The Clegg phenomenon and the 2010 UK Election

[Túrin Turambar]

The U.K. Election, up until a few weeks ago, didn’t seem to promise much excitement. That the Conservatives would win seemed beyond doubt, the only question being by how much.

But two things have happened to not only throw the race wide open but to make this election one of the most significant in decades.

First, the huge lead the Conservatives had enjoyed since early 2008 has shrunk. Not by all that much (they still seem to be averaging 5% over Labour), but enough to make it doubtful that they will win a majority in their own right. In the long months of David Cameron’s ascendancy, it was easy to forget that the Tories needed to go from 198 seats to 326 to form a majority government, a massive gain of over 116. Such gains are extremely rare – since the Second World War swings that size have only happened twice, in 1945 and 1997. It still seems likely that Labour will lose its 23-seat majority, but it is now unclear what will emerge at the other end.

Which brings us to the second trend – the remarkable rise of Nick Clegg and the Liberal Democrats. They had done well in 2005 and have been polling fairly strongly since then, but following the first televised debate between the leaders (the first in U.K. history) they’ve soared. Clegg’s performance was widely praised, and apparently as a result the Lib Dems have jumped from third place to first!



It’ll be one thing to hold their support at this level, and another to translate it into seats in the Commons, but it’s amazing nonetheless. There has not been a Liberal Government in Britain since 1922, and since then the Liberals and their successors, the Liberal Democrats, have struggled to win a fifth of the vote and a handful of seats.

The most likely result now is a hung Parliament, perhaps with Labour as the largest party. In that case the Lib Dems and the minors like the Scottish and Welsh Nationalists will be kingmakers. And if the Conservatives don’t form a government, then it will be an absolute disaster for David Cameron and will probably lead to the repudiation of his progressive platform. At the moment, though, it’s very much open.

The election will be held on May 6.

[Lalaith]

Do Liberal and Conservative mean similar things as they do here in the US? And how does the Labour Party figure in? I think I can guess what the main platform of the Welsh and Scottish Nationalists is. Or is it something else?

[vison]

The Conservatives are sort of the British GOP, but Labour is more to the left than the American Democrats. Labour is traditionally socialist. It is the equivalent, I suppose, of Canada's New Democratic Party, except the NDP has never been the government of Canada. Some provinces have had NDP governments, though.

The Liberals have been so far out of things for so long there isn't really any way to categorize them. They are to the left of the Conservatives but in the past counted among their members the hotsy-totsiest of upper class Brits. They are quite similar to Canadian Liberals.

[Túrin Turambar]

Broadly speaking, the Conservatives are the party of the right and Labour and the Liberal Democrats the parties of the left, but you can only analogise between American and British parties so far. After all, parties in Britain have positions on issues like the House of Lords, the NHS and the European Union that don’t apply in the U.S. (and visa-versa).

The Liberal Democrats are generally more socially progressive than Labour, and generally more economically liberal – ie. more in favour of free markets and small government. The Conservatives are more socially conservative and more Euroskeptical than both. All three parties have changed a great deal over the past couple of decades, though. Labour is no longer the socialist, trade-union based movement of the 1970s, David Cameron has given the Conservatives a huge makeover to make them more moderate and progressive and give them broader appeal, and the modern Liberal Democratic Party is quite different to the old Liberal one. An American conservative might see it as a contest between three liberal/left parties.

[nerdanel]

I have a couple questions that I think L_M might be able to help with, or others:

1. I understand that the Conservatives are the most Eurosceptic party, while the other two are more ... Europhilic. What I'm not sure is, what practical consequences should we expect re: Britain's involvement in the EU depending on which party wins; are there specific ways that Britain's participation might increase or decrease?

2. If the current polls accurately reflect election results, can we expect a Labour-Lib Dem coalition government? Would Nick Clegg become PM? Or would Gordon Brown still hang on, because of the way districts are drawn? (My understanding is that Lib Dems often vote for Labour to prevent Tory gains in particular parts of the country...)

3. My understanding is that all parties have pledged to maintain NHS funding at current levels. Can we expect to see any significant reforms to the NHS in the coming couple of years, if any particular party takes charge?

[Túrin Turambar]

I don’t know the answer to 1) and 3) off the top of my head, and it’s getting late, but as to this:

2. If the current polls accurately reflect election results, can we expect a Labour-Lib Dem coalition government? Would Nick Clegg become PM? Or would Gordon Brown still hang on, because of the way districts are drawn? (My understanding is that Lib Dems often vote for Labour to prevent Tory gains in particular parts of the country...)

It’s very difficult to say. Labour has the most favourable distribution of voters to actually win seats. As you can see from the BBC’s election seat calculator, Labour can hold a majority with as little as 35% of the vote, and can still be the largest party in the House of Commons on less than 28%. Unless things go really, really pear-shaped for Labour (which, given the strange events of the past two weeks, is not impossible I suppose) it will hold more seats than the Liberal Democrats.

On the most recent poll, Labour would be the largest party in the House, but still short a majority. If the Liberal Democrats entered into a coalition they would be the junior partner, and so Gordon Brown would remain as PM. In exchange, they would get some ministries, as is the usual arrangement between the Liberal and National Parties in Australia. A Liberal-Conservative Coalition is much less likely. Alternatively, the Lib Dems could support either major party without entering into a coalition. In other words, they would guarantee supply without actually being in government themselves, thus reserving the right to continue to criticise the Government from the cross-benches. If the Conservatives won more seats than Labour, the Lib Dems might even support them in exchange for certain concessions.

What the Lib Dems really want is electoral reform, either proportional representation (ideally) or preferential/runoff/alternate voting, so that their seat count would match their vote. Gordon Brown has promised it if re-elected, and that might be enough to win him Lib Dem support. Certainly Lib Dem supporters will often vote for Labour candidates if they have a better chance of defeating a Conservative and visa-versa. In countries that first-past-the-post voting, like the U.K. and U.S., you often vote for the candidate who has the best chance of beating your least-preferred candidate, not so much for your own preferred candidate. Such tactical voting is unnecessary in countries that use proportional or preferential voting, like Australia, New Zealand, Germany or the Netherlands.

[ToshoftheWuffingas]

The Labour Party still has close connections to the trade union movement though it has distanced itself from basing its policies around them. That's where its history lies.
Certainly the Conservative Party is viscerally Eurosceptic even though entry to the EU was initiated by a Conservative government. The leadership of the party has to deal with the real world however and in practice is quite content to carry on normally with the EU making the odd growl to keep its supporters in line. If it operates a government with a narrow majority as happened betwen 1992 to 1997 then the anti-Europeans make more trouble.

Cameron has attempted to make the Conservatives more socially progressive. Bear in mind that the Thatcher government made the 'promotion of homosexuality' by local councils a criminal act following a manufactured outrage over a childrens book about a child with same sex parents.
Whether he has been successful remains to be seen. You can get a flavour of him in this over gleeful showing of this 3 minute interview:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dBlDfp85 ... re=related

The NHS is inviolable. Any politician who promised to dismantle it might just as well don concrete boots to swim the Channel. Each party will attempt various management tricks to improve the service in its own fashion.

[Túrin Turambar]

The BBC has posted a comparison of the manifestos of all the parties. Here are the major ones:

Conservative

Aim to eliminate "the bulk" of the UK's structural deficit within five years beginning in 2010 with £6bn in cuts; spending cuts in all areas apart from health and foreign aid; allow charities, trusts, voluntary groups and co-operatives to set up new Academy schools, independent of local authority control, and to run other public services; create a Pupil Premium, giving more money to schools that teach the poorest children; scrap identity card scheme; recognise marriage in the tax system by allowing adults who are married or in a civil partnership to transfer up to £750 of their tax-free personal allowance to their spouse, as long as the higher-income member of the couple is a basic-rate taxpayer; scrap Labours planned 1% national insurance rise for people earning less than £35,000; raise Inheritance Tax threshold to 1m; set an annual limit for non-EU economic migrants.

Labour

"Targeted" increase in public spending over the next year to "sustain the recovery", before cutting the deficit by more than 50% by 2014 and reducing the structural deficit by at least two-thirds over the next parliament; protect "frontline investment" in childcare, schools, the NHS and policing; ensure all people who suspect they have cancer get test results within one week; restore the link between the state pension and earnings from 2012; guarantee a place in education or training for all 16 and 17 year olds; guarantee people aged 18-24 a job, work experience or training place if they are unemployed for more than six months; give parents of one- and two-year-olds an extra £4 a week in Child Tax Credit for each child from 2012; hold a referendum on adopting the Alternative Vote system for Westminster elections and making the House of Lords fully elected by October 2011.

Liberal Democrats

Identify and cut £15bn of lower priority spending per year to protect front-line services while reducing structural deficit at least as fast as Labour plans, beginning in 2011; raise the threshold at which people start paying income tax from £6,475 to £10,000; impose "mansion tax" on the value of properties over £2m and increase capital gains tax to bring it into line with income tax; introduce a banking levy until such time as banks’ retail and investment arms can be separated; scrap identity card scheme; provide £2.5bn for a "Pupil Premium" for schools teaching the poorest pupils, allowing average primary school class sizes to be cut to 20; replace the Council Tax with a Local Income Tax after a pilot phase; introduce a written constitution and single transferable vote (STV) system for all UK elections; allow voters to force a by-election for any MP found responsible for "serious wrongdoing".

So in response to Nel’s question, none of the parties seem to be slating any significant NHS reform. That said, I recall the Lib Dems promising to introduce more flexibility and freedom of choice in the system, although I don’t remember their exact policies.

By and large the election seems to be focusing on three issues – the economy and the deficit, restoring accountability and trust in the wake of the expenses scandal, and the electoral system and House of Lords reform.

Tosh is correct that the Conservatives have both a Eurocentric and Euroskeptic wing - some of its members support integration into the EU, others disengagement. Certainly when the Conservatives are in government their Eurocentrics seem to have more sway over EU policy.

[nerdanel]

Thanks, L_M. Regarding your quotes, I have to say I'm fascinated by this Lib Dem policy I was reading about in The Economist last night:

raise the threshold at which people start paying income tax from £6,475 to £10,000; impose "mansion tax" on the value of properties over £2m and increase capital gains tax to bring it into line with income tax

Right now, in the U.S., much has been made of the naked statistic that nearly 50 percent of Americans owe no income tax. The outrage is particularly focused on poor Americans whose incomes are too low to tax under our law, and is directed at them by middle class and rich taxpayers. Thus it's fascinating to me that a party proposing to raise capital gains/mansion taxes (on the rich) and immediately to use some of the capital raised to exempt some of the poor from taxes has enjoyed such a spike in the UK polls. I'm very interested to see how this all unfolds.

[Túrin Turambar]

Thanks, L_M. Regarding your quotes, I have to say I'm fascinated by this Lib Dem policy I was reading about in The Economist last night:

raise the threshold at which people start paying income tax from £6,475 to £10,000; impose "mansion tax" on the value of properties over £2m and increase capital gains tax to bring it into line with income tax

Right now, in the U.S., much has been made of the naked statistic that nearly 50 percent of Americans owe no income tax. The outrage is particularly focused on poor Americans whose incomes are too low to tax under our law, and is directed at them by middle class and rich taxpayers. Thus it's fascinating to me that a party proposing to raise capital gains/mansion taxes (on the rich) and immediately to use some of the capital raised to exempt some of the poor from taxes has enjoyed such a spike in the UK polls. I'm very interested to see how this all unfolds.

According to Aravar on TORC, the average yearly income in the U.K. is £26,000 per year, so I imagine a great majority of people would still make over £10,000 and keep paying income tax. Similarly, relatively few people would own houses worth more than £2m and I suspect a great number of them would be Conservative voters anyway. The real beneficiaries of the policy, I suspect, would be young people studying and working part-time or mothers in two-income households working part-time.

Politics in the U.K. doesn’t seem to be as aspirational (for want of a better word) than politics in the U.S. Class identity is stronger, and people on low- and middle-incomes are less likely to support policies that cut taxes for the wealthy. Tax reform also doesn’t seem to be a major issue outside the need to try and get the economy going and reduce the deficit.

[Ellienor]

I read something by Michael Moore once about how in America a lot of the poor believe that one day they are going to be rich and thus they identify with policies for rich people. And economic mobility is fairly robust in the U.S.

[Frelga]

I read something by Michael Moore once about how in America a lot of the poor believe that one day they are going to be rich and thus they identify with policies for rich people. And economic mobility is fairly robust in the U.S.

The indicators seem to be that it is not as robust as it used to be.

Which is not unexpected - economic mobility is highest in times of upheaval, and the U.S. had been fairly stable, by standards of world history, for decades now.

[Primula Baggins]

Just a reminder: the topic of this thread is the UK election. There are a lot of Lasto threads discussing U.S. affairs, and a topic on U.S. economic mobility could certainly be started. Let's stick to the topic here.

[Frelga]

Sorry, Prim.

[yovargas]

(That graph stretching anyone else's page?)

[vison]

Yes.

[nerdanel]

Class identity is stronger, and people on low- and middle-incomes are less likely to support policies that cut taxes for the wealthy. Tax reform also doesn’t seem to be a major issue outside the need to try and get the economy going and reduce the deficit.

Are UK citizens unlikely to move into higher income brackets over the course of their lives? Or, are they just likely to identify most strongly with their income bracket of the moment, without regard to whether they might move into a higher income bracket at a future point in time?

In any event: I was previously most interested in how the UK election might shape the country's dealings in the area of human rights. I posted in an earlier thread, when it looked as though the Tories would lead, that I was interested in their tentative plans to scrap the Human Rights Act and replace it with a (second) British Bill of Rights. I had also wondered whether the election of any particular party would cause Britain to rethink the Lisbon Treaty's current protocol exempting Britain from binding application of the treaty's Charter of Fundamental Rights. But it seems as those these issues are largely off the table for now. The country's discourse on human rights seems to have taken a back seat (as elsewhere) to concerns about fiscal retrenchment and, as L_M states, the electoral system and expenses scandal.

I also will be watching with interest to see what effect the election has on UK immigration law, as immigration law is currently my dominant area of interest. If memory serves, it is one of the areas of greatest certain to the British public (as the BNP, at least, is acutely aware), and it seems likely to me that the next government will need to address this issue by popular demand.

ETA The graph is fine for me - both on my 15" laptop and my 21" desktop monitor.

[Túrin Turambar]

The graph’s fine for me as well on this laptop, but I’ll keep the thread moving to try and get it on another page anyway.

British Tory leader David Cameron hit by egg on election campaign in Cornwall

Phillipe Naughton and Ben Macintyre From: The Times April 22, 2010 9:23AM

BRITISH Conservative leader David Cameron's bad week got a little bit worse when he was hit by an egg thrown by a teenaged hoodie during a campaign visit to a college in Cornwall.

The Tory leader was struck on the shoulder as he emerged from answering students’ questions at Cornwall College Saltash.

The egg glanced off his shoulder and splattered on the jacket of a police officer beside him. The yolk stained Mr Cameron’s white shirt.

The young hoodie-wearing man who threw the egg - who was named as Tyler Dixon, a bricklaying student from nearby Ernesettle - was immediately led away but was released after police established that he did not have any more missiles on him. He will not face any charges.

A spokesman for Devon and Cornwall Police said: "A 16-year-old student threw an egg. It didn’t hit David Cameron but it hit someone else at the event. He was arrested but was de-arrested before reaching a police station."

Emily Taylor, a 24-year-old midwife, said that she saw Mr Cameron immediately after the attack and "he looked pretty angry". She said three or four men pulled the attacker away, saying: "You can’t do that to David Cameron."

But the Tory leader, who yesterday confronted a tabloid journalist who has been following him round dressed as a giant chicken, did his best to laugh it off.

"That was the first of the campaign," he said. "Now I know which came first – the chicken not the egg."

The incident was the most high-profile "egging" since the BNP leader, Nick Griffin, was forced to call off a press conference outside parliament last June when he came under fire from a hail of eggs.

It was also markedly more good-humoured than Britain’s most famous election egging, in May 2001, when the then Deputy Prime Minister, John Prescott, punched a protester who hit him with an egg on a campaign visit to Rhyl, in North Wales.

In 1970, then Labour prime minister Harold Wilson was hit by an egg and quipped that the use of a fresh egg was a clear sign that the cost of living could not have gone up too much.

Mr Cameron's aides have done their best to protect the Tory leader from unscripted confrontations during the first half of the campaign.

Almost every campaign stop to date has taken place in front of a hand-picked audience of the party faithful, schoolchildren or vetted shop workers.

Only once, in Loughborough, has Mr Cameron gone walkabout, heading off down the street to speak to ordinary voters. Only once has he encountered a voter with a complaint – an ex-serviceman who said he had repeatedly written to the party leader and received no reply.

Mr Cameron has had a torrid week since his faltering performance in last week’s televised debate, when he was comprehensively outpointed by Nick Clegg, the the Liberal Democrat leader.

Mr Clegg earned his party a ten-point boost in the polls after successfully portraying himself as an anti-political outsider. If the Lib Dems keep their momentum they will almost certainly rob the Tories of a majority after May 6.

Shortly before being hit by the egg, Mr Cameron urged a group of students to vote Tory, telling them that both Labour and the Lib Dems would spend more money and regulate more.

He said: "Polls go up, polls go down. I’ve been leader of this party for four and a half years, I’ve been ten points ahead, I’ve been ten points behind.

"I’ve experienced almost everything there is poll-wise.

"What I’m interested in is the big poll on May 6, when people really have to choose five more years of Gordon Brown – the uncertainty, the bickering, the haggling of a hung Parliament – or a decisive, clean break with the Conservatives.

"That’s what we offer, that’s what we’re going to be fighting for in the next two weeks and that’s why we’re going to win it."

link

This is an interesting reflection on the interactions between class and politics in Britain – a bricklayer named Tyler and wearing a hoodie throws an egg at the leader of the Conservative Party, an Eton- and Oxford-educated son of a stockbroker and a baronet’s daughter and a descendant of King William IV.

But kudos to Cameron for not doing a Prescott and punching the kid in the jaw (John Prescott was a former boxer). According to Wikipedia, though, the incident might have boosted Prescott’s standing in the polls, particularly among male voters, so maybe Cameron missed an opportunity.

[vison]

Jean Chretien famously grabbed a protester by the throat and choked him. It did not do Mr. Chretien's image any harm, actually, a lot of people thought he did a fine thing.

[Túrin Turambar]

I do get the impression that the only person your average ham-and-egger likes less than a politician is a protester.