General Election: Walls come tumbling down

I've been trying to find something humourous to say about the general election, on the lines of my blog about the 2019 version (see here) which, on re-reading was fairly funny, if I say so myself. But I'm not finding this one at all funny or even very entertaining, to be honest. While being beyond parody, this feels like the most predictable general election of my lifetime.

As I've said previously, this election feels very like 1997, with the electorate having decided a long time ago that the government had outstayed its welcome. Nothing shifted the dial then and nothing has much now.

The parties would have you think that the high proportion of those saying they are undecided means the electorate is 'volatile'. It's not. Some of them lie (the famous shy Tories of 1992) but many of them don't know because they don't care, can't be arsed or are effectively abstaining (eg previous Tory voters who've had enough but won't vote for anyone else). Most of the undecideds won't vote and the high number of them means there will be a low turnout.

The main interest is just how far the Tories will plunge, as per my question of a few months ago (Will the Tories implosion end in a black hole? 28 March) where I pondered a defeat heavier than 1997 and maybe even towards that of the near wipeout of the Progressive Conservatives (an oxymoron if ever I heard one) in Canada in 1993. (They collapsed from governing with 169 seats down to 2).

Things haven't got any better for the Tories since I wrote that, with the curious decision to go for an early election and Nigel Farage's direct participation in the campaign. They have run a totally hapless campaign, starting with Sunak's farcical announcement outside number ten in a downpour. 

It was clear within a day or so that it wasn't going to get better when the PM asked voters in a pub in Wales if they were looking forward to the Euros, eliciting the response "we're not in it". "But won't it be good for business?" "Not really".

Sunak's lack of feel for how people think then produced the early retreat from the D Day 80th Anniversary event. 

One couldn't make up anything quite as tragi-comic.

The veteran pollster Peter Kellner has written columns in the last two editions of the Sunday Times giving his predictions in terms of vote share and number of seats for each significant party and why and how he might have got it wrong. The joker is how large the Reform vote will be (as that piles up votes with few seats) but any which way Labour will win big.

Another element is tactical voting, not usually a factor in general elections, though it cost the Tories 30 seats in 1997. But the urge to get rid of the Tories may be stronger this time, especially where there is the opportunity to  unseat big names. On a night when the overall result is not in doubt the most interesting aspect is likely to be the number of 'Portillo moments'. Defeat for Jacob Rees Mogg  would probably bring widespread happiness (and no tears from me), but casualties could easily include Grant Shapps, Penny Mordaunt and Jeremy Hunt. 

The latter two would be a loss to the Tories and Parliament given the dearth of almost anyone resembling the big political beasts of the past.  Hunt in particular strikes me as a decent politician. He restored a semblance of order to health after the ill thought out Lansley reforms and clearly wanted to resolve the tainted blood scandal while health secretary but was told by the Treasury (i.e. Sunak presumably) compensation would have to come from existing budgets, prejudicing more patients. As chancellor he put this right, I guess using his unsackable status after the Kwarteng debacle to convince the PM. Whatever one thinks of Tories he's a decent chap who also restored order and calm to the Treasury albeit while still coming across as rather timid.

Nevertheless the Tories have forfeited the right to govern by making us share their lengthy and preposterous  psychodrama and are neither 'up to it or up for it' as last Sunday's Times editorial put it. 

So could there be a near wipeout and would it matter if there was?

I think it does, though not because of fears of a 'super majority', an American concept that doesn't apply here because a government with a 150 seat majority doesn't have any more power than one with 50. It potentially limits the effectiveness of the opposition, especially if the Tory wipeout reached the scale some were suggesting a couple of weeks ago which, if Labour does well in Scotland, could see Sir Ed Davey installed as leader of the opposition.

I've always thought Davey to also be a decent chap but his wriggling response to questions about his time in government as minister for postal affairs and his pusillanimous responses to questions about 'breaking promises' regarding tuition fees have tarnished him for me. That's even without him being, as Robert Colville put it, 'a Mr Tumble look alike who has spent the election campaign pratfalling around the nation's amusement parks'.

Colville argued that, with no clear manifesto, once in government Labour's instincts will push it to the left to keep its backbenchers and supporters happy just as the Tories instincts pushed them to the right when things weren't going well. He said Starmer's government needs to be held to account from the right rather than the left for spending too much of our money, intruding too much into our lives and failing to reform public services. I'd add that Labour may be vulnerable to pressure from a gamut of single interest groups and may get distracted from the main issues, even with Rachel Reeves reminding them 'it's the economy, stupid'. 

The other point is that, if the Tories crumble to a very low baseline, it becomes difficult if not impossible to launch a serious bid for government next time round, giving Labour a free ride. Starmer has done remarkably well to turn Labour round from a heavily defeated left wing rabble to a serious option for government in one parliament: it took Kinnock and Blair three general elections. I can't see the Tories managing that, especially if they turn to  Badenoch or Braverman.

There are differences from 1997 though. David Smith noted that inflation has fallen back to target levels, consumer confidence is improving and interest rates will soon start to fall (they maybe should have done already but the Bank didn't seem want to appear to be intervening in the election). So better times lie ahead for the economy but not, as he put it, in time to save this government. And this is far from 1997 when Ken Clarke handed the gift of a strong economy to Gordon Brown, one of the best situations an incoming chancellor has ever had.

That wasn't enough to save the Tories then and so just bottoming out was never going to save them this time.

The other difference is that Blair had a vision and Brown was ready to roll with good ideas such as Bank of England independence which he implemented only 5 days after the election. Other than promises of sound finances we don't really know what Labour intends to do.

A party that is likely to appoint a foreign secretary who says he is for nuclear weapons having said the very opposite less than 5 years ago may prove to be as erratic as the Tories.

The challenge will come for them if economic growth remains sluggish. The Tories implied cuts baked in to their forecasts will then collide with expectations of better services and benefits without further tax rises.

PS I posited the other day that the Tories real fall from popularity came long after they had stuck with Johnson over the partygate stuff only to ditch him over the rather daft Pincher affair. Would they be polling so low if he was still Tory leader, I wondered? Mrs H thought they probably would but I'm convinced they wouldn't be anything like as low as 20%. I'm not saying that I agree or support that, just that their base would have stayed much more loyal. Instead Labour could win a record majority with a vote share less than 40%. The Tories got 42% in 2017 but no clear majority, though Labour had a working majority in 2005 with 35% so not as freakish as it perhaps would seem. But Con + Reform are currently polling at 37% compared with Labour 39% according to BBC' poll of polls, which makes one wonder. Perhaps Tory supporters lost faith when the party lost belief in itself

PPS Paul Weller's Walls Come Tumbling Down came to mind because of the brief lived phenomenon of the 'blue wall'. But there's also The Clash lyric 'kick over the wall, cause governments to fall'