As does occasionally happen:
The electoral arithmetic remains very unfavourable for the Tories. They got only 8,772,598 votes last time (Labour, admittedly, got only 9.5 million). When they last won a general election, in 1992, they got 14,093,007. Although by-elections now show huge swings, the Labour position in this year’s less volatile local elections was not atrocious. In 1978, for example, the Conservatives had 24 seats in Liverpool, 33 in Newcastle and 46 in Manchester. Today, after what was considered their success in May, they have a total of one seat between the three (in Manchester). In the elections to the Greater London Assembly which took place at the same time as Boris Johnson won the mayoralty, Labour increased its vote in 12 out of the 14 boroughs. Yes, Mr Brown is terribly unpersuasive; yes, Labour will be blamed for economic woes; yes, the Labour tide is going out. But it does not automatically follow that, next time, it must lose.
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No political party in this country has ever recovered from the position that the Socialists now find themselves in in the polls. The Tories may not win the next General Election outright, but the Socialists will definitely lose it.
ReplyDeleteOh, I think that is quite likely. But so what? They are exactly the same politically.
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