UK Election 2015 – My Take

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On Friday I asked Gippsland Laborite whether he’d be prepared to write a post analysing the UK election – once the horsetrading was done and the result was known. Well, as we all know, there was no need for horsetrading, so GL’s piece arrived much sooner than I had originally anticipated. The academic in me is tempted to include the sort of comment usually put on essays by excellent students. I’ll restrain myself to saying that, given the quality of GL’s comments at The Pub, I am not in the least surprised by the clarity of this piece. Many thanks indeed, Gippsland Laborite, for your debut threadstarter. I look forward to reading much more of your work!

(Image Credit: The Huffington Post)

To the surprise of almost everyone, the Tories won a majority in the UK elections. Given that everyone thought that the result would be neck and neck the first thing that we should look at is, “how the hell did this happen.”

On the surface Labour led by Ed Miliband ran a good campaign, rather than the gaffe-ridden nightmare that the naysayers were saying he would run, that included a number of solid policies such as freezing energy prices, axing the bedroom tax (reduction in housing benefit for people living in council homes who had more bedrooms than people), strengthening the National Health Service (NHS), and making the rich pay their fair share. These policies were shown to be popular with voters. However, Labour also had to contend with not only a relentless Tory scare campaign about a Labour-SNP coalition in which Ed Miliband would either be in Alex Salmond’s pocket, or have his strings pulled by Nicola Sturgeon, and eventually leading to the destruction and ruination of the United Kingdom, but also relentless attacks from the Murdochs and the Rothermeres in the press on Ed Miliband’s policies and on Miliband himself. In the end, despite the polls, the fear about the SNP among English voters, shamelessly stoked by the Tories and their media mates, definitely stole a great deal of oxygen from the Labour campaign.

Results

Conservatives: 36.8%, 331 seats +25
Labour: 30.4%, 232 seats -24
SNP: 4.7%, 56 seats +50
Lib Dems: 7.9%, 8 seats -48
UKIP: 12.6%, 1 seat
Others: 7.6%, 22 seats

The Tories had a good night and no longer have to placate the Lib Dems to stay in office and can do whatever they want.

For Labour the result ranged from a mixed bag to a disaster. The disaster, as everyone knows, happened in Scotland where Labour lost all but one of the seats they held going in to this election. Labour really needs to have a good long think about where it went wrong and how to fix it without resorting to any quick and cheap fixes that will inevitably backfire. Labour also didn’t do as well as they hoped in Wales: while they gained Cardiff Central from the Lib Dems, they failed to gain Cardiff North, one of their top targets from the Tories, and lost the seats of Gower and Vale of Clwyd to the Tories. In England, Labour made a net gain of fifteen seats. However, these were concentrated in London and the North of England and in some areas the party lost seats to the Tories, including the seat held by Shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer Ed Balls. In England the Tories’ fear campaign certainly helped them fend off Labour in a number of key marginals, especially in the Midlands where Labour made very little progress in an area they need to win in order to form government.

For the Lib Dems this election was a complete catastrophe. In terms of votes and seats this is their worst result since 1970 and voters decisively punished the party for going into coalition with the Tories. During the Blair years, the Lib Dems positioned themselves as the left wing alternative to Labour that voters angry over the Iraq War and tuition fee rises could flock to. Entering the coalition ensured that these voters would abandon the party en masse. While Nick Clegg held on to his seat a large number of high profile Lib Dems did not, including former leader Charles Kennedy, and Cabinet Ministers, Vince Cable, Danny Alexander, Ed Davey and Simon Hughes, and the party is facing a return to the wilderness years of the 1950s and 60s unless something dramatic happens.

For the SNP it was undoubtedly a triumph, winning all but three seats in Scotland. However, they will not hold balance of power and I think this poses a problem. The SNP’s campaign was focused on two points: locking the Tories out of Number Ten and giving Scotland the balance of power in a hung parliament through electing a large number of SNP MPs. The first did not happen, and secondly, the party will have to answer this question, what is their block of MPs actually going to achieve given that they don’t have any influence whatsoever?

UKIP got the third highest number of votes of any party and came second in a number of Tory strongholds in the South of England as well as in several Labour strongholds in the North of England and in the South Wales Valleys, even though they only got one MP elected and Nigel Farage failed to get in to the House of Commons. This could potentially be a springboard for even greater results. However, they could hit a brick wall if the Tories start copying their rhetoric and policies (like what happened with One Nation here in Australia).

Finally, despite all the hype, the Green surge fizzed out with the party only winning 3.8% of the vote and only getting one MP in to the House of Commons.

What’s Next for Britain?

Now that there’s a Tory majority, the party will feel no need to placate anyone else and will be able to do whatever it pleases, which will undoubtedly be a disaster for most of the United Kingdom. In addition, there will also be a referendum, most likely in 2017, on the UK’s future in the European Union, which could have the potential to divide the United Kingdom even further than it already is now.

And what of the future of the Union itself? There’s no denying that the Conservatives, through their appeal to English nationalism, have done more than anyone to put the future of the Union at risk but it is too soon to say whether a second Scottish independence referendum is inevitable. Already Cameron and Osborne are making noises about granting full fiscal autonomy to the Parliament in Edinburgh and we’ll need to see how that plays out. In conclusion, we can say that, with the results of this election, several cans of worms have now been opened and what happens next under the Conservatives will affect the United Kingdom for decades to come.

(Image Credit: Image Arcade)

616 thoughts on “UK Election 2015 – My Take”

  5. That would have to have been the worst 7.30 Report I have ever seen. Lee Sales virtually spat out her questions to Shorten and scowled at each answer, attempting to interrupt at every opportunity.

    Thankfully, Shorten was a damn sight smarter than she gave him credit for & only fell for the bait when he knew he was on solid ground & able to slam her over the boundary fence which he did with relish.

    Shorten’s Budget Reply Speech was right up there with the best of them I have seen in the past 20 years or so.

    I hope Sales remembered to renew her Liberal Party Membership when the renewal notice arrived! 😉

  6. Aguirre,

    I’m not watching 7.30 – can’t abide Ms.Sales. Uhlmann look stunned and his summing up of Shorten’s speech was somewhat tame.

  7. Fiona – what the hell is going on is that the MSM barely give Shorten any airtime. Most of what he says or does is routinely ignored, and when speaking to him becomes unavoidable, as with tonight for instance, they do what Sales just did and attack him on irrelevancies.

    Sales had two approaches: demand fully costed modelling for everything Shorten mentioned in his budget reply, and lambast him as out of touch because the ALP has links to unions. That second approach sounded especially churlish.

    I didn’t mind the approach Sales took with Shorten tonight. She attempted to make him accountable for what he brought up in his Budget reply, which is what she’s supposed to do. But the content of her actual questions was terrible. She sounded exactly like a Coalition MP would sound – if that MP was in opposition, and in a debate with the PM. Narrow focus, restricting herself only to areas where the Coalition might be able to score cheap points, and misleading in the assumptions she brought to the questions. You expect a journalist to be able to bring something useful to light and to leave the viewer with a better understanding of what is laudable or lacking in the interviewee. But you won’t get that by parroting “where’s the money coming from” over and over again. You have to be more subtle than that.

  8. scorpio6to2,

    I watched about a minute of Leigh “Gotcha” Soldout’s effort before giving up.

    Nice work by Alex Ellinghausen in the photo attached to this article:

  9. Bloody good speech by Bill Shorten…Labor sounds like what a government should sound like.

  11. Aguirre,

    I’m almost missing the days when virtually every ABC news bulletin started with the words, “The Leader of the Opposition says . . .”.

    My question was rhetorical, but I thoroughly enjoyed and agreed with your skewering snapshot of sales.

    She isn’t a journalist’s bootlace, and given the current standard of journalism in Australia, that is a serious insult.

  13. Question for anyone who watched hockey’s budget speech. Was there applause from the gallery?

    Not I.

    Wasn’t it Abbott that started the rowdy, supportive gallery thing? Karma.

  14. Thank you to the woofle dusters for the photo enlargement and editing out the article. 🙂

  16. jaeger

    Thanks, sorry you put yourself through it, but appreciate your response. On that note, 200klm round trip is starting to take it’s toll, night all.

  18. Gravel…there was great cheer from the gallery, so that BBish had to warn the gallery several times.

  19. Aguirre,

    I wasn’t going to pass up an opportunity like that!

    I would have been disappointed if you had 😉

  21. Just Me posted this over the road. (I know you’re in there, BK – come out with your hands up!)

  22. To be cruel but honest, this is one UXB I’d be delighted to see go up in the regime’s face.

    That can only mean one thing, assuming the government still cares about the budget at all: more cuts. Lots of them. Serious cuts. Cuts like the ones that set the country on fire and decimated the government’s political prospects a year ago. Even as it stands, the government’s forecast reduced deficits over time rely on one of the most controversial cuts of them all: the $80 billion it took away from health and education in last year’s budget. That’s still there. In fact, it’s among the biggest elements in this budget. There can only be more of that kind of thing to come. And the thing about cuts is they almost always affect the most disadvantaged people most, for the very good reason that they’re usually the ones already most reliant on government spending. That revives the fairness problem. And that would take this government back to ground zero.

    That’s why it’s worth remembering how we got here. How it is the government ended up with such a diabolical debut budget that it had to abrogate all of its principles within a year. That budget was a product of a series of contradictory promises: to abolish taxes, cut nothing and somehow return the budget to surplus. Something had to give. Abbott’s pre-election promises meant he had booby-trapped his own budget.

    But now the government is booby-trapping future ones. It’s pledging to reduce the debt, raise no taxes and always be fair. Again, something will have to give. So again, what now? Because if recent history has taught us anything, it’s that you can win elections on such contradictory foundations, but it’s diabolical to govern on them.

    http://www.theage.com.au/comment/watch-out-this-is-a-boobytrapped-budget-20150514-gh17td

  23. Waiving all HECS debts for STEM courses? Magnificent stuff.

    Overall a great BiR speech.

  27. The government promising to raise no taxes – but keeping schtum about the 17 new taxes in the budget. As are most of the MSM.

  28. Waiving all HECS debts for STEM courses? Magnificent stuff.

    I wondered if the spontaneous applause cut him off mid-sentence; it sounded that way. (“Waiving all HECS debts for STEM courses … if you become a STEM teacher”? etc.)

  29. Oi! I posted that Moir cartoon here this morning……..

    Woofle dust to aisle 1000 apologies…

  32. Over the road. Never mind…

    Slartibartfast: Come. Come now or you will be late.
    Arthur: Late? What for?
    Slartibartfast: What is your name, human?
    Arthur: Dent. Arthur Dent.
    Slartibartfast: Late as in the late Dentarthurdent. It’s a sort of threat, you see. I’ve never been terribly good at them myself but I’m told they can be terribly effective.

  33. Jaeger,

    All good, 2gravel – sleep well!

    Going by the looks on the faces of the rabble during the Budget Reply Speech, (Bish junior, a stand-out, closely followed by Pyne) there could be some restless sleep amongst the government benches tonight, I expect.

    Somehow, I don’t think that they expected that they would be so thoroughly dissected and eviscerated by Labor this evening!

    I enjoyed it immensely!

  37. http://www.abc.net.au/pm/content/2015/s4235865.htm

    http://www.afr.com/news/policy/budget/federal-budget-2015-budget-cuts-not-enough-to-deal-with-shortfall-says-shorten-20150514-gh19h8

    http://www.nature.com/news/australia-takes-university-cash-to-pay-for-research-facilities-1.17556

    http://www.weeklytimesnow.com.au/news/politics/food-labelling-to-stay-off-the-table-for-months/story-fnkerdda-1227353046084

    http://www.bbc.com/news/world-australia-32733369

    http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/david-cameron-faces-tory-backbench-rebellion-over-plans-to-scrap-the-human-rights-act-10248313.html

  38. Interesting to hear Emma Alberici spit venom over abbott’s anti double dipper/ rorter PPL scheme during ABC 702 journo’s forum this arvo. Hilarious.The same Alberbitchi who gave Gillard & Labor such a hard time on Lateline whilst going oh so softly with abbott and the coalition circus.

    Even Annabel “I wet my panties everytime I see t abbott” Crabbe has called out abbott’s hypocrisy in his PPL in her Drum article. Who’da thunk that tones would ever upset crabby? Is the school girl crush finally over?

    http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-05-14/crabb-budget-2015-the-tradies-v-the-ladies-really/6470500

    Well gals, the age of entitlement is over. Stop whinging like leaners. You played your role in undermining our First Female Prime Minister. Preferred to be swayed by a spiv than support a Woman of Compassion & Vision. You are both a disgrace to your gender and profession.

  40. Vote1Julia,

    Add to the female gallery of shame Heather Ewart, Fran Kelly, Great Auntie Michelle, Miranda the Less than Divine, Janet Planetalbrechtsen, Niki Savva, Disgraceful Collier.

    Wannabe alpha males, the lot of them.

  43. I would sentence the whole bunch of those botches to gender reassignment surgery. If they like big swing dicks so much they can each have one sewn on.

  44. Johnny Depp.
    Hey, wanker. Get those dogs out of our country NOW. We take bio-security very seriously in Australia. You cannot just waltz in here in your private jet with possible rabies carriers.

    As an animal advocate, I say you have no right to put my animals and me at risk from a disease which we are lucky enough not to have in this continent. If the bats get the rabies virus god help us because there will be sick people and millions of dead dogs.

    And all you fools signing petitions. WAKE THE F#CK UP. Send your signatures to Johnny ‘law unto myself ‘ Depp castigating him for putting those two innocent pooches at risk of being euthanised, and risking the health and lives of OUR pets. (Selfish prick)

    Tell him to get those poor little things back to the USA immediately.

    And Johnny, you can bloody well go with them. The ASPCA should prosecute you for animal endangerment when you gets back.

    Dickhead.

  46. The trouble with Barnaby is that he is just looking for a diversion – a unicorn – so as to avoid talk on domestic affair. We know he doesn’t care much about animals. We saw it during the live bait episode.

    As for Depp, he should be at least fined as smugglers usually are. These actors would do anything for publicity, even endangering the life of their dogs. Why can’t these poodles just go into quarantine and be adopted by someone? Why euthanise them. It’s monstrous.

  47. Leigh Sales’ profound dislike for Julia Gillard resurfaces at each opportunity. To Shorten: “Why would people vote for Labor and risk the instability of the Rudd/Gillard govt?” Shorten had a good answer. What a shrew!

  49. Maybe Depp just didn’t know our quarantine laws? The dogs should be sent back or put in quarantine—euthanasing them is not needed, surely? A unicorn indeed.

  50. Leroy

    #WarOnTerrier: Australia reacts to Depp’s dogs – BBC News

    Social media users react to the news that Johnny Depp’s dogs, Boo and Pistol, could be euthanised after being brought into the country unofficially.

    ‘Unofficially’???

    How about illegally?

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