The Tories
The election campaign opens with the Tories the overwhelming favourites. They are way ahead in the polls and May is the only credible candidate for prime minister. It makes sense to give her a mandate, her own, not a hand me down from the discredited Cameron, so that she can navigate Brexit and negotiate the best deal for Britain. UKIP, a persistent threat, is now a busted flush, Labour is a joke and the Lib Dems are marginalized. The road is open to a big majority. Go for it. That is the official wisdom. But this blog thinks it could turn out differently.
The Tories won in 2015 with their smallest winning total since the nineteenth century. They gained a million fewer votes than Churchill in 1950 and he lost. They added fewer votes to their 2010 total than Labour, who suffered a massacre in Scotland. A large slice of the Brexit vote was a vote against the establishment, i.e. the Tories.
The Tory intention is to gain a mandate for Brexit, but if the campaign swings to concentrate on the economic structure, public services and austerity, they are vulnerable. The Lib Dems are a major threat in the South, in Remain areas with seats they lost to the Tories in 2015, because of their clear cut, unambiguous Remain leaning approach to Brexit. So how certain is this predicted Tory win?
Labour
Labour are the underdogs. The Brits love underdogs. Their leader is a figure of fun. Correction, of establishment fun. They are all over the place on everything and especially Brexit. But actually the mass of voters have moved on from Brexit and are more interested in low wages, housing costs, public sector pay caps, the NHS, funding gaps in education, prisons, social care and public services generally. There is a widespread belief that the system favours the few at the expense of the many. People, young people especially, are distrustful of politics and politicians.
Jeremy Corbyn is the anti-politician, anti-establishment, disruptive political campaigner and thinker. He is out of tune in Westminster and among people who respond to opinion polls. But among the young and the five million or so who have given up supporting Labour and do not vote, he is a hero who can lead them to better times. If he and his party get some of their ducks in a row they can deny May victory. If they get all their ducks in a row they could win outright, even without much in the way of gains in Scotland. But Labour leadership of an anti-austerity soft Brexit coalition government, with May out of politics and in hiding from angry Tory hardcore Brexiteers, is not impossible.
The Lib Dems
They start in the best position by far because they have no more to lose and everything to gain. They are in a strong position to win back at least some of the seats they lost to the Tories in 2015, especially in Remain locations. Their shock victory in the Richmond Park by-election is a pointer to the possibilities opening up for them and the surge of new members joining their party an indication of what might be afoot. They certainly have the capacity to deny May the victory she has gambled on.
The SNP
It is unlikely the SNP can win any more seats as they hold almost all of them in Scotland, but they can play a powerful role in the next parliament if the expected Tory majority does not materialize, even if they lose a few seats themselves.
UKIP
They still have the capacity to affect individual results by pulling votes from the Tories or from Labour, but they are unlikely to win any seats of their own. There might have to be a re-write of this if Farage re-enters the race.
Other Small or Regional Parties
If they count in the new parliament, May will have failed in her aim to get a bigger majority. She might even have lost her majority altogether. If that happens, she herself is lost. A Boris moment?