The party conferences have come to an end, the governing parties are fighting in public, and the political world realizes that, 200 days from today, the people of Britain will decide who will run the country for another five years.
As ever, there is no shortage of polling going on, as pollsters (as well as psephologists) try to predict the potential results and parties try to figure out what they need to do to win the keys to Number 10. Based on the polls released up to today, the makeup of the House of Commons would result in a hung parliament for the second election in a row, the first time this has happened in over a century.
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| A party needs 326 seats to form a majority government. |
This model is based on a uniform swing across each of the regions of Britain, which is not enough for UKIP to get any seats despite being third in the polls. However, because of the variance of swings we see (as well as the margin of error of the polls themselves), the prospect of UKIP being shut out of Parliament next year is unlikely. On balance of probabilities, the range of possibilities will look something like this:
Why the minimum of 1 for UKIP despite them not even showing in the other visual? Quite simply, I'm certain that UKIP will pick up at least one seat, but I couldn't tell you exactly which one. Now, it's easy to say that I should easily be painting Clacton, as well as likely Rochester & Strood, purple as a result of recent and upcoming by-elections. However, by-elections are full of anomolies, especially when caused by defections such as these, and voters will often think differently in a general election than in a by-election. We therefore cannot know whether Douglas Carswell and Mark Reckless will hold onto their seats for UKIP in the general election.
Hung Parliament
This is the first time we have seen the prospect of a hung parliament since early 2012, and it only came about within the last couple of weeks. Contrary to anything the Conservatives will try to tell you, it doesn't appear to be as a result of Ed Miliband's conference speech (the one where he forgot to mention the deficit); if it had, we would expect to see an uptick for the Tories, and this hasn't happened.
Labour's drop started happening in the aftermath of last month's independence referendum in Scotland. Once the independence battle had been officially lost, the SNP moved towards campaigning for the so-called Westminster parties to uphold their promises on further devolution. This led to a huge upswing in SNP support, and a phenomenal 19% swing from Labour to the SNP. In fact, if you take out Scotland, Labour would likely have an overall majority (albeit a slim one).
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| Only 296 seats are needed for a majority when Scottish seats are excluded. |
Paths to Victory
If Labour wants to get its majority back, they should focus on ensuring that Parliament follows through on the pledge that was made on devolution, so that some of that swing to the SNP can come back to them. They will also need, as they begin to write their election manifesto, ensure that any social welfare pledges they intend to make following the Conservatives' austerity are fully costed, otherwise the markets (on which the government still relies for £100bn of annual borrowing) may be less likely to lend as cheaply as they have in recent years.
For the Conservatives, it's not enough to say that the economy is improving and here are the figures to prove it. Yes, GDP is rising, and yes, the number of people in work is rising, but of those who are in work, their wages have not been growing anywhere near the rate of inflation. It's no wonder that, when news of large bonuses for corporate execs hits the news (even if those bonuses are entirely justified), voters think the Tories are the party of the rich, and they need to begin to convince people that their quality of life will at least begin to improve imminently.
For the Liberal Democrats, their objective is simplest to state but probably most difficult to achieve: convince they voters that they are not just the Tories' lapdogs. While the tuition fee episode back in 2010 will be the most memorable event due to how big a deal it was during the last campaign, but in fact, LibDem support started to drop once that emergency budget was tabled right after the election, and has never recovered. That said, it's possible that even a party with only 20 seats could hold the balance of power in the next parliament, and even find its way back in government (though that would be unwise for whomever joins with them).
UKIP and the SNP will, inevitably, face the one phrase that I cannot stand: "A vote for X is a vote for something that is not X". Labour will say that a vote for the SNP is a vote for the Tories, while the Tories will say that a vote for UKIP is a vote for Labour. Unfortunately for my sanity, these statements work, and these two parties will need to come up with convincing arguments to overcome this, whatever those reasons may be.
Ultimately, at the end of the day, this remains Labour's election to lose. As long as people's quality of life continues to decline, the government will remain unpopular. For Labour to be proven even more unpopular will be devisating for the party and the end of Ed Miliband's career. He will now do everything he can to ensure that doesn't happen.
