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by Helen
Sometime between now and May Gordon Brown will announce the next General election. Most people assume that the date will be May 6th but, depending on which polls you choose to believe, the date could even be brought forward to March 25th. The advantage of the earlier date is that it avoids what will probably be an embarrassing set of budget announcements.
Confusingly, the polls are going in different directions. Two released this weekend show the problem;- One in the Times shows the tory lead over Labour reducing to 9%
Today's YouGov poll for the Sunday Times puts Labour on 31%, just nine points behind the Tories, who are on 40%. The Liberal Democrats have fallen two points to 16%. Only last weekend the Conservatives were still enjoying a comfortable 13-point lead. while another, in the Independent shows the lead increasing to 17%.
David Cameron's party is up two points on last month, on 41 per cent, while Labour has slipped one point to 24 per cent. The Liberal Democrats are up four points on 21.
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I don't think this is incoherent so much as showing how different parts of the electorate are trending in different directions. I suspect the working classes are trending right in response to the tabloid campaign against Brown while the middle classes are recoiling from the tories as more of their plans are revealed.
Quite how this plays out I don't know cos it's a long time till polling day and nothing is really settled. It really depends on what plans each party have for changing the game in the next 3 - 4 months. I don't think I'm alone in thinking that I want them both to lose. Labour talked left but acted like a rightwing party. Long before Bush was elected Blair was dumping cast iron electoral promises overboard with happy abandon and Brown has been no better. I have learned to hate NuLab with a passion and cannot easily vote for them while that faction still dominates. I voted Labour in 1997 and got a conservative government who cacked the country up. I have finally tired of voting for them in the hope of anything better. It will be hard to vote again and endorse this catastrophic neoconservative government. Yet much more than NuLab, I despise the conservatives. Part of my anger with NuLab is that they've taken away the obvious protest vote against the tories. Cameron and Osborne will ruin the country by greenspanning us to death. Their plan of attack on the deficit will be a bonfire of services to the poor and even medium well off. Wealth capture will be accelerated and the country will be tipped upside down to ferret out the very last bit of worth for the already rich to plunder. But who will win ? I'd love to be able to say I don't care; but I do. It matters. Labour make me feel bad about my country, but the Tories would have me fear for our future. However, if pushed I'm reckoning on a hung parliament. I think Labour will lose loads of seats but not enough for Cameron the Terrible to form a government that cannot be voted down. The uncertainty is over the future of other parties. In England the Lib Dems seem to be accumulating support but I suspect that this will not help them retain seats and expect them to lose many to Labour. This depends on the Vince Cable factor. If he is front and centre in the campaign then he may seem like a reliable and trusted face in time of uncertainty, but if Nick "Mr Who?" Clegg, a man far too facially similar to Cameron for his own good, dominates the Lib Dem vote will collapse. But watch Scotland. The political landscape for the next two or three decades will be decided there. If the tories win this election outright, Scotland will push for greater independence and that will mean that, under the first past the post electoral system, conservatives will rule England forever. If it's a hung parliament, Scotland will probably stay in the UK and nothing will be settled. How am I voting ? I live in a pink pussycat tory constituency, ie the tories could put up a stuffed toy and still win, so my vote is meaningless. Under first past the post one does not have the luxury of voting for what you want, that leads to wasted votes when winner takes all. You have to vote to prevent what you hate from winning. While I hate NuLab, I fear the tories more and will vote accordingly. |
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UK election : Straws in the wind | 15 comments (15 topical, 0 editorial, 0 hidden)
UK election : Straws in the wind | 15 comments (15 topical, 0 editorial, 0 hidden)
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