The general election was held on 6th May 2010, producing a mixed result; a so-called ‘hung Parliament’. The Tories gained 36.1% of the popular vote, Labour 29% and the Lib Democrats 23%. The remaining 11.9% comprised various nationalist parties, two flavours of Ulster Unionism, and a single set each of the Alliance Party and the Greens.
The Tories ended up with 307 seats, Labour with 258, Lib Democrats with 57 and others with 28, and, after a few days seemingly frenetic negotiation a Tory – Liberal Democrat coalition government was formed.
Several issues arise from this. The first one is that the Liberal Democrats have something of a case (at least superficially) for some form of proportional representation (PR). It shows the present system as favouring the larger parties. Labour ended up with 8.9 seats for every percentage point in the popular vote, the Tories with 8.5, the Liberal Democrats with 2.48, and others with 2.35. This would appear at first glance to suggest that smaller parties have an almost impossible task to breakthrough under the current system, and that it will forever remain either the Tories or Labour in pole position.
A closer examination of this argument shows it to be completely erroneous. One only needs to take an historical view. Under the same system, by the end of World War I the two dominant parties were the Conservative Party and the Liberal Party, yet by 1924 there was a Labour administration, and the 1945 Labour landslide ushered in the third Labour government. Labour had effectively moved from being a small ‘third’ party to replace the Liberals as the chief competitor to the Tories.
One then needs to look at how people voted in 2010 and why. There has grown up since the dark days of Thatcherism a loose, poorly articulated political ‘wisdom’ that UK politics comprises Tories and anti-Tories and that anti-Tory voters will vote tactically for the party most likely to defeat the Tory candidate in any particular constituency, that party being Labour, Liberal Democrat or Nationalist.
The opinion polls leading up to the election suggested that for the majority of voters tactical voting was a no-no, but a significant minority of voters in marginals expressed the view that they would vote for the most likely candidate to defeat the Tories. In part it appears that tactical voting did take place in that, despite the additional resources the Tories put into key marginals, the best-placed anti-Tory candidate took the seat and they failed to gain an overall majority. This leads to a deeper question; Is Labour’s traditional poor showing in the South-East (with the exception of London) and the South-West the result of deep-seated, long-term tactical voting for the Liberal Democrats, and the almost total absence of apparent Liberal Democrat support outside those areas something of similar vein.? The answer is yes and no. Looking at the composition of local authorities, there is no strong evidence of an undercurrent of significant Liberal Democrat support in the North and the Midlands , whereas there is much evidence to support dormant Labour support in the South-East and the South West
The position of Labour and the Liberal Democrats is very different. When Labour moved from a small third party to a potential party of government through the 1920s and 1930s it had the distinct advantage of being relatively new, having ‘organically’ grown from the bottom up and had rapidly developed a ‘natural’ constituency as the political voice of the Trades Unions and thus, by proxy, the working-class. The current liberal Democrats, in contrast, are the inheritors of both an aging party in decline (the Liberals) and a ‘top-down’ social democratic party with no underlying infrastructure. Thus they not only have no ‘natural’ constituency, but are also riven with internal conflict over their own basic ethos.
If, as suggested above, there is some form of deep-seated tactical voting based on geography, allied to the differences in ‘natural’ constituency, it would suggest that any move towards PR rather than benefit the Liberal Democrats would actually weaken them, as Labour voters in the South-East and the South West would be able to vote Labour with some expectation of significance in their vote. One would also suggest that given their performance as junior partners in the coalition thus far, the Liberal Democrats would expect their support to disintegrate under whatever electoral process was in operation. Enough of the vexed question of PR; it is a red herring, and the Tories will not let it happen anyway.
A second issue that arose was that the election itself was badly run. Whatever the niceties of electoral law (and it isn’t as clear as it should be) large numbers of people were unable to cast their votes. Our current electoral system is best described as being held together by string and sealing wax. Elections should not be the responsibility of local authorities in their areas, but should be run by a dedicated body. Ironically we already have that body, the Electoral Commission, but it has no powers. The voting process should also be more secure. Surely in the 21st Century it is not enough to identify an individual as eligible to vote just on their own authority. A country as large and complex as India
However, the most telling issue of this election is the confidence trick played on the public by the deceit and dishonesty of the Liberal Democrat Party. They campaigned on a ‘progressive’ manifesto (whatever that means) and whether we look in terms of seats or in terms of the popular vote, they came third, and yet took their places in a Conservative government. Our current system allows for minority governments, the country voted for a minority Tory government, and that is exactly what we should have had. Not only have the Liberal Democrats negotiated a deal with the Tories, ditching the one important and significant policy they went into the election with (viz. no cuts for a year until the economy begins to recover) but they are actively working with them to stitch up the current Parliament to ensure that they cannot be unseated for five years (the 55% rule).
Economists have noted that the second phase of the recession has already started with job losses in the private sector (the dreaded double-dip) making plain that their original policy that they shared with Labour was the right one. The Tories knew that a second phase of recession would follow and it suits them. They have taken power with one thing and one thing only in mind; to dismantle the public sector and the deficit and the debt are the ready made excuses they use. The liberal Democrats are supporting them in this, indeed some senior Liberal Democrats would wish to go much further and completely privatise the Welfare State. Without wishing to be cynical, I would suggest that the deal with the Tories was done a long time prior to the election. One notes, for example the significant changes in their press conferences and electoral strategy after the second leaders’ debate.
To summarise, the electoral process in this country needs to be brought up to date, and whether that includes PR or not is an irrelevance, and a deliberate Liberal Democrat red herring to keep their own supporters on board, the Liberal Democrats have subverted the current process by deceitfully lying to the public prior to the election, and the Tories and Liberal Democrats are in the process of undermining the due process of Parliament to remain in office.
All in all a very sorry tale indeed!
