Oh dear...

"It turns out to be all leaflets and trudging and stubby pencils..."

Anyone who doesn’t enjoy politics would be well advised to avoid today’s papers. Not only is there the masses of detailed analysis of the election results that always follows an election – loads of wonderful pie charts, tables, and multi-coloured maps – but there’s also story after story about hung parliament discussions and possibilities.

I would, though, recommend one piece in particular: Suzanne Moore’s column in the Mail on Sunday. Moore stood as a candidate at this election, in Hackney North and Stoke Newington. She is a little coy about her performance (she got 285 votes, or 0.6%), but the piece is worth reading for the insights that standing gave her about politics:

It is easy enough to watch The Thick of It and read spin-doctors’ diaries and look at blogs and imagine endless sophisticated strategising. It turns out to be all leaflets and trudging and stubby pencils and rows of people counting paper under strip lighting. It’s not about grand policy statements but listening to people rant about parking. Or the arms trade. Or their burst pipes. Or their rents. Or Afghanistan. Politicians, I now realised, over-promise because somehow punters ask them.

To which, the only response is: welcome to politics.

Perhaps all columnists in major papers – especially those who frequently pontificate about the political process – should be made to go through a similar experience, so that they understand what it is that they write about.

And yes, the same would apply to politics academics.

Professor Philip Cowley

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times...

This has been, without question, one of the most intriguing and unpredictable of elections in living memory. For political scientists and media commentators alike, it generated huge anticipation and a real sense of excitement about the outcome.

Blog sites like this one have attracted much attention, particularly from journalists looking for insight and new angles.


The television debates also injected a sense of dynamism and freshness to the well-worn routine of election campaigning, which used to be dominated by morning press conferences, poster launches, and carefully stage managed events.

However, for all the excitement amongst the commentariat, academics and other assorted anoraks, it appears that the wider public has not been so engaged. When I talked recently to BBC East Midlands chief political correspondent, John Hess, we both noted the lack of posters in windows and the absence of car-stickers compared to what was once commonplace in previous elections.

Highly impressionistic, of course, but there did seem to be a mismatch between the way the election was generating interest amongst analysts and the lack of visible evidence of much popular engagement. This was probably reflected in the very high number of 'don't knows', ‘not quite sures’ and ‘might change my minds’ right up to the eve of voting.

Vindicating that lack of connection between people and politics, turnout looks like it will be about 65 per cent. This is better than the 61.4 per cent in 2005 and the even poorer 59.4 in 2001.  But those were elections where the outcome was never really in doubt. 

This time round, we expected that electoral uncertainty – combined with the interest generated by the TV debates - would lead to a much higher figure.  In some places, turnout did exceed 70 per cent – people were turned away from the polls in the end - but the overall figure looks much worse than in every other election since 1945, none of which saw turn-out drop below 71.4 per cent. 

The campaign, then, has not reversed the deep-set popular disillusionment with the political class, one made only worse by the 2009 expenses scandal.  Only time will tell what effect the parties ongoing attempts to resolve the present Parliamentary stand-off will have on this continued sense of disenchantment with those who exercise power in our name.

Professor Paul Heywood

A cautionary note about penultimate polls

"Nothing about a trend ensures its continuation – but beware..."

We’ve had a massive nine opinion polls, on the eve of the election. That’s almost double the number we had in 2005.
The Conservative lead varies from four points (TNS BMRB) to 12 (Angus Reid), although the shares of the votes being predicted for each of the three parties are more stable.

The Conservatives shares range from 33-37, although all but one are 36+/-1.

The Labour shares ranges from 24-29, although all but one are 28+/-1.

And the Lib Dem shares range from 26-29, although all but two are 28+/-1.

None of these polls – assuming a uniform national swing – would give the Conservatives a majority of seats, although they’d be pretty close on some. We suspect anyway, that there won’t be a uniform swing, and all the indications are that the Conservatives are doing better in the Con-Lab marginals they need to win. But maybe not by quite enough to win outright.

But here’s a trivia question. In the last four elections, there have been a total of 21 similar polls. How many have under-stated the Labour vote? Answer: just one.

At the last election, four of the polling companies over-stated Labour’s performance, whilst one, NOP, got it spot on. In 2001, all six over-stated Labour’s performance, as did five companies in 1992. In 1997, four companies over-stated Labour’s share of the vote. Just one, ICM in 1997, has a polling company under-stated Labour’s eventual performance. Nothing about a trend ensures its continuation – but beware...

The BBC/ITN exit poll will be out at 10pm.

Professor Philip Cowley

Philip Cowley in Reuters debate on hung parliaments

Sound quality is iffy for for the first few seconds - bear with it!

Watch live streaming video from ilicco at livestream.com

The Nice Party Turns Nasty?

In her foreword to the Green Party manifesto, Caroline Lucas suggests that the Liberal Democrats have dumped their positive attitude towards government intervention, in favour of the view that ‘the state is a problem’. The ‘nice party’, she writes, ‘have just got nastier’.


The implication that the party has abandoned its cuddly social liberalism in favour of a mean-minded economic liberalism is intended as a slight, but will be music to the ears of many Lib Dems.

Not least among these will be David Laws, who has been arguing for some time that his party’s economic liberal tradition has been suffering from benign neglect. In the opening chapter of The Orange Book, published in 2004, Laws wrote that between the 1930s and the 1980s the old Liberal Party had embraced ‘forms of soggy socialism’ at the expense of a commitment to ‘free market principles’. The Liberal Democrats now had to reclaim those principles.

If the Lib Dems of 2010 seem ‘nastier’ than their predecessors, one might think, it can only be because Laws’ project to restore economic liberal values to their rightful place has succeeded.

One might think that – but one shouldn’t, for two reasons. First, because you cannot reclaim something that you never lost. Although the party certainly did experiment with ‘soggy socialism’, the Liberals never dispensed with economic liberalism in the way that Laws suggests.

Through the 1950s and beyond the party provided a political home for numerous economic liberals – not just sometime leader Jo Grimond, but also figures like Arthur Seldon and Alan Peacock – many of whom played a significant role in shaping Liberal thought.

Publications like The Unservile State and Radical Alternative, although now long forgotten, show the clear imprimatur of these economic liberals.

Second, because any reassertion of ‘nasty’ economic liberalism that has taken place has not obviously dampened the party’s commitment to ‘nice’ social liberalism. The Liberal Democrat manifesto is more explicitly redistributive than its Labour or Conservative counterparts, and reveals an obsession with fairness which borders on the pathological.

Although the party may no longer have the headline-grabbing tax policies of 1997 or 2005 – no penny for education, no fifty pence rate for the highest earners – it is no less socially liberal for their absence. A pledge to cut tax for the poorest is arguably more progressive than a pledge to raise tax for the richest – though, as it happens, present Lib Dem policies would do both of those things.

None of which is to say that a Liberal Democrat government would be ‘nice’. Whichever party is in government after May 6th is going to be forced to make cuts, and Nick Clegg has already signalled his intent to be as ‘savage’ as the situation demands. But there is no reason to believe that the Lib Dems are any ‘nastier’ than they ever were.

Matthew Francis

They think it’s all over…

"Could Clegg win the World Cup? If ever there was a moment to ask that question, just perhaps … it is now..."

With poll after poll putting Labour in third place, it is surely time for those bunkered in Labour HQ to reach for their secret weapon: the FIFA World Cup.




Although political science lacks many truly iron laws, it is indisputably the case that England has only ever won football’s most cherished prize under a Labour Government. Indeed, the same truth holds for the Rugby World Cup (snatched from under the very noses of the Australians in 2003). With the South African tournament just a few weeks away, Labour may well feel that this is the best shot left in its locker.



Of course, it’s not such a clear vote winner outside England, though a variant could be prepared for use north of the border: the only party ever to have presided over Scotland’s defeat of the World Champions at Wembley with a rather cheeky performance from Jim Baxter. More recently, we might recall that the great Ashes win of 2005 (‘the finest test series of all time’) was preceded by New Labour’s third successful electoral outing.



Of course, it’s not all one-way traffic. Credit for Margaret Thatcher’s win in 1983 is often attributed to her success in the Falkland’s War (a claim the psephologists have long played down) but too little attention is surely given to Botham’s Ashes win of 1981.



And who fails to notice that the decline of England’s test fortunes against the old enemy in the 1990s neatly coincided with the long electoral decline of the Conservative Party?

At the same time, no-one over fifty will fail to recollect that the unbearable humiliation of England by West Germany in Mexico on 14th June 1970 was followed just a few days later by Heath’s surprise win over Wilson.



What are the precedents for the Liberal Democrats? Well, they are not entirely encouraging. Last time we had a Liberal government we were still inventing games for the colonies. Hobbs (Jack rather than Thomas) was opening the batting for England and tennis was being run by a bunch of amateurs. North of the border, little has changed: the Scottish Football League had just been won by Rangers from Celtic (or vice versa). The Liberal Democrat leader is an untested force. Could Clegg win the World Cup? If ever there was a moment to ask that question, just perhaps … it is now.

Professor Chris Pierson

Shorter, fairer, more polluted? The Lib Dem manifeso compared

"At worst, the government has provided too much and voters will actively want less. Either way, other parties can make gains..."

Following on from the previous comparison of the Conservative and Labour manifestos, what about the Liberal Democrat manifesto?

The first thing to note is the comparative difference in size. Whilst the Conservative manifesto was nearly 29,000 words long, and Labour’s over 30,000 words, the Lib Dems come in at a relatively svelte 21,668 words.

Another striking difference is the massive disparity in the number of times the word ‘fair’ (or ‘fairness’, ‘fairer’, ‘fairest’) was mentioned in the manifestos. In the Lib Dem manifesto this was mentioned 99 times, compared to 64 for the Labour manifesto, and just 12 for the Conservative manifesto.

Given that the Lib Dem manifesto was nearly a third shorter than the Conservative manifesto, this makes the difference even starker.

In their manifesto, the Conservatives used the word polluting only once, whilst the Lib Dems mentioned pollution 14 times. This suggests a qualitatively difference in each parties’ perception of environmental issues. It may be the case that this is a result of the Conservatives making aspirational (perhaps utopian) appeals about the environment, whilst the Lib Dems are focusing upon an existing problem that needs to be managed.

Labour made no references at all to pollution. This may be a result of their focus upon a ‘green recovery’ (largely in economic terms) rather than a more dedicated ‘environmentalism’.

More generally, the Lib Dems were far less likely to use imagery relating to ascending (‘rise’, ‘rising’, etc.; 110% less uses) or height (‘higher’, ‘grow’, etc.; 54% less uses) than Labour. In this respect, the Lib Dems were similar to the Conservatives, between who there were no significant differences.

This is consistent with a relatively less positive vision of the UK in measurable areas (notably the economy) of both past performance and future prospects.

Again similarly to the Conservatives, the Lib Dems are less likely to use words relating to time (‘past’, ‘decade’, ‘time’, etc.) than Labour (34% less uses). Also similarly to the Conservatives, the Lib Dems are more likely to invoke ‘abstract thought’ imagery (‘belief’, ‘choice’, ‘plan’, etc.) than Labour (37% more uses).

This is probably a result of Labour attempting to play upon their past reputation for governing, whilst the Lib Dems (who have no recent governing experience) attempt to suggest alternate prospects.

Interestingly, this is a dangerous strategy for Labour. Recent scholarly work has shown that voters can have a ‘thermostatic’ perception of issues (discussed in more detail here). They vote for a party because the party offers them something that they want; once that want has been met other wants and needs come to the fore.

At best, the government has successfully given people what they wanted and they have ceased to want more. Playing on this in an election risks isolating voters by reminding them that you are no longer offering to fulfil new ‘wants’.

At worst, the government has provided too much and voters will actively want less. Either way, other parties can make gains. Attempting to trade on past performance – by looking back at the wants you have met in the past – may bring less reward than some in the party might hope.

All differences noted are significant at the 95% level, unless explicitly stated, and all percentage comparisons are corrected for relative differences in size. Absolute word usage numbers are uncorrected.

Jonathan Rose