While PM Gordon Brown has yet to officially call a general election in Britain, it is widely assumed that it will happen 56 days from today when the English local elections are scheduled. For two years, the consensus has been that a Tory victory is inevitable. After the failed experiment that was the Iraq War, a faltering economy and a falling pound, fortunes have slightly turned for Labour in the run-up to the Gordon Brown’s first contest as leader. While even now few think Labour will garner enough seats to maintain an outright electoral majority, there is an increasingly possibility for a hung Parliament, lending a modicum of power to the third-party Liberal Democrats (who are likely to lose seats in the general). I’ll talk the importance of this in later posts, especially given the the prospective overhaul of the entire electoral system.
Policy implications aside, the interesting aspect of the past few months in British politics is the rapidly changing narrative. While the Tories never really consistently polled much above 40% (Labour received 43.2% in 1997, for example, and have inherent advantages as the seats are slightly gerrymandered in their favor) they still were ahead by 12-20 points for much of the last two years. Yet, approaching the election they keep slipping, Labour gaining and the Lib Dems staying rather constant. Specifics aside, as we look forward toward November, and the expectation of a massive Democratic loss here in America, it is important to take such wild swings of public opinion into consideration. The narrative of September, October, November is not the narrative of January, February and March, it never has been.
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