... well that's looking pretty conclusive. The next question is how long labour will be unelectable once they ditch the remaining Blairites and Brownites..
I think the Conservatives winning the next election is very nearly a foregone conclusion. Only something like David Cameron becoming a suicide bomber could stop them.
I'll make a further prediction, though: Labour will come third to the LibDems in terms of votes, but end up with a lot more seats than them. This will undermine their legitimacy as the official Opposition and renew with added fervour calls for proportional representation. The Conservatives will reject these calls.
Possibly not very long at all. 2010 might be an election to lose, in the same way that 1992 was an election to lose and arguably 1979 was an election to lose (before we won the Falklands War). Whoever wins will have to raise taxes and cut public spending.
It'd be interesting to know how many people voting Conservative in your poll are actually voting Conservative, as it were - because that's what really makes the difference :)
I have no plans to vote Conservative. But since I'm in Cambridgeshire South East and the last time it wasn't Conservative was 1945, I doubt my vote will really make a difference.
The story I'm really interested is north of the border.
The Tories are going to win nationally. They'll get two seats, tops, in Scotland; the SNP will most likely be the largest party. Unless you've lived in Scotland, you have no idea just how much the Conservatives are despised.
I'm getting my application for dual nationality ready already. I'm saying 2:1 against it'll happen by 2012.
Yeeesss. I will never forget the day I was arriving in Edinburgh by train the day Thatcher resigned. There was an announcement and cheers on the train; when I arrived, there was literally dancing in the streets.
Observing from a slight distance as I am now, it seems likely that the Tories will win (spit, gag, etc). However, I wouldn't call it a foregone conclusion - Cameron and his crowd don't seem to be inspiring the voters in the same way that Blair did in the leadup to '97, not least because their only real platform right now seems to be "Our Turn Now Pls? We're a different party!". Remember that a poll is a push exercise - people actively seek you out and ask you questions - while actually going out and voting is a pull exercise that requires actual effort, and for Cameron and cronies to be successful they need to inspire the disaffected to actually go the hell out and vote.
There are always going to be a strong subset of British voters who'll never be able to bring themselves to vote Tory in a million years but who are strongly disaffected Labour supports (me for instance), so I don't think the swing to the Tories come election day will be anything near the levels of things like 1997. It'll probably be enough, but I wouldn't expect a landslide.
Civic participation and the class divide, though. If there's a low turnout due to this disaffectation, it is almost universally the case in elections that the turnout is lowest among working class voters, whereas middle class voters turn out anyway "because it's the done thing" even if they don't much care about the result. And by weight of numbers, they'll vote Conservative.
When have the Tories polled more than 40% over the last year? When?
I take your point about disaffectation amongst the working classes. What Labour should do is a 'get out the vote' campaign a la Obama. However, I'm leaning towards thinking that the middle classes will deserve what they get under the Tories.
I put hung parliament because I want a hung parliament. Interesting times.
Whereas if the Scottish actually bothered to vote Labour, the Tories wouldn't have an iced latte mochafrinno in hell's chance of getting in. S'Funny that.
More than 40? ICM, 20th September, YouGov, 11th September, Comres, 20th August... you get the idea.
Hung Parliament may well destroy us, I'm not sure the international gilt markets we are relying on to tide over our deficit would react well to an unstable and weak Government.
It's going to be an interesting time, Scotland with its own parliament being governed by a party that's possibly in fourth place (though more likely 3rd) in the local popular vote. Scotland these days feels much more like a defined political entity (partially a state, rather than just a nation) than it did when I stopped living there in 1997.
It's ironic that government by the most unionist of the parties is the most likely to drive a dissolution of the union.
I'd quite like a hung parliament too - it would force some re-coalitioning and make PR more likely, while also not giving the government a mandate to do anything drastic.
The Obama campaign relied on the possibility of change. That doesn't really work for the incumbent party. knell is right about there being lots of disaffected Labour voters.
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(no subject)
Date: 2009-09-30 01:10 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-09-30 01:43 pm (UTC)I'll make a further prediction, though: Labour will come third to the LibDems in terms of votes, but end up with a lot more seats than them. This will undermine their legitimacy as the official Opposition and renew with added fervour calls for proportional representation. The Conservatives will reject these calls.
I'm not looking forward to any of this.
(no subject)
Date: 2009-09-30 02:08 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-09-30 02:18 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-09-30 03:30 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-09-30 03:32 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-09-30 03:48 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-09-30 03:59 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-09-30 04:53 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-09-30 04:55 pm (UTC)http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/constituency/1298/cambridgeshire-south-east
(no subject)
Date: 2009-09-30 05:58 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-09-30 06:18 pm (UTC)The Tories are going to win nationally. They'll get two seats, tops, in Scotland; the SNP will most likely be the largest party. Unless you've lived in Scotland, you have no idea just how much the Conservatives are despised.
I'm getting my application for dual nationality ready already. I'm saying 2:1 against it'll happen by 2012.
(no subject)
Date: 2009-09-30 06:27 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-09-30 07:06 pm (UTC)There are always going to be a strong subset of British voters who'll never be able to bring themselves to vote Tory in a million years but who are strongly disaffected Labour supports (me for instance), so I don't think the swing to the Tories come election day will be anything near the levels of things like 1997. It'll probably be enough, but I wouldn't expect a landslide.
(no subject)
Date: 2009-09-30 08:08 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-09-30 10:08 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-09-30 10:39 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-10-01 06:58 am (UTC)I take your point about disaffectation amongst the working classes. What Labour should do is a 'get out the vote' campaign a la Obama. However, I'm leaning towards thinking that the middle classes will deserve what they get under the Tories.
I put hung parliament because I want a hung parliament. Interesting times.
(no subject)
Date: 2009-10-01 06:59 am (UTC)Salmond declared Scotland bankrupt yet?
(no subject)
Date: 2009-10-01 07:02 am (UTC)Hung Parliament may well destroy us, I'm not sure the international gilt markets we are relying on to tide over our deficit would react well to an unstable and weak Government.
(no subject)
Date: 2009-10-01 08:56 am (UTC)It's ironic that government by the most unionist of the parties is the most likely to drive a dissolution of the union.
(no subject)
Date: 2009-10-01 10:59 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-10-02 01:53 pm (UTC)I'd quite like a hung parliament too - it would force some re-coalitioning and make PR more likely, while also not giving the government a mandate to do anything drastic.
The Obama campaign relied on the possibility of change. That doesn't really work for the incumbent party.
(no subject)
Date: 2009-10-02 10:28 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-10-02 10:32 pm (UTC)