Who would win a general election if there was one held tomorrow? In my opinion if there was a general election tomorrow (8/9/07), the Labour Party would win, albeit only by a tiny percentage of the vote and by maybe 15-30 seats (resulting in a hung parliament). This is reflected in the latest polls which show Labour winning 36-8% of the vote (based on the findings of YouGov, Populus and Comres opinions polls 4/9/07), the Conservatives winning 35-36% and the Liberal Democrats getting 15-18%. When you consider the margin of error that comes with these figures, it seems that the Conservatives may overtake Labour in terms of popular vote. This does not however, mean they would win the election, as the current system is weighted in Labours favour. In fact, it has been estimated that Labours majority would have been reduced to 60 seats in the ’97 election had they accepted the recommendations made by Lord Jenkins (he proposed changing from FPTP to AV+). Because of the current system I think Labour would again unfairly gain seats but that in order to continue running the country effectively would rely on the Liberal Democrats, granting them the unique status of ‘Kingmakers’. This situation would not really suit anybody as it would make it very hard for anything to be changed. If this happens, it won’t be for the first time. In the past, the opposition has gained the majority of the popular vote and still lost- this happened in ‘50, ‘51 and ’74. Until the system is changed votes will continue to be wasted and majorities not necessarily needed to win power. After the election, Gordon Brown would probably struggle to make the kind of impact he would like. The Conservatives would do all they could to stop Labour legislation and reform. I don’t think David Cameron would resign in the style of many former leaders but the lack of confidence from within his own party would begin to show, especially if he failed to make significant gains in the polls. Who would you vote for? If there was a general election tomorrow I would vote for the Liberal Democrats. This is on the basis that they would help me in the short term as well as granting the country the sort of political change it needs to emerge from this bitter, apathetic slump. I get the feeling people are tired and frustrated under Brown (as much as its Blairs fault, the public tend to think in terms of guilt by association), annoyed by failing public services and poor attempts to tackle self-created problems. I am not so dissatisfied with the current government, but I have not consciously lived under any
other. The only reason I would vote Labour is because I think Brown is probably a better PM then Blair and he deserves a chance to institute his reforms. One further reason would be to stop the conservatives from gaining power.Voting for the Conservatives would be a throughly un-rational decision for me. This is made clear by the following logic; you vote for someone because you share or ascribe to the beliefs and policies they promote. The Conservatives appear to stand for everything, think nothing is right and somewhere, (hidden presumably) have all the answers. Therefore to vote for them ...
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other. The only reason I would vote Labour is because I think Brown is probably a better PM then Blair and he deserves a chance to institute his reforms. One further reason would be to stop the conservatives from gaining power.Voting for the Conservatives would be a throughly un-rational decision for me. This is made clear by the following logic; you vote for someone because you share or ascribe to the beliefs and policies they promote. The Conservatives appear to stand for everything, think nothing is right and somewhere, (hidden presumably) have all the answers. Therefore to vote for them would require an enormous range of views, even bigger selection of dislikes and a huge amount of trust- none of which I posses. David Cameron is clearly a very nice man with a very nice family but he just doesn’t represent society or even seem to be totally aware of it. Treating the electorate like they’re stupid isn’t the way to go about anything either.On a more direct, subjective level, voting Lib Dem has many advantages. For example, I use the train network regularly and Labour has not been kind. Since they came to power train delays have doubled, services have been cut and we have the highest fares in Europe. £10 will get you over 200 miles in Italy, over 100 in France but just 38 in Britain. If I were ever to commute in the future, as someone entering the working world, I would find fairs cutting into my budget quite a bit. I find what the Conservatives have to say quite funny. Not for the first time they criticise Labour for their handling of private rail companies- when it was them that privatised the railways in the first place! They make vague promises about expanding rail capacity and making it the ‘heart’ of the transport system, but carelessly neglect to explain how. I don’t really mind how big or central the railway is, will there be more trains? Will they be more punctual? In fact their entire transport policy seems to revolve around questions. I quote David Cameron in a recent speech about the subject ‘How do we tax the carbon emissions of planes when aircraft can just refuel abroad? How do we tackle this challenge when air travel is governed by long-standing international conventions?These are complex questions with no easy answers. But too often from this Government we see initiatives that are just superficial, short-term spin.’He then went on to talk about something else entirely. On the other hand, the Lib Dems have promised to... ‘reform the system so there would be fewer franchises. Each franchise would last longer than 7 years, even up to 20 years and to get the contract, companies would be required to promise to invest for the long term, to improve services. At the end of a contract there would be a presumption in favour of renewal, and if the company has delivered on its promises the contract would not just be handed over to the lowest bidder. A good train operator would be rewarded for keeping its promises and acting responsibly in the long term interest of passengers’. I can see there are flaws in this, but it at least seems to set a good platform for the future, and is loosely based on rail systems that have been very successful- such as in scandinavian countries.I would also vote for the Liberal Democrats on the grounds that out of the big three parties, they have the most green leaning policies that seem achievable and not too compromising.This is demonstrated through their stance on Air Passenger Duty. They would transport the tax from the passenger to the plane, leaving the air companies to find new ways of making flying more ecological and stop them from flying half empty. This idea would be applied to the consumer side of things as well- making it profitable to buy vehicles that pollute less (I.E. increasing or decreasing Vehicle Excise Duty as necessary). I think its time people driving environment damaging cars must recognise the cost. Another thing the government really needs to sort out and allow is transparency of spending- so people know where their money is going. I think if people could see what little difference top-up and tuition fees have made, they would be less willing to support them. I agree with the Conservative notion of supporting small businesses as a lot of entrepreneurial spirit seems to be lacking in todays society. This could be achieved a lot easier though, if the country were to adopt the Lib Dems 50% tax on those earning over 100,000 and with a switch to income tax. Income tax is much fairer, and more financially supportive to those that need it the most. Don’t get me wrong though, I think Labour and Brown in particular managed the economy well. They did the right thing in letting the Bank of England decide inflation rates and keeping unemployment down. However, now that Gordon is PM, will Alistair Darling be able to continue in his footsteps? He certainly has a lot of experience as an MP (serving as a frontbencher under Neil Kinnock), but has never had this sort of role before. He is usually seen as the person to turn around and restore public faith in failing departments, such was the case when he moved to the Department for Transport in the wake of the Railtrack debacle. Maybe he could do some good though, as it seems that often the government is unfairly reflected in the newspapers and on the streets. Take the NHS for example. In all my experience it has provided excellent service. All this scandalising and constant criticism does nothing but devalue the profession of millions of hard working doctors and nurses. To be blunt, this is one issue on which the other parties also seem incapable of coming up with a feasible solution. The only thing the Lib Dems propose is decentralising the NHS and making it into a series of local institutions. I do not think this would work as in the first place it would lead to great inconsistencies in national healthcare and also we must remember and learn from what has happened in the past. Labour showed us what rapid change can do to the NHS. I do not believe the reforms they introduced were wrong, just they were not given enough time to sort themselves out before Westminster changed its mind. On this issue the Conservatives again favour to point out everything that is wrong with the current system rather than actually suggest any solid changes. I’d like to say this is reactionary politics, but there isn’t enough substance to show its politics at all. You get the impression of an old woman whining on the bus. When the Conservatives aren’t trying to cover up their blatant lack of ideas, they’re copying another party’s ideology. The closest they come to something I agree with is on the subject of the lower classes and their contribution to social decline. To begin with, they highlight all that is wrong, but then move on to something that might vaguely resemble an approach to governing the country. In a (surprising) moving report on social breakdown by Ian Duncan Smith, he lays advises the government on plans to restore faith and tax advantages in marriage. He also suggests that those at the bottom of society would benifit more if the government gave a helping hand to people working in the voluntary sector, I.E. those closest to the problems. It is strange, reading these policy recommendations, as it almost appears the Conservatives have gone very Labour all of a sudden. I quote, ‘The traditional ‘laissez-faire’ approach understands poverty simply as a product of wrong personal choices about family, drugs, crime and schooling. That view says that poverty is always the fault of the person who makes the wrong choices. On the other side of the political divide, the elimination of poverty is seen principally as the job of government – thus if a person is in poverty it must be the government’s fault and it must be the government that develops a top down solution to the problem.’This is all very well, as I’m sure most of the advice that goes through the Conservative party must be, but at one point or another, wires get crossed, and we end up with a policy like their solution to over flowing jails. The one notion they have come forward with is to put a penny on Council Tax and build more prisons. It seems to me that they have little idea how to deal with the problem, and simply make promises that they hope will win them votes. Over-crowded prisons are one thing, but surely the right way to go about this problem is to look at why people so readily re-offend and the sentencing system. Building a lot of new prisons is a policy of failure. It is trying to accommodate the fact that the government can’t deal with many forms of violent crime. I’m surprised the tories didn’t just try and point out Labours failings in this department- a rather telling point in fact: they don’t have a clue what to do about crime, as Camerons coldly passionate but desperately upper-class assertions about youth offenders show.Labour admits it has a problem here as well, as it has failed to reduce some forms of crime and re-offending. Also, fear of crime is higher than actual crime, although probably better than the other way around is not a good sign of public response to reforms. The Lib Dems say they will work to stop the prison system from continuing to exist in its ‘revolving door’ state, as well as offering more support to victims. Its sounds all well and good, but some of their solutions seem flawed, such as the establishment of a Violent Offenders list. Even so, it sounds a better idea than building more prisons. One thing that does make me angry at the Lib Dems is their pro-euro stance. I think that maybe when the notion was put forward, there were many arguments for joining the continent in the single currency. But for one reason or another we didn’t, and as time has gone on those arguments have faded away. I think compromising our strong economical state at the moment would be a poor decision on behalf of the nation. Even foreseeable negative side-effects of having a strong currency have yet to surface. Our tourism industry is still thriving and we trade freely within the EU. Despite this, the Lib Dems redeem themselves on many counts by having the most youth directed policy, and in some ways, the fairest. No top up or tuition fees, free care for the elderly and a full pledge to reduce the public/state school gap. They the only real chance of a party with green credentials getting into power and I believe what is letting them down at the moment is the public view of their leader, who is seen as old and boring, general ignorance about their polices and for fear that a vote for them is a vote lost for Labour is a vote gained for the Conservatives. Still, it makes the most sense for me and ultimately, for the country. Harry Quinn Schone
