Today’s polls show that Labour is fighting it out with the Lib Dems and UKIP for second place at the Euro elections – all three parties are tied on 19%.
I am a strong believer that elections are about momentum and it is clear that one party has momentum: UKIP. From being an irrelevant, fringe party two weeks ago, they are now commanding one in five votes if the polls are to be believed. I now suspect that UKIP will be fighting it out with the Tories for the top spot at the Euro-elections.
Add turnout rates into the equation and it is difficult to see Labour getting the 19% the polls predict. Who the hell will be voting Labour at the current time, particularly for a set of completely irrelevant elections which the Euro ones are? Daniel Hannan has published an interesting blog today saying that after nine days of canvassing, he has not found one Labour voter. He is predicting that Labour will come fifth in the South East elections (behind the Greens) and fourth nationally.
That is where I am at the moment, but I think it is also feasible that Labour’s vote could now collapse to the low teens. Could it fall it to single digits in percentage terms? That would be quite something – a governing party securing just 9% of the national vote, but it is not beyond the realms of possibility anymore. Am I right? I would love to hear from my northern readers – is this just a southern perspective or are Labour in as big a hole as I’m painting?
Charlotte Gore, a good northern liberal, has a fantastic blog this evening about Labour’s problems. If they are at these depths of despair , Labour won’t be battling it out with UKIP and the Lib Dems for second place, but will be fighting it out with the Greens and BNP for fourth.
If you think I’m mad, just take a read of the blog I wrote twelve days ago when I was predicting a Labour vote as low as 15%. It may be too early to start saying I told you so, but it goes to prove how important momentum is at elections.
Nick Clegg Looks Both Ways on Afghanistan
47 minutes ago
Posts
1 comments:
UKIP - a party whose MEPs have proved even more corrupt, stupid and useless than the rest.
And what about the Greens? I've just received the Green Party's London leaflet today (first piece of Euro-election literature), and it's rubbish! It's rubbish because it isn't about Green politics. It's about trendy posturing as a social liberal party with just a mild nod to environmental concerns. What a Green Party EU leaflet should be about is scaring people witless over the coming environmental crises and noting that only concerted international action will avoid it.
If either of these parties received a rise in votes, it won't be because they have deserved it. But it will show the stupidity of the "general election now" clamour. There is currently no serious solution on offer to the crisis in democratic politics. There is more reason now than there was before for POSTPONING a general election until the last possible legal date in the hope that some decent serious solution can by then be put together.
We Liberal Democrats are best placed to offer such a solution, but we must work hard at it. We must stop the urge to sell ourselves as "smart ambitious politicians who are itching for power just like the other two parties" - which in effect is what a lot of our more naive bloggers have been urging us to do - and start thinking about how we can promote ourselves as something fundamentally different.
It seems to me that a year to develop a radical plan to change British politics into something which is focussed on the people and not on politicians scrabbling in Westminster is needed. That is what we should be saying - we will start by proposing now what we have, and we will invite others to join us so that in a year's time when the general election has to be held we will have what is wanted.
Post a Comment