The 2024 general election will be the 19th in my lifetime, but the first I can recall is the 1964 election when Harold Wilson and the Labour party scraped by with a tiny overall majority of four. A myth has escaped the net of factual knowledge which alleges that the 1966 general election was won by Labour because of England’s win in the World Cup of the same year. In fact the election was held on 31 March 1966 and the World Cup final took place four months later on 30 July 1966.
The ‘Wet Prime Minister Election’
Sometimes elections have names; for instance, the 1900 election was called the ‘Khaki Election’ because of an outbreak of jingoism after the relief of Mafeking during the Boer War which favoured candidates supporting the war and which continued for two more bloody years, much to Britain’s detriment. The 1918 election was called the ‘Coupon Election’ because candidates supporting the David Lloyd George coalition were sent letters of endorsement by the coalition leaders, Lloyd George and Bonar Law, and these were nicknamed ‘coalition coupons’. In other words, it was an electoral pact against a divided opposition. The 1929 election, which led to the second minority Labour government, was called the ‘Flapper Election’ because of the Representation of the People Act 1928, which gave women from 21 to 29 years old the right to vote. (When I was a small boy, I once asked my granny if she had been a flapper and got a funny look. Mind you, I had also previously asked her if she had met Boadicea after a school history lesson on the Romans).
Nowadays, we don’t seem to name our general elections, more’s the pity. Perhaps this one could be called the ‘Wet Prime Minister Election’ or the ‘Bore Wars Election’ or ‘It’s the Ming Vase Versus Old Crock Election’?
Opinion polls
Will it be a sea change election in terms of 1945 or 1979; who is to say? From the lacklustre manifestos of the two leading parties, it would appear not. Labour seem terrified to appear respectable and the Tories seem hell-bent on tax cuts while the nation appears more concerned about the state of public services.
The opinion polls have been fairly consistent, with the BBC poll tracker showing a continuous substantial lead for Labour over the Conservatives. Reform UK have steadily increased their poll rating with the Liberal Democrats and Greens both holding steady. This would appear to be bad news for the Conservatives, as often there is a tendency for incumbents to do better on the basis of better the devil you know rather than one you don’t. However, in this case, the current government has a legacy of behaving like an incontinent badger with the public administration and the feeling is that this should change, with even the Conservative-leaning Sunday Times endorsing Labour. Unless the polls have mistaken public opinion, the view is growing that the Conservatives cannot win, but instead consider how badly they will lose. The number of Conservative MPs in the next parliament ranges from a bad 200 to a catastrophic 58 in some poll calculations.
Make your vote count
The Conservatives have seemingly lost their heart and soul. Many Tories are hoping that the result will not be as bad as the worst cases predicted by pollsters. And they may also be right in that the effects of Reform UK eating into the Tory vote may be overstated and that tactical voting may not be as effective. There is, of course, a substantial ‘don’t know’ cohort of voters who may be shy Tories; it happened before in 1992 but it is all a bit desperate.
Whatever the turnout, go out there and vote! All the moaning and whining about all parties being the same and never doing anything for the people is because the electorate has consistently preferred to believe fairy stories about having cake and eating it, never ending tax cuts, and how Johnny Foreigner will do our bidding after Brexit. Now we have to clear the Augean stable, insist on probity, and accept that we have to knuckle down and face reality.
