For Labour, life after May seems almost impossible to imagine. It reminds me of an episode of the Goodies when they knew the world was coming to an end because after the last day, the pages of the Radio Times were blank. The election looms like an Alp in our minds, dominating our thoughts and blocking out the view beyond. For the Tories, the prospect is one of ministerial cars, red boxes and power after a generation in the wilderness. That’s why they are getting increasingly rattled and nasty when the polls suggest anything less than an outright win.
For Labour, the scenarios are so complex a game of three-dimensional chess looks easier to work out. There’s the scenario we all want, of course: an outright Labour majority and a fourth term. For every Labour MP who decides to leave the field (two more this week), an energetic candidate takes their place. I attended a fundraiser this week for John Woodcock, Labour’s candidate in Barrow, and Stephen Twigg, Labour’s candidate in Liverpool. It was packed with people ready for the fight. Do you know what it reminded me of? Labour in 1996. Confident, united and itching to get at the Tories in the election.
A Labour win will allow us the space to deliver the economic recovery, as well as the social reforms and improvements to the public services that are so desperately needed. It gives the markets some reassurance. It will also send the Tories into civil war and put Cameron onto the backbenches
If there’s a swing of 1.5 per cent away from Labour to the Tories across the country, Labour loses its majority. However, it takes a much bigger swing for the Tories to win an outright majority of just one. So between those two points lie all of the variegated possibilities: a minority Labour government, propped up vote by vote in the House of Commons by other smaller parties. It’s a desperately unattractive prospect: all power to the whips, horse trading in the wee small hours, backbenchers holding the government to ransom, ambulances with sick and dying MPs in New Palace Yard. You might as well tear up the party manifesto and the work of the NPF. Every policy would be the product of deals with the Liberal Democrats, or Ulster Unionists, or the nationalists. It will send the civil service psychotic, and repulse the public.
Then there’s the prospect of a coalition government. But coalition with whom? Labour historically has been propped up by the Liberals, but a lot has changed since the last bout of Lib-Labbery in the late 1970s. Clegg would rather be the social conscience of a new Conservative government than the prop holding up a Labour government which people feel has been rejected at the ballot box. His party won’t allow him to accept whatever baubles of office the Labour party could offer. There are plenty of Labour people too who would rather stick needles in their eyes than work with the Liberals. In my view a Lib-Lab pact is less likely than a Lib-Con pact.
The Queen has been advised what to do in the result of an unclear result. She must choose the party which commands the majority of votes in the Commons. In 1964, the ‘deadlock memorandum’ was drawn up on the night of the election by officials in the event of a constitutional crisis. By the morning, Labour had won a slender majority. This time, the Queen must appoint a prime minister who can not only command the House of Commons, and their own party, but also avoid any accusation of a fix or a fiddle.
Anything less than an outright win for Labour or the Tories will create confusion and a further slump in trust in politics. In the 1970s, similar crises led to a range of social results, from increased industrial militancy, to crazy plots to install a military government, to punk rock, to Thatcherism. The expenses scandal added to a constitutional crisis equals a heady brew.
I can’t help but feel the parliamentary vote on the Alternative Vote this week was the answer to a different question than the one currently posed by the breakdown in trust in politics. It’s a welcome step in the right direction, but it seems to be more about political positioning than a real drive for constitutional reform. One Conservative shadow minister told me this week that they are dismissing it out of hand: anything Labour promises to do after the next election will be null and void, because Labour won’t win the next election, he said. If Labour wins, you can be sure that there will be demands for more than AV in any referendum. Like the smoking ban, a policy which became more radical and far-reaching between manifesto and act, by the middle of next year people will want more than AV.
The great missed opportunity this week was for a bill to introduce voter recall. This system allows local voters to trigger a by-election in their seat, if enough of them want it and their MP has transgressed clearly laid-out rules. There are well planned out proposals for a workable system of voter recall in the British context lying on a shelf of the Department for Communities and Local Government, because they formed part of early drafts of the Communities in Control white paper. The proposal was vetoed by No 10 and the Domestic Affairs committee of cabinet. That was a shame, because voter recall passes power to local electorates and channels their anger against an MP who, let’s say for the sake of argument, had fiddled their expenses, into raising a petition and organising a by-election. It could only be used once per parliament, and there were safeguards to avoid vexatious misuse against sitting cabinet ministers or shadow ministers. Since then, positive noises have been made about dusting down the policy. But it’s all a bit too late to abate the frustration and anger of the public.
A final prediction: anything short of an outright Labour win (more likely) or a Tory win (less likely) would mean almost certainly a second general election within months. This happened in 1974, in February and October. So autumn 2010 might see a second general election with all of the politics and hard work that entails. You have to feel sorry for those candidates faced with the prospect of another six months of campaigning. But it reinforces the point that every ounce of Labour campaigning is worth it because the future of Britain is being decided by a few hundred thousand people in a handful of marginal seats across the UK. The people in those market towns, city suburbs, and coastal resorts have never had so much democratic power. I hope they exercise it wisely.