Wednesday, 6 May 2015

Election 2015: An election with no winners

Tomorrow the General election will take place, an election which by Friday evening will leave more questions than answers.

We already know that no party will get anywhere near achieving a majority in Parliament, and we can expect days if not weeks of further discussions and negotiations on who will form the next government.

When I think about this campaign and look back on British politics over the last few years, I've come to the conclusion that both the Conservatives and Labour have a number of serious long term issues to address regardless of tomorrow's result.

I've said earlier that looking at a number of factors objectively, such as the economy, levels of unemployment, job creation and David Cameron's personal popularity, the Conservatives should win quite comfortably. The thing is they're not. The Tory brand is still tarnished, many people refuse to consider voting Tory.

They lack a presence in many of Britain's major cities in the North and Midlands and are non existent in Wales and Scotland. Across London and other cities BME (Black, minority and ethnic) voters have a bigger influence but the Tories just don't seem capable of tapping into this vote.

Labour are little better, no presence in the South outside of London, looking at electoral meltdown in Scotland, a leader who has exceeded expectations but whose level of popularity remains low. A party that isn't trusted on the economy and despite moving to the left and leaving behind its 'New Labour' past is still struggling to get support above 35% of the electorate.

It doesn't matter who 'wins' and when I say win we're probably looking at one party getting somewhere between 280-300 seats. No party has nationwide support or confidence of the country.

For all the promises made in the party manifestos, no party is going to be in a position to push through all their policies as they won't have the numbers in parliament.

Tomorrow's election is all about who can lose best which is a pretty depressing scenario to consider but that's where we're at. We don't have a party, a leader or a political system anymore that can deliver a solid mandate and appeal to a large enough section of the electorate. As a result we're going to have a messy result tomorrow followed by even more messy political dealings to form the next government.

Hope you're looking forward to it.


No comments:

Post a Comment