Blog 2023 Malcolm Blair-Robinson

As the elections on May 5th approach, Labour is doing well in the opinion polls, considering the scale of its defeat last year, its guilt in the financial crisis and its lack of any new ideas. It was to be expected that the Coalition would become unpopular as the effects of the financial renewal took effect, so on the face of it, opinion poll averages which would give, in a general election, a clear majority of over eighty to Labour are not unexpected. Yet they are.

This is because the bulk of the voters support the cuts. They also are savvy to what went wrong and are busy putting their own personal budgets in order by paying down debt, controlling spending and, most important, not demanding wage settlements that they know neither their employers nor the country can afford. So what is wrong? It is this. The Government is beginning to look incompetent, muddle headed and obsessed by reforms few wanted and even fewer understand. There is also the question of judgement.

This list of anxieties grows. Libya is not working out and is daily costing the equivalent of all those extra nurses and midwives and police on the beat we need. The education reforms have been uneven and the approach to tuition fees and EMA a disaster. The health reforms are in confusion. There is disagreement over immigration. Osborne appears soft on the banks. The cost of living is going up fast. The Big Society is a load of waffle. Put bluntly this government looks inefficient and inexperienced.

Many posts ago this Blog suggested that it was a political mistake to carry out reforms while at the same time reducing the deficit. The lines between reforms and cuts become blurred and the value or necessity of each lost in the ensuing argument. More importantly the British do not like reform and change. This is why we still have an unwritten Constitution based on an autocratic monarchy, with some of its powers ceded to Parliament, which falls far short of an open, modern, democracy. It is why there is so much fluster over the NHS.  

It is also why the NO option is pulling ahead in the Referendum campaign. Voters are beginning to see it as another unnecessary reform. Another expensive muddle. What they really want is for the country to be run efficiently and with as little change as possible. Thus the Conservative party, cautious of unnecessary change was,  pre Thatcher, the natural party of government. Her radicalism was the call of the hour and hugely popular, but that hour has passed. People want to get on with their lives without upheaval. Moreover, not all her reforms worked out well.

It is thus likely, though as in any election not certain till the count is complete, that Labour will do well and both the Tories and Lib Dems will lose seats, especially the latter. Whatever the outcome it will reflect the natural process of the political swing. The winners will later fall and the losers will recover. The cycle will continue as in the past, into the future. 

Except for the Lib Dems. For them a NO vote would be an absolute calamity. Not only would it repudiate the core of what they stand for, it will make it difficult for them to survive as a potent political force. On current opinion polls they would be reduced to fewer than twenty seats in parliament. If the elctorate gets sick of reforms, it will also get sick of them.

This entry was posted on Sunday, April 17th, 2011 at 11:13 am and is filed under Malcolm Blair Robinson. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.