Hung Parliament: can tactical voting save us?

Back in late February, I wrote an article entitled “So, what chances a hung Parliament?” which was basically a pointer to an article by Daniel Hannan in which he claims that David Cameron is still on course to win. Of course, last week’s “debate” has changed things dramatically, and made a hung Parliament far more likely. It’s interesting to see that I’ve been proven right, and Dan Hannan wrong (at least, I expect to be proven right on May 7).

The article above also referred to a much longer piece entitled “Can David Cameron win this election or not?” which I had written the day before, in which I examined in some detail the chances of a hung Parliament, and the mountain David Cameron had to climb in order to win a working majority. It’s worth revisiting those, and Dan Hannan’s blog, to put some context on the discussion hereafter.

So, we’ve had the first Leaders’ debate, and the LibDems have had a massive upsurge in the polls, all pointing even more strongly to a hung Parliament. Worse, it could well mean that the vagaries of our boundaries could leave Gordon Brown with more seats as a result of fewer votes, and the Libs Dems proportionally even worse off, but with far more seats than they already have. Currently the poll of polls has this as the state of play:

Conservative: 34% (307 seats)
Labour: 28% (253 seats)
LibDems: 27% (60 seats)
Others 11% (30 seats)

Bookies have the odds of a hung Parliament at around 60%

By any measure, this is an absolute disaster for David Cameron…

For me, as an instinctive but disaffected Conservative voter, and I know I’m not alone, the issue is Cameron, his campaign, and his policies. Whatever it is he’s doing, or not doing, it just isn’t working, and he’s only got a few days to get it right. I take no pleasure in saying that he’s about 18 months too late to sort it out, and that he’s been wrong-headed all along. The buck stops, etc.

As I have often said, UKIP’s 13 page Manifesto is the one the Tories should be proposing, and rather than dismissing UKIP as irrelevant, and calling them “the BNP in blazers”: they should be engaging with them. After all, UKIP is where most of the disaffected Tories have gone. Lord Pearson has even offered to stand aside for Euro-sceptic Tories…

Cameron needs to take on board the fact that ignoring UKIP won’t make it go away just because the Conservative Party wants it to, and that calling UKIP supporters “a bunch of fruitcakes and loonies and closet racists” as he did in April 2006 isn’t the best idea he ever had. Further, it’s a bit rich telling potential UKIP voters that by voting UKIP we’ll all “get Brown”, when Cameron has spurned Lord Pearson’s offer.

I just don’t get the part where the Tories’ best argument against UKIP’s policies is “Vote for us because we’re not Gordon Brown”. It seems clear to me that having failed to inspire any enthusiasm for its own policies and manifesto, the Tory Party now faces the prospect of not winning a clear majority at the General Election. And that’s nobody’s fault but their own! Given the leanings of voters turning to UKIP, the Conservative’s only anti-UKIP strategy seems to be abusive about and contemptuous of the party and its voters. Hardly clever when the Tories were leading to polls, now it looks downright stupid.

Let’s all remember that UKIP finished second in the 2009 European Parliament elections with some 16.5 per cent, or 2.49 million votes. In Eastern England, the relevance of which will become clear later, it polled more than 313,000 votes. It ended up with 13 MEPs – the same number as Labour: hardly the performance of an irrelevance. Indeed, at the next European Parliament elections, UKIP could easily top the poll, pushing the Tories into second or even third place.

The Conservative Party, and its members and supporters, need to understand that UKIP won’t just go away however much they wish it would, and they need to start dealing with it in a mature, realistic and intelligent way.

Things may change after the next Leaders’ debate, not least because it seems to me that all those banging on about how wonderful Nick Clegg is must have been watching a different programme to the one I did. Clearly, the electorate is far more fickle, far more gullible than even an old sceptic like me already thought. I suppose the fact that New Labour were elected 3 times, and that 30% of the population appears to think that the Prime Mentalist is doing a good job should’ve given me a clue or two…

Take, as a simple and recent example, the Prime Mentalist and Alastair Darling’s claim that the Tory plan to stop the “Jobs Tax” would put the recovery at risk by taking £6Billion “out of the economy”. This is clearly fatuous nonsense, but both keep on about it, and neither Cameron nor Osborne has properly countered it. Pray tell me, just how can NOT levying a tax take money OUT of the economy? It can only do that if the economy is defined as “the Government’s finances”. It isn’t, the economy includes the private sector, in fact, most of the economy is the private sector. NOT taking £6Billion in tax from the private sector, especially a tax on jobs, however small it is in real terms per employee, is the opposite of taking it out of the “economy”.

Worse, neither Cameron nor Osborne ever mentions that £6Billion is 1%, yes ONE PERCENT of the economy, and if the recovery is so fragile that it will falter because we don’t levy a new tax, then someone, somewhere, is hiding something. Gordon?

Which brings me to tactical voting, something I haven’t been a big fan of in the past. Times and circumstances have changed, however, and I think that now we all have to look at it anew, and grasp the realities of what we face here.

I’m not fully au fait with the rest of the country, maybe the other 2 Scourers not in Suffolk could comment, but as I live here, and it fits anyway, I’m going to use Suffolk as an example.

We have the following constituencies in Suffolk, all of which have been messed about by boundary changes, albeit not too much:

Bury St. Edmunds
Suffolk Central and Ipswich North
Suffolk Coastal
Suffolk South

and Ipswich.

This was the state of play in 2005, which is expected to be reflected in May this year, taking the rural seats first:

The situation is crystal clear:

There will be a Conservative MP returned in all of these seats.

In Suffolk South, where the Lib Dems are already 2nd, is it unlikely, even given current polls, that they will take the seat, but in all the others, there is a high likelihood of them pushing Labour into 3rd place.

The other parties have no chance.

For tactical voting purposes, there’s not much scope, and I’d suggest that everyone goes with their heart on this one. Lib Dems may even secure second place here, which would be a good result for them. For UKIP supporters, or those disaffected Tories leaning towards UKIP who live in these constituencies, PLEASE vote UKIP! It won’t jeopardise the seat which is safe, but it will send a very strong message to CCHQ which will have to be attended to in the post election analysis. This is your only way of forcing a re-think and some change in the Conservative Party if you want to see more UKIP-like policies appearing. The ONLY way…

Now let’s look at Ipswich, an entirely different kettle of fish…

Ipswich is a marginal seat, and no. 109 on the Conservative list of target seats, requiring a swing of 6% to take it.

Chris Mole, the incumbent MP is, in my opinion, seat-polishing lobby-fodder who does whatever the Whips tell him. Although he was relatively honest (only by comparison with most of his peers) in his expense claims (note that he has been covertly funding the Labour Party by means of renting his office on Parliamentary expenses, and has a penchant for the sort of TV most of us can only dream about), he hasn’t exactly set the town on fire during his tenure. He has also made the odd faux-pas over some emotive local issues, and has seen his majority decline in percentage terms since he was elected in a by-election in 2001.

The Lib Dem candidate was parachuted in from London in the last couple of weeks, and has utterly no chance of winning this seat. Had they chosen one of the perfectly capable local candidates, they probably had a chance of coming second.

The Tory candidate, Ben Gummer, has had a good campaign so far, and is, in my opinion, a good PPC. He is active, meets and greets, and is very personable. He also has the benefit of having had a real job, and runs a small business. I diverge strongly from him on AGW and the EU, and he is well aware of my views on David Cameron whom, – unsurprisingly – he supports. Nonetheless, I believe he will be a good MP for Ipswich, and this seat is vital to toppling this awful Government.

Tactical voting: well, herein lies the crux of it, no doubt reflected across the country in seats like Ipswich, and in my case, representing a serious personal dilemma.

Labour support here appears to be as tribal as it is everywhere else. I truly don’t understand why Labour voters appear to be completely unable to look critically at their Party and its performance, and to decide to switch allegiance to another as a consequence. This has to be, by far, the worst Government in living memory, with the worst records across the board, with the worst MPs, the most sleaze, etc., etc. and yet, I’ll bet a good 30-35% of the votes cast in Ipswich will be for Chris Mole.

Lib Dems need to take a long hard look at how they are going to vote here. Leaving aside past history, which isn’t good, they now have, largely thanks to Central Office, utterly no chance of winning Ipswich as opposed to what was at best a slim one. A vote for the Lib Dems really is a vote for Labour. If you’re a Lib Dem, and the idea of another 5 years of Labour incompetence and sleaze appeals, then go ahead, vote Lib Dem. If you want to see a change, any change, vote Conservative. The choice is, frankly black and white there. Don’t let the polls, or any media-hyped support for Nick Clegg lead you astray: here in Ipswich it’s vote for Ben Gummer or get 5 more years of Mole and Brown.

Now my personal dilemma… As a UKIP supporter I know that the same applies to me as it does to Lib Dem supporters. As much as I want to punch Cameron on the nose and knock some bloody sense into him, I know that here in Ipswich, a UKIP vote is a wasted one. How I wish I could vote in a Suffolk rural seat…

It is my view that we will have a hung Parliament, that the Tories will be the majority party by a tiny margin, and that the LibDems and Liebour will be pretty well on a par for seats. This will really test Cameron’s mettle, and I suspect that the Parliament will “do a ‘74″ and collapse after a few months.

The Tories, in those few months, will have to deal with the cost of growing support for UKIP. This will require at least policy changes, and possibly Cameron his leadership. It is for this reason that I urge all UKIP voters in safe Tory seats to vote UKIP. I further urge all Lib Dem and UKIP supporters in marginal seats where it’s a Tory/Labour choice to vote Tory. We in UKIP have already had this sanctioned by Lord Pearson, Lib Dems will have to wrestle with their consciences…

One last thought; if they do bring in PR, watch the rise and rise of UKIP. If we had PR in Ipswich, I’d be voting UKIP without hesitation.