A Parallel Government from 1997

 

Andrew Hawkins

 

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Also in this section:

• National Issues Resonate with Local Elections

Colin Rallings & Michael Thrasher

• Bet You it Beats the Polls

Mike Smithson

 

Labour is certainly in the same territory as the 1990s Tories in terms of popularity - or rather lack of it.  In the final two months of 1996, the Conservatives’ average poll rating was at 31%.  Surprisingly, Labour’s average poll rating from April to mid-May 2008 was actually slightly lower than this, at 28%.

 

But the big contrast between now and 1997 is the average poll rating of the most popular party.  Today, the Conservatives’ average poll rating is just below 42%, yet in 1996 Labour’s average poll rating was a whopping 51%.  This deficiency in Conservative support is also reflected in other polls showing that the public is less than wholehearted in its enthusiasm for the party and its leader.  The ComRes/Independent on 18 May found that only 4% more voters agreed that David Cameron ‘has what it takes to be a good prime minister’ than disagreed.  Labour is doing incredibly badly in the polls but, while the Conservative party has largely succeeded in detoxifying its brand, voters appear to remain wary – and uncertain of an alternative vision for Britain’s future suggested by the Conservatives.

 

A second similarity is that both parties swapped leaders who had initially been elected on a wave of popular support but then replaced them with leaders whose popularity subsequently plummeted.

 

Again, the similarities only stretch so far.  John Major won both a leadership election and a general election, irrespective of how surprised most people were at his win.  The danger for Gordon Brown is that he is likely to experience the same degree of challenge to his leadership that John Major had during what he describes as his ’18-month winter’.  Perhaps Labour backbenchers also have an eye on the scale of the Tory defeat of 1997 and wonder what would’ve happened if someone like Michael Heseltine had successfully challenged Major for the top job and called a snap election.  Better a hung parliament than a decade in the wilderness?

 

	National vote share:			Councillors:
	1995	2008		1979	1997	2008
Con	25%	44%		12,000	4,000	10,000
Lab	46%	24%		7,000	11,000	6,000
Lib Dem	23%	25%		1,000	5,000	4,000

The third similarity is more intriguing – local election performance.  The table shows national vote shares in the 1995 and 2008 local elections, and the numbers of councillors for each of the three main parties at three points over the past 30 years.

 

The table shows that local election results can foreshadow a party being swept into power nationally.  In the mid 1990s, Labour was enjoying 46% of the national vote share in local elections and had 11,000 councillors.  By 2008 the Conservatives had nearly as many councillors as Labour had in the mid-1990s with nearly the same national vote share in the recent local elections.

 

So May’s local elections demonstrated a seemingly immutable rule in politics: parties cannot dominate both local and national politics for very long.  Moreover, General Election wins are like a midsummer’s day.  It’s good to enjoy the longest day but in the back of your mind you know the nights will be starting earlier from that moment onwards.  Similarly – and we’ve seen this spectacularly with Labour since 1997 – a party’s decline in local popularity is almost inevitable from the moment it takes power nationally.  It’s almost as if there is a self-correcting mechanism in the electorate’s mind to keep the dominant party in check.

 

A further trend is the long term decline in party loyalty.  This presents an intriguing challenge for the parties; on one hand the electorate complain at the lack of choice by staying away from the electoral process.  However, at the same time, received wisdom says that the party nearest the centre ground is most likely to win.  Tony Blair demonstrated this brilliantly: when The Times/Populus measured people’s political views on a left-wing/right-wing scale and compared them with perceptions of politicians, Mr Blair managed to position himself squarely between where both men and women placed themselves.  In the same analysis, the Conservative party was seen as the extreme right and the Liberal Democrats the far left, with Labour regarded as just off-centre.

 

So are we experiencing 1997 all over again?  If Gordon Brown remains in place to the bitter end, and the Conservatives don’t slip up, then the similarities will doubtless become more apparent.  But if a week’s a long time in politics, then there are plenty of opportunities for mishap between now and 2010.