BRITAIN was once renowned for its mercifully brief election campaigns. Americans subjected to almost ceaseless electioneering envied the four-week official hustings from the dissolution of Parliament to polling day itself. But just as prime ministers have become more presidential, so general elections have come increasingly to resemble those across the Atlantic.
The actual vote in 2010 is likely to be in May and must be held by early June. Yet politicians have been campaigning since last autumn’s party conferences. Set-piece events, such as the pre-budget report on December 9th, have been more nakedly political than usual. Labour ministers grumble that civil servants are hoarding ideas and energy for the Tories, the new masters they may soon be serving. Political discourse—even at a time of war in Afghanistan and the most serious economic slump since the second world war—is dominated by the micro-politics of campaign tactics and opinion polls.
The latter point to the most open election since 1992 when John Major, the then prime minister, pulled off a surprise fourth consecutive victory for the Conservatives. Now the Tories enjoy a comfortable lead (see chart), but one that has shrunk in recent months. That is a worry for them because uneven constituency sizes and other vagaries of the electoral system discriminate against the party. It needs a swing of seven percentage points in its favour—the second biggest ever—to win an overall majority in Parliament of just one seat. True, this assumes a uniform swing across all constituencies, and the Tories are targeting their superior resources on the most marginal seats. But there remains a serious prospect of a hung parliament.
Such an inconclusive election outcome has not happened since 1974, when Britain faced not just an economic but also a political crisis caused by overmighty trade unions. Today the trouble afflicting the country is economic and fiscal: news on both fronts over the next few months may sway the election’s outcome (see article). The Tories want rapid spending cuts to deal with an alarming deficit of 12.6% of GDP in 2009-10. Gordon Brown says this betrays complacency about a prospective economic recovery that is, to the prime minister’s mind, too fragile to do without continued government largesse. He also hopes that the Conservatives’ zeal to wield the axe will undo their hard-won trustworthiness as guardians of the public services.
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But the government itself is split on just how much austerity is needed. The Treasury wanted a stingier pre-budget report than the one that emerged after aggressive lobbying from Mr Brown and other ministers. Cuts to university funding recently announced by Lord Mandelson suggest that the powerful business secretary is among the fiscal hawks in the cabinet. Ed Balls, the schools secretary, is the most prominent advocate of big spending.
Labour is also divided on the wisdom of making class-based attacks on the Tories, a line favoured by both the prime minister and Mr Balls. By contrast, the likes of Lord Mandelson and Tessa Jowell, the Cabinet Office minister, are wary of alienating the more prosperous south.
Yet the Conservatives may be vulnerable to such an offensive. The party says that raising the threshold of inheritance tax (a promise they made in fatter times for the national coffers) is now a low priority but will eventually happen. By contrast, reversing the government’s planned increase in national-insurance contributions is a high priority, but not a guarantee. This line may not survive the heat of an election campaign.
Neither of the two main parties commands much enthusiasm in the country. They can blame much of this on an anti-politics atmosphere, which pre-dates the MPs’ expenses scandal that broke last May but was intensified by it. Britain is in no mood to replicate the euphoria that greeted Labour’s sweeping victory in 1997. But there is still scope for the parties to improve their own pitch to voters. Labour may have a clear “spend to grow” message on the economy, but it has less to say about Britain after the recession. The Tories have plenty of promising futurology to do with decentralising power and reviving civil society. But they are shakier on the economic here-and-now, and run the risk of sounding too bleak.
Labour, insist many in the party, is a strong team fronted by a hopeless leader. In David Cameron, the Tories boast an admired leader in charge of a largely anonymous shadow cabinet. The problem for Labour is that Mr Cameron can shift the spotlight to some of his promising colleagues (there are a few). Rebranding Mr Brown, whose personal ratings remain dismal, seems a lost cause. A series of American-style televised debates, the first of their kind in Britain, will pit the two men against each other before the election (Nick Clegg, the Liberal Democrat leader, will also take part).
The home stretch
The prime minister does have the advantage of being able to choose the timing of the election, but his decision now seems less in doubt than in recent weeks. There had been speculation that Mr Brown would go to the polls in March, to spare himself the ignominy of another budget exposing the desperate state of the public finances. But that argument has been weakened since the pre-budget report, which went down less badly with voters than feared, maybe because of its crowd-pleasing tax raid on bank bonuses. And the weather argues against an early election; a dark and cold polling day is thought to work to Labour’s disadvantage by keeping more of its voters at home.
Whenever the election is held, the government can achieve little of substance before it. Parliament rose even earlier than usual for the Christmas holiday. A flurry of policy announcements that the Tories are planning for January will force day-by-day responses from ministers already distracted by the call of the campaign trail.
Merely surviving to fight the general election is an achievement of sorts for Mr Brown, whose leadership has been under threat for most of his time in power. Indeed, the sense that he has seen off defenestration may explain his untypically perky mood, which was visible even before his party’s recent mini-recovery in the polls. And if the unpopular leader of a 13-year-old government that has presided over a wretched recession ends up limiting his opponents to a narrow majority in Parliament, or even a minority government, that would warrant some cause for satisfaction on his part. :SugarwareZ-162::SugarwareZ-162:
The actual vote in 2010 is likely to be in May and must be held by early June. Yet politicians have been campaigning since last autumn’s party conferences. Set-piece events, such as the pre-budget report on December 9th, have been more nakedly political than usual. Labour ministers grumble that civil servants are hoarding ideas and energy for the Tories, the new masters they may soon be serving. Political discourse—even at a time of war in Afghanistan and the most serious economic slump since the second world war—is dominated by the micro-politics of campaign tactics and opinion polls.
The latter point to the most open election since 1992 when John Major, the then prime minister, pulled off a surprise fourth consecutive victory for the Conservatives. Now the Tories enjoy a comfortable lead (see chart), but one that has shrunk in recent months. That is a worry for them because uneven constituency sizes and other vagaries of the electoral system discriminate against the party. It needs a swing of seven percentage points in its favour—the second biggest ever—to win an overall majority in Parliament of just one seat. True, this assumes a uniform swing across all constituencies, and the Tories are targeting their superior resources on the most marginal seats. But there remains a serious prospect of a hung parliament.
Such an inconclusive election outcome has not happened since 1974, when Britain faced not just an economic but also a political crisis caused by overmighty trade unions. Today the trouble afflicting the country is economic and fiscal: news on both fronts over the next few months may sway the election’s outcome (see article). The Tories want rapid spending cuts to deal with an alarming deficit of 12.6% of GDP in 2009-10. Gordon Brown says this betrays complacency about a prospective economic recovery that is, to the prime minister’s mind, too fragile to do without continued government largesse. He also hopes that the Conservatives’ zeal to wield the axe will undo their hard-won trustworthiness as guardians of the public services.
Click here
But the government itself is split on just how much austerity is needed. The Treasury wanted a stingier pre-budget report than the one that emerged after aggressive lobbying from Mr Brown and other ministers. Cuts to university funding recently announced by Lord Mandelson suggest that the powerful business secretary is among the fiscal hawks in the cabinet. Ed Balls, the schools secretary, is the most prominent advocate of big spending.
Labour is also divided on the wisdom of making class-based attacks on the Tories, a line favoured by both the prime minister and Mr Balls. By contrast, the likes of Lord Mandelson and Tessa Jowell, the Cabinet Office minister, are wary of alienating the more prosperous south.
Yet the Conservatives may be vulnerable to such an offensive. The party says that raising the threshold of inheritance tax (a promise they made in fatter times for the national coffers) is now a low priority but will eventually happen. By contrast, reversing the government’s planned increase in national-insurance contributions is a high priority, but not a guarantee. This line may not survive the heat of an election campaign.
Neither of the two main parties commands much enthusiasm in the country. They can blame much of this on an anti-politics atmosphere, which pre-dates the MPs’ expenses scandal that broke last May but was intensified by it. Britain is in no mood to replicate the euphoria that greeted Labour’s sweeping victory in 1997. But there is still scope for the parties to improve their own pitch to voters. Labour may have a clear “spend to grow” message on the economy, but it has less to say about Britain after the recession. The Tories have plenty of promising futurology to do with decentralising power and reviving civil society. But they are shakier on the economic here-and-now, and run the risk of sounding too bleak.
Labour, insist many in the party, is a strong team fronted by a hopeless leader. In David Cameron, the Tories boast an admired leader in charge of a largely anonymous shadow cabinet. The problem for Labour is that Mr Cameron can shift the spotlight to some of his promising colleagues (there are a few). Rebranding Mr Brown, whose personal ratings remain dismal, seems a lost cause. A series of American-style televised debates, the first of their kind in Britain, will pit the two men against each other before the election (Nick Clegg, the Liberal Democrat leader, will also take part).
The home stretch
The prime minister does have the advantage of being able to choose the timing of the election, but his decision now seems less in doubt than in recent weeks. There had been speculation that Mr Brown would go to the polls in March, to spare himself the ignominy of another budget exposing the desperate state of the public finances. But that argument has been weakened since the pre-budget report, which went down less badly with voters than feared, maybe because of its crowd-pleasing tax raid on bank bonuses. And the weather argues against an early election; a dark and cold polling day is thought to work to Labour’s disadvantage by keeping more of its voters at home.
Whenever the election is held, the government can achieve little of substance before it. Parliament rose even earlier than usual for the Christmas holiday. A flurry of policy announcements that the Tories are planning for January will force day-by-day responses from ministers already distracted by the call of the campaign trail.
Merely surviving to fight the general election is an achievement of sorts for Mr Brown, whose leadership has been under threat for most of his time in power. Indeed, the sense that he has seen off defenestration may explain his untypically perky mood, which was visible even before his party’s recent mini-recovery in the polls. And if the unpopular leader of a 13-year-old government that has presided over a wretched recession ends up limiting his opponents to a narrow majority in Parliament, or even a minority government, that would warrant some cause for satisfaction on his part. :SugarwareZ-162::SugarwareZ-162: