So that’s it for another four years

Posted by Guessedworker on Wednesday, 04 May 2005 22:10.

OK, we’ve emerged from behind the net curtains, dropped the last unread circular in the bin, removed the shotgun from beside the front door … we are safe. The politicians have gone away. Tomorrow we vote. Or not, as appears likely in a heck of a lot of cases.

But what happens then?

Well, the next day the headlines are sheer bliss for all poodles and poodle owners. The next, they ask how much longer Gordon will have to wait. Ain’t life a gas?

But in between, obviously, there is an unmissable photo opportunity outside number ten:-

Our Leader produces his teeth for the press while Cherie tries likewise to fashion her wobbly, disobedient mouth into some semblance of a smile. It doesn’t work. But as luck would have it straining to touch the golden couple are vanloads of “ordinary” working people and even hard-working families assembled in Downing Street as if by magic and all grinning like fury. Of course, they are not in Tony’s class. Nobody is. Still, hands are eagerly outstretched and eagerly pressed. A few ladies in Labour get the Blair lips, pulled momentarily over the Blair teeth, pressed against a pudgy, unprepossessing cheek. Flashlights pop. Or flash, whatever they do in the digital age. A sentence or three of carefully crafted, sublimely shallow words are delivered. You know the sort of thing. All-purpose hope and oh-so-humble gratitude. Then he and Cherie, still trying to display her upper left and right molars at the same time, slip in through that shiny black door. A final, casual, faux-manly wave and he is lost to view. The people’s Prime Minister is back.

And us? What’s left to us but to slink back into the shadows and take up our burden once more as the unwilling funders, but never the paymasters, of the Blair revolution?

All that lies ahead, though. The last of the pollsters publish their findings in tomorrow’s papers. Not Tony but plenty of other pols will be very nervous about what they (supposedly) foretell.

It will be not very different to these:-

The pollsters

Assuming uniform national swing, MORI “gives Labour a majority of 168 seats, up on the notional 158 seats that they would have won at the last election if the current boundaries in Scotland had applied in 2001. Such a result would send shock waves through the Conservative Party.”

ICM, as reported in the Sunday Telegraph, reported a Labour majority of 94 swirling forth from the crystal ball.

The YouGov / Sunday Times poll which puts the Conservatives up one point and the Lib Dems down one point, on last Friday’s poll for the Telegraph, would give Labour 369 seats (down only 43), Conservatives 184 seats (up 18) and the Lib Dems 62 seats (up 10).

Harris has also reappeared in the UK polling fray with a single poll. But I have only seen predicted percentages of the overall vote – not the vital seat distribution resulting from that. So we’ll ignore that one.

Anyway, it can’t be blacker for the Tories than Martin Baxter’s Electoral Calculus. I am indebted to “Dryden” (who I hope will shortly be blogging with us) for this link to these guys. They predict by means of a “scientific analysis of opinion polls and electoral geography”. That reveals unto them this doleful picture:-

Labour 394
Conservative 166
Liberal Democrats 57

The market

“The betting markets are gambling that Labour will be returned with a 78-seat majority in the general election this week, less than half the 166 it achieved last time. The total has dropped slightly in the past seven days, following the controversy over Iraq ... The betting markets are likely to be followed closely as they represent the collective views of 30,000 punters; and the markets predicted the outcome of the US Presidential election more rapidly and more accurately than individual pollsters or commentators.”

The politicians

Who listens to them anyway?

The celebs

Likewise.

The bloggers

The excellent and always enlivening Peter Cuthbertson is actually putting his money where his mouth is, challenging his readers to a wager on the Tories’ success. But he isn’t predicting any final numbers. I’ve always considered Peter to be a good guy and it pains me to see him facing bankruptcy at nineteen years of age. But I don’t believe it to be a bar these days to becoming an MP. So that’s alright, then.

The man who everybody in the blogosphere seems to swear by poll-wise is Anthony Wells. He is running a prediction competition, should you be interested, here.

Last, least and utterly, hopelessly optimistic, there is MajorityRights. Just finger in the air sort of stuff. Obviously wrong. Obviously unwise. Uninformed. Unbalanced. After all, Labour is cruising. The Tories aren’t. Carrot Charlie, if not exactly preparing for government, thinks he’s going to break all records. So my guessed-timate hasn’t got a chance, really. Still, it is:-

Labour 355 seats
Conservative 242
Liberal Democrat 35
Others 26

Labour majority: 52, sod it.

I shall have to have a stern word with that Suleymann fellow.

Tags: British Politics

Comments:

Posted by Geoff Beck on Wed, 04 May 2005 23:14 | #

Couple questions, but first a comment - Democracy Sucks.

Now the questions

1) What happened to UKIP - did they implode?

2) Has the BNP made any progress? Do they have any seats, if so are they expecting to win more or less seats?

Posted by Guessedworker on Wed, 04 May 2005 23:31 | #

Geoff,

UKIP were damaged by Robert Kilroy-Silk who joined the party, failed to become its leader, left in high dudgeon and set up his own mini-UKIP named Veritas. All in the space of a few months.

Neither party will make much headway in a general election. UKIP has relevance only in the European Parliamentary election, when Tory and Labour votes can punish their respective politicians for their Europhilia.

The BNP is pushing very hard indeed in Barking. They are trying to unseat Margaret Hodge, the awful Minister for Children, but are not seriously expected to do so.

Elsewhere, the party leader Nick Griffin
is fighting David Blunkett in Sheffield. Nobody expect the BNP to win any seats. But a strong turnout for them would underline the view that white consciousness is rising among the white working class. We shall see.

George Galloway’s socialist, anti-war and, by default, pro-Islamic Respect party is pushing hard in Bethnal Green & Bow to knock over the black Labour MP Oona King. That one could be close.

Overall, I think the small parties will do pretty well but win nothing.

Posted by Kubilai on Thu, 05 May 2005 00:02 | #

Nobody expect the BNP to win any seats.

This is truly a shame. Even more of a shame is that Labour will not be unseated. What will it take? I won’t pretend to know anything about British elections or the process, however this is quite disheartening. Despite all the lip service that people make about immigration being an issue with them, the bottom line is and always has been money with our generation. As long as people are comfortable and working (and obviously in debt), why rock the boat even if it means the boat will no longer exist in a generation or two. Pity.

I felt that London was lost after I visited it this past summer. This only confirms it, and the rest of England as well, it appears.

Posted by Matra on Thu, 05 May 2005 00:33 | #

If the MORI poll is right and Labour increase their majority it may well send the message to the ruling class that mass immigration is not that big an issue. Needless to say that would be a disaster.

I was over in the UK a couple of weeks ago and was disappointed I didn’t hear any talk about the EU. Perhaps the people are convinced that even under Blair there is no danger of joining the single currency and other further moves towards a federal Europe. Or maybe the masses just don’t give a damn as long as can still afford their Sky subscription and to get pissed several times a week.

One other thing to watch out for are the results in Northern Ireland. The “hardline’ (as the media always say) DUP are now the biggest Protestant party and Sinn Fein the biggest Catholic party. I’d be surprised if the DUP did not increase it’s overall vote total but for me coming from South Belfast it will be interesting to see if the DUP candidate splits the vote and allows a Nationalist (Catholic) to win the seat for the first time. It will be even more intereting to see what happens to the Catholic vote: Will Sinn Fein/IRA be punished for the McCartney murder and other recent misdeeds? Or will the Republican rabble turn out in full force to prevent any embarrassment to Sinn Fein? Let’s see where the Nationalist voters really stand.

Posted by Matra on Thu, 05 May 2005 00:44 | #

Kubilai - “I felt that London was lost after I visited it this past summer. This only confirms it, and the rest of England as well, it appears”.

Yes, I was in London a couple of years ago and thought the same thing. Arabs made up the majority in the area where I stayed. I was left wondering where all the natives had gone. When I visited the Imperial War Museum I sort of felt as if I was in an enclave of the city - a British enclave!

Posted by Freddy on Thu, 05 May 2005 01:39 | #

<sigh> Quite frankly, if the (native) British electorate allows Labour to get in again, they deserve everything they’ll get. When WILL people wake up?

Posted by dan dare on Thu, 05 May 2005 03:03 | #

*cough*

Nick Griffin is actually standing in Keighley versus Anne Cryer, GW,

BTW did you get a chance to browse the BNP manifesto? It looked pretty good to me.

Posted by Kubilai on Thu, 05 May 2005 03:42 | #

Matra,

We stayed at the London Hilton Metropole. We could have stayed in Riyadh for all I could tell. There were more muslims in full garb than native Londoners. I knew right then and there London was history. It was quite sad going through the motions of seeing the historic sights when the city is teeming with foreigners. Sickening frankly.

It’s one thing for Canada or the US to be inundated with third worlders since they do have the flimsy “we are a country of immigrants” leg to stand on, but ENGLAND? What is England’s excuse and why aren’t people more p*ssed about it?

Posted by john rackell on Thu, 05 May 2005 03:48 | #

Some comments:

Even if the BNP don’t win any seats there’ll be many wards where they’ll come in a decent second or third. As the recent council elections showed they were in spitting distance of quite a few council seats. In most of the close BNP council elections the BNP plus conservative votes together would’ve had an easy plurality. With each election cycle the BNP get closer and closer. All they need is a slight realignment of some conservatives and/or Labor. Also every Conservative runner up in marginal labor seats contested by the BNP has to debate whether to throw in his lot with the BNP. They may cause a rupture within the Conservative party.

Also the BNP may also have an effect outside of where they are contesting parliamentary seats owing to the possibility of people protesting the election, voiding their ballots by marking BNP.

The BNP are changing the terms of the debate. Why all the fear and loathing if the BNP were truly insignificant. There are many insignificant parties in England you never hear anything about. Why the arrests of the leader of this one? Why the introduction of mail ballots and inviting election fraud in districts where the BNP has a sporting chance.

The more people vote for the BNP the more moral authority the BNP has in demanding access to the public media in terms of non biased media coverage. This applies especially to the state run and sympathetic to Labour BBC. The more (relatively)unbiased media coverage the stronger the BNP will get. There is no doubt that the BNP has placed asylum especially and immigration generally in the spotlight. They are setting the terms of the debate.

Above all the Conservatives and BNP should be very grateful not to win this election and the next 4 to 5 years. Both the USA and England’s economies are propped up by massive consumer credit bubbles with the only industry being home building. Couple that with growing strains as peak oil and competition with the BRIC’s for resources kicks in and subsequent inflation then who’d want to be holding the bag. The BNP will be ready with the radical solution after the British elites have become thoroughly discredited.

[all the above is IMHO of course]

Quite frankly, if the (native) British electorate allows Labour to get in again, they deserve everything they’ll get.

Labour don’t have to win a majority of anything to get an elected dictatorship dedicated to demographically wiping out the British people. They just need a plurality of the people actually bothering to vote: 33% of 60% of the electorate ~ 20% of eligible voters in a winner take all system.

You’ll always be able to round up 20% of dedicated nation destroying leftists.

Posted by Matra on Thu, 05 May 2005 05:27 | #

“Labour don’t have to win a majority of anything to get an elected dictatorship dedicated to demographically wiping out the British people. They just need a plurality of the people actually bothering to vote: 33% of 60% of the electorate ~ 20% of eligible voters in a winner take all system”.

I don’t see that as an excuse. If the Labour Party is re-elected it is because the British who care about politics want them. Even amongst those who do not vote Labour many of them are Liberal Democrats, a party now to the left of the current regime.

An English relative of mine who hates non-white immigrants is so anti-Conservative he has trouble seeing conservatives as human beings. When I told him I was conservative he assumed I was a Hitler supporter! He still hasn’t got over it. He owns a business, served as a British “occupation” soldier in Northern Ireland - to Americans, supporting British rule in N Ireland is seen as very right wing - hates the IRA, feminists, gays, and anti-smoking legislation, yet he’s a fanatical Labour supporter! Indeed he thinks the Labour left is too moderate. I’m afraid he’s not alone. So brainwashed are millions of British and Europeans by class hatred and media propaganda they are, seemingly, beyond redemption. I’ve even heard British working class people sneering at the “right wing fascist” BBC! I just don’t see how such people will ever understand what is happening and so I’m tempted to say to hell with them. Maybe some sacrifices are needed to wake up everyone else. Unless there is some kind of major catastrophe - say, a nuclear terrorist attack in Middle England or at least in western Europe - I don’t see things changing in time to avert the annihilation of the West.

Anyway, we’ll see what happens today in Britain. My favourite party is Ukip, but if I were there in England today I’d be voting Conservative - only my third choice mainland UK party and only my fifth overall choice behind the two main Ulster Unionist parties. Maybe the public will surprise the pollsters and vote Tory or even better, deny the Tories a government by the margin of votes for Ukip and the BNP. It would certainly restore my faith in the country from which I still hold a passport. But I suspect this time tomorrow I’ll be reading American blogs and “conservative” websites gloating about Tony’s great victory, and how it’s good for Bush and the Iraq agenda. Hurray! US neocons have been attacking Michael Howard because he has tried to take advantage of the unpopular Iraq war to unseat Blair. Apparently US “conservatives” think their precious wars for Israel and global democracy are so sacred that everyone else should vote for pro-Euro currency, pro-Third World race replacement candidates like Blair. If this is what the official Right has been reduced to what kind of person would want to be a part of it?

Posted by Andrew L on Thu, 05 May 2005 06:52 | #

In the Gardian new’s paper, was an article written by our very own King of the scumb, Paul Keating, denounsing the efforts of the conservative party, for those in pommy land who not know of this Idiot, he is single handedly responsible for the middle East invasion in Australia,so he did,and some of the worst possible imaginable, were near deported, but , by his signiture were issued citizenship, or politely put, the mother of all labour branch stacks,(Bankstown), even if you wipe out Australia, so if this is the aspirational fortitude aspoused , then we may well say good by Great Britain, enjoy your new vocation. and yes for the record,he is a crimminal, and yes he is Gay.The only succesful man who can have a pig farm with Muslems, I Kid you not.

Posted by Guessedworker on Thu, 05 May 2005 16:17 | #

Dan,

Thanks for that. Quite right, Griffin was only publicised as contemplating standing against Blunkett in Sheffield at the time of his arrest last Christmas. I suppose that Sheffield lost its appeal when Blunkett lost his job. But why did Griffin then choose Kieghley? Mrs Cryer is not the worst Labour MP, and is not overly loved by her Moslem constituents. Anyway, a 4.62% swing gives the seat to the Conservatives. That is likely to be the fruit of Griffin’s labours.

Posted by Guessedworker on Thu, 05 May 2005 22:16 | #

The Telegraph quotes an exit polls showing a 66 seat majority for Labour. Maybe Suleymann is my friend after all.