{"id":925,"date":"2010-03-25T14:25:15","date_gmt":"2010-03-25T12:25:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.malcolmblair-robinson.co.uk\/wordpress\/?p=925"},"modified":"2010-03-25T14:28:00","modified_gmt":"2010-03-25T12:28:00","slug":"925","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.malcolmblair-robinson.co.uk\/wordpress\/?p=925","title":{"rendered":""},"content":{"rendered":"

Which way is the Election going?<\/strong><\/p>\n

The latest poll to which I have access, You Gov March 24th (yesterday) sampled before the budget but after the latest scandals puts Labour at 36%,the Tories at 38% and the Lib Dems at 17%.. The UNS (uniform swing) projection is for Labour having one less seat than the Tories and the Lib Dems holding the balance of power with 48 seats, sufficient to give either a majority if it joined a coalition.<\/p>\n

This all\u00a0makes good reading for Labour, who seem uninjured by their recent prangs and trade union militancy;\u00a0 even helped by the latter, maybe people now prefer the unions to the bankers. It is very good news for the Lib Dems because it puts them on course for\u00a0full participation\u00a0in government for the first time in living memeory. However polling day is still weeks away, there have been no manifestos published and those historic T.V debates have yet to come.<\/p>\n

This blog has repeatedly flagged key opportunities for the Tories to break through and is surprised that they have not done so. The Tory high command should be worried. No opposition party has been dealt so favouable a hand for decades. What is the problem? There could be many. I will offer two.<\/p>\n

In the big moments since the WWII when the country went for real change, 1945 and 1979, there was a clear ideological challenge to the accepted way.\u00a0With Attlee it was socialism and with Thatcher it was monetarism which later expanded to Thatcherism. In between the pendulum swung this way and that across the ideological divide of socialism versus a welfare state version of capitalismin which free enterprise operated beside state control of some\u00a0industries and all utilities.\u00a0When the country changed government there was a clear sense of moving from the one side to the other. Now the two main parties are esessentially two conservative parties, with a centrist perspective on all things and differences only in detail, some of which is too obscure for voters to bother with. Each has different roots, but both lean to the light, which is in the centre. The main difference is that Labour prefer to deliver though a big state and big government, the Tories say they like a smaller state and less government. To the voter\u00a0there is not enough difference\u00a0 to risk a change. Unlike 1997 when the Tory Government was in crisis (although the country was sound)\u00a0and change was necessary, this time the country is in crisis but the Government appears to many to have done rather well. Why change it?<\/p>\n

It is the answer to this question of why ?<\/em>\u00a0which the Tory party has\u00a0thus far\u00a0failed to provide with any clarity. It has to do so to stand any chance of an outright win. Otherwise the best it can hope for\u00a0is to govern on terms demanded by Nick and Vince.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Which way is the Election going? The latest poll to which I have access, You Gov March 24th (yesterday) sampled before the budget but after the latest scandals puts Labour at 36%,the Tories at 38% and the Lib Dems at 17%.. The UNS (uniform swing) projection is for Labour having one less seat than the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-925","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-malcolm-blair-robinson"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.malcolmblair-robinson.co.uk\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/925","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.malcolmblair-robinson.co.uk\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.malcolmblair-robinson.co.uk\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.malcolmblair-robinson.co.uk\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.malcolmblair-robinson.co.uk\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=925"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.malcolmblair-robinson.co.uk\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/925\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":930,"href":"https:\/\/www.malcolmblair-robinson.co.uk\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/925\/revisions\/930"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.malcolmblair-robinson.co.uk\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=925"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.malcolmblair-robinson.co.uk\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=925"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.malcolmblair-robinson.co.uk\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=925"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}