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A Conservative Win or a Labour Collapse?

November 27th, 2009 at 9:28 am by Henry Olsen | 3 Comments |

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A new poll from Britain shows the Tories maintaining their lead over Labour.  The poll is interesting both for the obvious message – the Tories will crush Labour and Cameron will be the PM – and for the between the lines findings.  Note that 18% of those polled would vote for “other” parties (i.e. not Labour, the Conservatives or Liberal Democrats).  That includes 6% for UKIP, 5% for the BNP, and 3% for the Greens.  All of those totals are double to triple what those parties got in 2005.  The second interesting thing is the poll contains no results for the four Northern Irish parties.  That won’t matter for Parliament, but it does affect the popular vote.  In 2005, 2.5% of the total U.K. vote went to the four Northern Irish parties.  Adding those totals into this poll means that 21% of the total U.K. vote will go for parties other than the big three, the highest total by far in modern English history.  That means Cameron is not really on 39, he’s more like 37, only a 4.5 percent gain on Michael Howard.  He’ll win his crushing Parliamentary majority because Labour has collapsed and the Lib Dems can’t appeal to working class Britain, which is going largely to protest parties.

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3 responses so far

  • 1 aDude // Nov 27, 2009 at 8:54 pm

    In any real democracy, there is usually a change of parties every decade or so. The incumbent party gets tired and runs out of ideas. Then, as long as there is a decent opposition, there will be a change of government.

    However, note the importance of having a decent opposition. In 1992, the British Conservatives, who had been in power for over 12 years and looked tired, nevertheless defeated Labour under Neil Kinnock because Labour just didn’t appear to have a program the voters could approve. It wasn’t until Tony Blair in 1997 that Labour could finally regain control of 10 Downing St.

    Next year, the conservatives will win because Labour looks tired after 12 years, and because Cameron preaches a conservatism that can win. (I know I’ve heard that phrase before).

    Yes, I would say it has more to do with Labour collapse than a Conservative resurgence. But if Conservatives were as badly organized as Labour had been in 1992, and had an incoherent program, then Gordon Brown would be spending another five years as PM. So Cameron does deserve credit for having the right program at the right time.

  • 2 DFL // Nov 30, 2009 at 9:32 am

    Cameron’s turnabout on a referendum on the European Union almost certainly will allow the UKIP and the BNP to peel away rightist voters but neither of those two parties will win any seats. The big question is whether strong showings by the UKIP and the BNP in marginal constituencies will cost the Tories some seats and possibly a majority of the parliament in 2010. Mr. Olsen’s analysis is solid; Cameron’s Conservatives may not break 40 % and might win as little as 35 % with 37 % a very good guess. Will that get the Tories 320+ seats? If not, who does the Tories form a government with? The Liberal-Democrats would do so only if the Tories agree to a proportional parliament system rather than the current first-past-the-post. Could a Tory-Ulster Protestant coalition be durable? Will the Scottish National Party be interested? Or Plaid Cymru?

  • 3 Carney // Nov 30, 2009 at 10:09 pm

    If the Conservative Party simply committed itself to an absolute halt to illegal immigration, aggressive efforts to deport illegals, a halt to all immigration from those who are not descendants of ethnic natives of the British Isles, generous incentives to induce other immigrants to permanently depart and renounce their UK citizenship if they were given it, and a renegotiation with the EU preserving free trade but ending free movement, they would sweep the polls. It’s madness that keeping Britain a nation-state of the British people, rather than a mere geographical area and dumping ground of them world, has been the stance solely of the BNP.

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