2015 general election could be the most unpredictable
vote in living memory
Rise of Green
party and Ukip and the Facebook generation’s growing influence have killed the
old order and all bets are off
Toby Helm, political editor
The Observer, Saturday 27 December 2014 / http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2014/dec/27/2015-general-election-unpredictable-green-party-ukip?CMP=fb_gu%E2%80%8F
Political pundits are hedging their bets as
never before. Their crystal balls reveal only a thick fog of uncertainty. They
can agree on one thing – that it is impossible to say who will be prime
minister after the election in five months’ time. “The 2015 election is the
most unpredictable in living memory,” says Robert Ford, co-author of a book about
the rise of Ukip, Revolt on the Right. “Past elections have been close but none
has featured as many new and uncertain factors with the capacity to exert a
decisive impact on the outcome.”
Since the economic crash of 2008, faith in
political leaders and those who run our institutions has collapsed across the
globe. In Britain
Labour and the Conservatives together now
account for little over 60% of support among the voting public. The decline of
two-party dominance has been gradual but continues apace, as insurgent forces
enter the field and confuse the picture.
 |
David Cameron and the Tories believe they
have two strong suits: the economic recovery and the electorate’s inability to
visualise Ed Miliband as PM. But these may not prove decisive. Photograph: Getty
 |
Nigel Farage’s personal rating has slipped
in recent weeks but even if Ukip wins only a handful of seats in May its bigger
effect will be to make results in scores of marginal seats all but impossible
to call. Photograph: Ray Tang/Rex
2014 saw profound shifts in British
politics that few predicted and that have left most politicians nervous about
their futures. First came the rise of the anti-EU party Ukip under its populist
leader Nigel Farage. Having secured only 3% of the vote in the general election
of 2010, Ukip – which advocates the UK Westminster
Farage’s personal popularity has fallen off
in recent weeks but Ukip’s support ends the year at around 15%. Even if it wins
only a handful more seats in May, its bigger effect will be to make results in
scores of marginal seats all but impossible to call. Conventional wisdom used
to have it that Ukip would damage the Tories most. That may still be the case
but recent byelections have shown it can hurt Labour and the Liberal Democrats
too.
Ford says its effect is impossible to judge
but it could be profound. “In one seat, Farage’s party may take votes from the
Conservatives and help their local opposition. In the seat next door it may be
Labour that falls victim to the local Ukip insurgency. How large, and how
decisive, this indirect Ukip effect proves to be, is one of the great unknowns
of next year’s election.”
 |
Ed Miliband and Labour will focus on the
cost of living and the health service but as yet there is little evidence of
the kind of visionary thinking that could inspire a sceptical electorate to
install him in
|
For Labour, a second and potentially
greater danger has arisen north of the border, where the SNP used its campaign
in the independence referendum to bolster support in former Labour heartlands,
among working-class voters who felt left behind and ignored by Ed Miliband’s
Westminster-led operation.
If recent polls are correct, the SNP could
win at least 20 seats from Miliband’s party at the general election,
establishing itself as the largest Westminster party north of the border, and
doing enormous damage to Labour’s hopes of a majority.
Mark Ferguson, editor of the website
LabourList, says the party’s chances seemed good in early 2014 but are
uncertain now. “For much of this parliament a Labour majority seemed achievable
but now there are too many variables to predict that with any confidence. Ed
Miliband’s fate – and the country’s – is now largely in the hands of Labour prospective
parliamentary candidates in target seats and Scottish Labour’s new leader Jim
Murphy.”
A third insurgent force whose rise
complicates the picture is the Green party, now up to 6% or more in many polls.
Attracting support from young, socially liberal, middle-class professionals, it
is a danger not only to Nick Clegg’s party but could also attract support from
some former Labour voters who chose the Lib Dems in 2010 and whom Labour hopes
to woo back in May. “As with Ukip, their greatest impact on the election result
could come from their ability to tip the local balance of power in dozens of
seats where they have little chance of winning outright,” says Ford.
 |
Nick Clegg and the Liberal Democrats have
suffered a dramatic slump in support as a result of their role in the coalition
and are now barely ahead of the Greens with an average rating of about 8% in
the polls. Photograph: Carl Court/Getty Images
The Lib Dems – who wanted to show they
could be a party of government but have suffered a dramatic slump in support as
a result – are in deep trouble. They are now barely ahead of the Greens and
average about 8% in the polls. Even their ability to defend their “fortress seats”
is in doubt as Clegg faces a strong challenge from Labour in Sheffield Hallam
and Danny Alexander tries to head off the SNP in Inverness ,
Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey.
If the insurgent parties suggest a new era
of multi-party politics has arrived, the new media – most familiar to three
million or so young people who will be eligible to vote for the first time in
May 2015 – offer new campaigning tools and new opportunities for political
engagement.
Whichever party connects best with the
Facebook generation will reap dividends – but no one can judge which that will
be. Both Labour and the Tories have employed key figures from Barack Obama’s
successful 2012 presidential campaign, in which new media played a key part:
Labour has signed up David Axelrod and the Tories Jim Messina.
Neal Lawson, chair of the centre-left
thinktank Compass, says the parties’ challenge is to identify with a generation
that interacts and thinks differently about what politics is and what
politicians should do. “Old 20th-century mechanical politics looks hopelessly
out of date in a 21st-century world of social media where people increasingly
do things together,” he says. “Think Kodak pictures from the chemist, versus
Instagram. The politicians were brought up thinking it’s all about them when
everyone else has moved on and are making their world. People look for answers
to the problems that define the political crisis, namely growing inequality and
climate change, beyond the mainstream parties that will never rule as they once
did.”
As for the campaign messages that will
dominate, no party has a clear trump card. David Cameron and the Tories believe
they have two strong suits: the economic recovery, which they say Labour would
endanger, and the electorate’s inability to visualise Miliband as prime
minister. Yet these may prove less decisive than they hope.
The economy may be on the mend but the
coalition has missed its targets on deficit reduction, despite four years of
austerity, and last week the Office for National Statistics said growth had
been weaker in 2013 and 2014 than previously thought. And few people say they
are feeling much better off, or view the future with great optimism, as further
cuts loom. Even Cameron has admitted that red lights are flashing on the global
economic dashboard.
Gavin Kelly, director of the independent
thinktank the Resolution Foundation, says the election is hard to call partly
because the underlying economic arguments that will be central to the campaign
are so mixed. “Wages and family incomes will be far below where they were at
the last election – a worse outcome then anyone imagined. Yet employment fell
by less and has bounced back much more strongly than expected, while disposable
incomes look like they will start to rise steadily in 2015,” says Kelly.
“The deficit remains stubbornly large, and
the government pledges on it have been broken, yet the political fallout from
austerity to date has been much less severe than predicted.
“The economic argument that will rage over
the next few months is still wide open as the public appears unlikely to
swallow whole any of the main arguments on offer: it’s unconvinced by the case
for further deep spending cuts, sceptical of claims about how policy measures
will boost living standards and unsure of what the recovery will mean for
them.”
Labour, meanwhile, will focus on what it
calls the cost-of-living crisis and argue that the Tories would take public
services back to the 1930s in an ideologically driven blitz of further cuts.
Miliband and his team will also accuse the coalition of leaving the health
service disastrously ill-equipped to meet the challenges presented by an ageing
population, having indulged in unnecessary, costly and unpopular reforms. But
as yet there is little evidence of the kind of visionary thinking that could
inspire a sceptical electorate.
Cameron and the chancellor, George Osborne,
remain more trusted on the economy than Miliband and Ed Balls, although Labour
has enjoyed a mini-surge in the polls since Osborne’s autumn statement this
month.
Cameron may be the better public performer
and appear more prime ministerial than Miliband but he is still nervous about
agreeing to television debates, perhaps because he fears he might lose that
potentially decisive advantage as election day nears.
The most likely outcome of election 2015 is
another hung parliament and another coalition, with neither the Tories nor
Labour winning an overall majority. But with a little over four months to go –
and so many influences at work – you won’t find many pundits who are willing to
go further than that. Get ready for the most unpredictable election of recent
times.
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