Blair Sets UK Election for May 5

The worst kept secret in Britain of late was the date for the next general election. By law, the next election had to be held no later than 2006, and traditionally, the PM calls an election about 4 years into the 5-year life of a parliament. Since England and Northern Ireland were scheduled to hold local elections on that day, the two-birds-with-one-stone approach made May 5 the ideal time, that and the fact the Chancellor of the Exchequer Gordon Brown presented his budget in March that was full of "enticements" to voters to mark their ballot for Labour. While there is every reason to believe in a re-election for Mr. Blair and his New Labour crew, there are some interesting issues arising.

First, this is the first general election since Scotland's assembly got going. As a result, there has been a rebalancing of power. The Scots had been over-represented for decades on a per capita basis, and this has ended. In the next parliament, there will be 59 members representing Scottish seats, down from 72 in this parliament. Because Scotland is a Labour stronghold, this will reduce Mr. Blair's majority. Of the 13 vanishing seats in Scotland, 10 are held by Labour, and one each by the Tories, Liberals and Scottish Nationalists.

Second, the current state of the Conservative Party remains interesting, in the Chinese sense of the word (a curse translates as "May you live in interesting times.") Despite a rather bland leader in Michael Howard, the Tories have boosted themselves in the polls lately, trailing Labour 36% to 34%. Under proportional representation, this would be striking distance. Under Westminster's first-past-the-post system (the winner is the one with the most votes, not necessarily a majority), the Tories would have to lead by around 9.5% according to a very useful web page. According to The Times, 36% gets Labour a 70 seat majority with 358 seats, the Tories remain the official opposition with 34% of the votes giving them 195 seats, and the Liberal Democrats' 22% share of the vote short-changes them with 62 seats. The big issue of Tony Blair's credibility is not a big advantage for the Conservatives because they backed the war against Iraq as well.

Third, the Liberal Democrats appear to be strengthening at the expense of Labour. Because there are 17 working days between the announcement and the election, the polls are largely rubbish at the moment. But where there is a swing in these early stages, it appears that the Liberal Democrats are taking 3 Labour votes for every Tory vote they get. And if it comes to strategic voting in Conservative ranks to vote Liberal Democrat to deny Labour a seat, one expects it will happen. The Liberals' big advantage is that they opposed Mr. Blair's participation in the war on Iraq. Most of the British people did as well. Translating that into votes it the trick, and it is doubtful at this stage that Charles Kennedy, the Liberal Democrats' leaders, has quite mastered it.

The last factor is the certain knowledge among the voters that this is it for Mr. Blair. He has promised to retire from the job of running the country about halfway through this next parliament. Gordon Brown is the heir apparent, and this knowledge lifts some of the resentment from voting Labour for many. It is a case of voting for the party not the man because the man has said he's done. In the end, Mr. Blair's re-election will be determined not by his successes in office (although they have been substantial) nor by his howling failure in Iraq (where he has essentially been caught lying to the nation), but rather by the disarray within the Conservative Party.


© Copyright 2005 by The Kensington Review, J. Myhre, Editor. No part of this publication may be reproduced without written consent.
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