reinstall Brown in Downing Street.

The Tories and the Lib Dems launch their manifestos later this week. With the first television debate scheduled for Thursday on ITV, serious assessment of the race to Downing Street will be a much simpler task by this time next week.

Tactical voting adds another level of intrigue to forthcoming battle

Lord Adonis is not the most well-known figure in Gordon Brown’s administration. However, a letter he wrote to the Independent newspaper, which called on Liberal Democrat supporters to vote Labour in those constituencies which are battlegrounds between the Conservatives and his party, became headline news for both that publication and many news bulletins on Friday morning.

So-called tactical voting is one major reason that Uniform National Swing (UNS) calculations are not necessarily reliable in translating shares of the vote in opinion polls into parliamentary seats, in spite of their lazy usage throughout the media.

The impact of tactical voting has long been considered by psephologists (election statisticians) to have a significant impact in the UK. In 1997, the Conservatives’ crushing defeat was augmented by tactical voting, with Labour and Lib Dem shares of the vote in seats in which they were not the Tories’ main challenger being squeezed.

Indeed, this was the case to such an extent that the Lib Dems actually lost three quarters of a million votes (dropping from eighteen to seventeen percent) in comparison to the previous election in 1992, yet gained 26 seats. In other words, they tended to only gain votes in seats where they could beat the Conservatives.
Adonis is clearly hoping that some of that spirit of 1997 still exists. Labour and the Liberal Democrats, he argues, have far more in common in terms of core values than do the Tories (although, perhaps hypocritically, Adonis was careful to advocate that Labour voters do not switch to the Lib Dems in constituencies where his party were in third place last time).

But has Adonis got this right? In 1997 there was a desire from vast swathes of the country to throw out the Tories, in power for eighteen years, and insert Tony Blair into Downing Street.

Now, though, the Conservatives have been relatively ‘detoxified’ under David Cameron. Indeed, it is Gordon Brown and the Labour Party which provokes far more hostility. Lib Dem voters are far more equally split as to whether they would prefer a Gordon Brown or David Cameron-led administration although most probably hope that a hung parliament means they themselves will be able to taste power).

A poll this week showed that Brown has an approval rating of minus 28, while Cameron’s is seventeen points positive. Although there is much less of a gap with regard to which party, rather than leader, is preferred, Adonis is wrong to presume overwhelming Lib Dem backing for his party. Two thirds of those intending to vote Liberal Democrat have a negative perception of the government’s record.

Issues such as the Iraq War and the flirtation with identity cards are likely to have irked Lib Dems. Adonis may even be wrong to presume that Lib Dems would necessarily prefer a Labour victory.

The tactic suggested by Adonis is neither new, nor confined to Labour; here in Durham City, the Liberal Democrat challenger has encouraged Conservative supporters to back her party, distributing a leaflet warning that ‘Voting Conservative will only let Gordon sneak back in’.

Yet such an open pronouncement by a senior member of the cabinet smacks of Labour desperation. Labour has been in power for thirteen years, so the decision to appeal – if not beg – for Lib Dem votes on just the fourth day of the campaign suggests that Labour is rattled by their deficit, which has increased over the past week to 10 points, according to two polls published on Friday.

It is curious, to say the least, for the party to appear to be fighting on an anti-Conservative ticket in place of a positive campaign supporting (or should that be defending?) their time in government.

The dubious tactics of Blair's return to the political fray

Tony Blair’s return to the domestic political fray has provoked the range of responses and polarisation of opinion that Britain had grown accustomed to during his ten years in Downing Street. There can be no doubting, though, the debating skills of Labour’s longest-serving Prime Minister, which contrast markedly with those of Gordon Brown’s clumsy rhetoric. It has been widely speculated that the Labour Party encouraged Blair’s participation in the campaign to help encourage ‘Worcester woman’ – a stereotypically Conservative voter whom Blair successfully wooed by shifting his party towards the centre of the British political spectrum – to choose the party again, rather than transferring allegiance to David Cameron’s Tories.

Whether or not such a strategy is a good idea, or even an election-winning one, will naturally depend on the public’s reaction to his presence. Although presiding over two landslide election victories, in 1997 and 2001, his decision to follow President Bush into wars in Afghanistan in 2001, and in particular Iraq two years later, have perhaps defined his time in office. Before the 2005 election a multitude of opinion polls suggested that only one third of the electorate were positive about his premiership.

The Iraq War was a key issue in that election, as evidenced by the Liberal Democrats – the only one of the three main parties to oppose British involvement – increasing their number of votes by almost a million more than the Conservatives, who had backed Blair’s decision. Thus the war was, and remains, deeply unpopular, and Blair’s involvement risks reigniting an issue which, rightly or wrongly, attracts much less coverage today than five years ago.

Blair will undoubtedly persuade some wavering Labour supporters uncomfortable with Gordon Brown that their party still offers much of the same message as it did between 1994 and 2007. Indeed, although recent opinion polls appear to suggest that the gap between Labour and the Tories has closed into hung parliament territory Brown is much more unpopular than Blair. One poll published on Tuesday showed that three times as many people believe that Blair was a better Prime Minister than his Chancellor has so far proved to be.

Thus, Tony Blair’s endorsement of Gordon Brown, which almost seemed like a former US President giving his blessing to a candidate during American primaries, is designed to encourage Downing Street, boost party morale and, ultimately, win over the electorate.

Equally, it smacks of desperation. Gordon Brown insisted that he refused to call an election in October 2007 not because his lead suddenly evaporated, but because he wanted time to set out his vision for the United Kingdom. The reintroduction of Tony Blair, charismatic yet, in the eyes of many British people, tainted by Iraq, undermines Brown’s claim.

Blair is politically skilful; of that there is little doubt. But there is far from unequivocal support for the former PM – some wish he was still in charge but many loathe his legacy. It is, in this sense, a risk that Labour has taken, with a gamble designed to attract some voters having the potential to put others off. Having enjoyed the success and attracted the ridicule that he did, there should be no doubt that Blair’s involvement will galvanise voters from across the political spectrum.

Anger with politicians has not induced an appetite for radical change

Westminster has long prided itself as being the original home of democratic government. Now, though, there is great anger with British politicians, and this national icon conjures up images of duck houses and bell towers, following last year’s MPs’ expenses scandal. The revelations in recent weeks of former ministers boasting about how their influence in government could be hired, along with MPs of all sides not declaring interests in foreign nations’ affairs after having been hosted by the governments of those countries, has further sullied this tarnished reputation.

With such a prevailing sense of hostility, there has been speculation that the coming general election will see depressed support for the three main parties at the expense of smaller ones.

At the European elections of June 2009, only 57 percent voted for one of the Conservatives, Labour or the Liberal Democrats, in which the United Kingdom Independence Party polled behind only the Tories, and the British National Party picked up two MEPs. But can these and other minor parties translate this success into seats in the House of Commons?

There are only a few constituencies – outside Northern Ireland, which has its own, separate political parties – with the potential to fall to a party, or independent candidate, other than the main three, or the nationalists in Scotland and Wales. In 2005, only three constituencies did so: George Galloway won Bethnal Green and Bow on a cynical anti-Iraq War ticket; Dr Richard Taylor held onto his seat in Worcestershire in which his single issue had been to avoid the closure of Kidderminster hospital; while Labour lost a safe seat to an independent in South Wales after the party’s imposition of an all-women shortlist excluded a popular local choice from being a candidate.

This time, the Green Party hopes to win its first ever parliamentary seat in Brighton Pavilion, where its leader, Caroline Lucas, led the Tories by 35 percent to 27 percent according to a poll of December last year. Nick Griffin, the BNP’s leader, is standing in Barking, the constituency where the party received its highest share of the vote five years ago. This was only 17 percent, though, and it seems likely to remain in Labour hands, particularly when one considers the likelihood of anti-BNP tactical voting.

Meanwhile, UKIP’s most well-known figure, the former leader Nigel Farage, is standing against the speaker in Buckingham. As is the convention, the three main parties are not challenging the speaker, and Farage hopes to capitalise on what he has labelled a lack of parliamentary representation for those constituents. Yet UKIP has itself suffered from the corruption of its elected representatives, with two of its MEPs – both of whom were expelled by the party – convicted of fraud and jailed in recent years.

Independent ‘celebrity’ candidates have also emerged. Perhaps trying to emulate Martin Bell’s iconic ousting of Tory Neil Hamilton in 1997, the television personality Esther Rantzen is standing in Luton South, against a Labour MP heavily implicated in the expenses scandal. However, the sting has been taken out of her campaign, too, when the MP involved announced that she would step down at the election, as are the majority of Members who were disgraced in the affair.

Therein lies the problem for minor party candidates. For the public, it is one thing to register their disapproval with their MP, or indeed politicians in general; it is quite another to elect a candidate from a non-mainstream party. Smaller parties, and especially independent members, have very little influence in Parliament, and this is something that the electorate would be very reluctant to choose.

Martin Bell in 1997 also had the advantage of Labour and the Liberal Democrats refusing to put up candidates, meaning that he had a clear run as the ‘anti-sleaze candidate’. This time around, with all parties implicated in the scandal, opposition has taken the form of a ‘plague on all your houses’ rather than against any one party in particular, meaning that electoral repercussions have been blunted.

For these reasons, it is likely that, despite the speculation about their improved showing in the general election, whenever it may be, the minor parties will barely – if at all – improve the number of MPs in the Commons. The odds-on favourite for the number of independent seats is less than three, while the three main parties together regularly poll around 88 percent of the vote in opinion polls. This is, admittedly, 5 points lower than at the 2005 election, but the slight increase will have very limited parliamentary impact.

It appears clear that as a whole, the main parties will avoid punishment from the electorate, even if turnout is not predicted to be high. Individual MPs – those who have not already been forced to step aside – may well suffer. But, despite the scandals which seem recently to have become a regular occurrence, the angry public will not want to forgo their political voice in order to make short-term points.

Electoral system provides Gordon Brown with a small glimmer of hope

If Labour loses the General Election due to be held by the beginning of June, historians may well look back on the 6th October 2007 as the date that the government’s chances of remaining in power were effectively ended. David Cameron and George Osborne, in the week before, had given well-received speeches to the Conservative Party conference, amid much speculation that Gordon Brown would call a snap election. Labour had been leading in most opinion polls since the summer, but the Prime Minister’s eventual decision not to call an election was seized upon by opposition leaders as being symptomatic of a party unprepared to risk defeat.

Since Brown announced his decision, Labour has very much been on the back foot. Opinion poll after opinion poll has given the Conservatives a comfortable lead in terms of vote share. Just three national polls since Brown’s decision not to go to the country have shown Labour in the lead, the last time by just 1 point over two years ago. The Conservatives, by contrast, have generally had a fairly consistent double-figure lead, their peak coming in September 2008 when an Ipsos MORI poll put them 28 percentage points ahead of Labour.

Yet despite these grim figures for Labour, party shares appear to have evened out at about 40 percent for the Conservatives, 30 to Labour and 20 for the Liberal Democrats, and there has been increased speculation in recent months that the next election will produce a hung parliament, with no one party gaining an overall majority of MPs in the House of Commons. Some Labour optimists have even suggested that Brown may be able to cling on to his job, winning an unprecedented fourth successive term for Labour.

It is the British electoral system which provides Labour with much hope in this regard. The populations of Labour-held seats are generally much smaller than those with Tory MPs, meaning that Labour MPs need fewer votes on average to be elected to Westminster. At the 2005 General Election, the Isle of Wight, a relatively comfortable seat for David Cameron, had over 100,000 registered voters. By contrast, Rhondda, in south Wales – where Labour won two of every three votes cast – is home to less than half that number. Indeed, in 2005 in England, the Conservatives won more votes than Labour, despite which they received 90 fewer MPs.

The task for a Labour victory, therefore, is not quite as daunting as it would appear. The most recent opinion poll, undertaken by ComRes and published on 2nd February in the Independent, put the Conservatives at 38 percent, Labour on 31 percent and the Liberal Democrats at 19 percent, which, on a uniform national swing, would actually bring about a hung parliament. David Cameron would have the largest number of MPs though, with 302 out of a total of 650.

Even so, Labour would be likely to take such a result as an indication of support, conveniently ignoring the inbuilt bias of the electoral system, which would result, if it were Labour were leading 38 to 31, in a majority for Brown of over 100 seats. Nevertheless, if the polls are consistent in predicting such a relatively narrow Tory lead, a hung parliament is likely to be more than simply the subject of speculation.

However, it is dangerous to assume that there will be a uniform national swing. One important factor to consider is the extent of tactical voting. In Tony Blair’s landslide victory in 1997, Liberal Democrat and Labour supporters voted for the party most likely to defeat sitting Conservative MPs. Although the level of anti-Labour sentiment at the forthcoming election is not quite at the level of vitriol aimed at John Major’s party thirteen years ago, it is likely that many nominal supporters of the Tories or the Lib Dems will back the party more strongly placed to defeat Labour in their constituencies.

Much also depends on the scope of regional variation. Labour’s support in Scotland, for example, appears not to have declined to as great an extent as in the rest of the country. Meanwhile, in the south of England – excluding London –Labour faces annihilation. Indeed, it is likely that the outcomes in Labour to Conservative swing seats, especially in the Midlands, will decide whether the election of 2010 will be the first since 1974 to result a hung parliament.

If this were to be the result, Nick Clegg would have the role of kingmaker, with Brown and Cameron both attempting to woo him in order to support their respective parties in a coalition government. The Lib Dems are committed to a form of proportional representation, so for Clegg to be willing to enter a coalition with either party, he would probably demand an embrace of a commitment to electoral reform. If Labour had avoided outright defeat purely by virtue of an unfair electoral system, it would put Brown in quite a dilemma. However, before such eventualities can be considered, there is a long campaign ahead. In politics, after all, a week is a long time.