May 2010 Prediction: Labour to win the General Election
Place your bets now – William Hill are offering 9/4.
The economic crisis has not been good news for David Cameron and the Opposition. Logic suggests that they should now be out of sight in the polls given the almost miraculous scale of the Government’s failings. Instead, although already healthy, support has not budged. It may even be ebbing away.
The problem for the Conservatives is that the Government are not the only ones that have been caught bang to rights on economic policy. How can Cameron go on the attack when there is no evidence that his party would have managed things any differently? The answer is with great difficulty, as we have witnessed. The problem is made only made worse by the enduring perception of the Conservatives (despite deliberate attempts on the part of Cameron to keep the City, and business more generally, at arms length throughout his time as leader) as the party of the bankers, the rich and the privileged – precisely the people considered most to blame for inducing the downturn.
This is why the strategy that the Conservatives have chosen to adopt – to suggest that the party that took the country into an economic downturn should not be the one to help lead a recovery – might well fail. The political ground has, with the Government now part-owning large swathes of the financial services industry and the electorate severely disillusioned with the efficacy of unfettered capitalism, moved leftwards in recent weeks. It is obvious that those best placed to occupy that space – at least ideologically – are not the Conservatives but Labour. We are already seeing, with the successful retention of Glenrothes, that traditional Labour voters disillusioned with the Brown Government are returning to the fold.
But what will happen in practice? Electorates rarely stick with the incumbent governing party in times of recession. 1992 was an exception but only because the British people could not face Neil Kinnock, whom they simply did not trust, as Prime Minister. Cameron does not face that problem – he has always been better liked than Gordon Brown. However, with Labour now within striking distance of the Conservatives and, with the political sands currently shifting against him, Cameron does not have a plan in place to redress the balance. All bets are on.