With the typical inventiveness of the land of hucksterism
and hustling the Americans have a pithy phrase for those who are wise after the
event. ‘Monday morning quarterbacks’ are
the guys (and it’s generally the more loudmouthed guys) who can tell you exactly
where everything went wrong and what should’ve been done so that their team
won. They’re the greatest coaches, they
know more about the sport than anyone who plays it for a living. It’s all so easy according to them, in the
heat of the moment they’d have made the right decisions so why didn’t the
players and coaches?
We really need an equivalent phrase for political geeks over
here – perhaps Friday Morning Prime Ministers might work. Over the past week and a half much bandwidth,
airtime and many words have been devoted as to why Labour failed so
catastrophically and how the Tories managed to gain a majority. All sorts of
explanations have been proffered, ranging from Ed Miliband’s incompetence, why
the British electorate hates socialism, through to ‘shy Tories’ and just which
specific policies held most appeal. The election’s been sliced, diced and
dissected, we’ve learned that really Labour weren’t that confident and the
Tories always thought they’d get a majority and that this is what they did wrong
and this is what should have happened.
None of this may be total nonsense (except the bit about
socialism – anyone who read the Labour manifesto and thought it socialist is
either a US Republican or doesn’t remotely understand the concept of socialism). There are probably grains of truth in many of
these explanations. But the analyses are
being written and narratives formed at precisely the wrong point, in the
aftermath of victory. Narratives are
fitted to outcome rather than properly examined. Everyone’s racing to get their point of view
across – as a rule, Labour’s is
self-flagellating and related to the post-election balance of power in the
party, the Tories and SNP is triumphalist, UKIP’s and the Greens’ is frustrated
and the LibDems is mournful and elegiac, a five year lament. We now have the
narrative of an inevitable Tory victory and, history being written by the
winners in the immediate aftermath, that’s how it’ll be written up with David
Cameron the agent of his own destiny. Anyone saying Cameron would be back in
Downing Street is now a savant, even if their analysis has largely been
assertions and swivel-eyed ranting based on their party political stance (or
personal dislikes). England loves the
Tories, and all is well in the southern sea of blue. We always knew you’d vote the Right Way.
This is all very well but barely anyone expected a Tory
majority until the David Dimbleby announced the exit poll at 10pm. Labour and LibDem grandees scrambled to deal
with the imminent yawning catastrophe, Paddy Ashdown’s millinery munching
declaration being the night’s great Canute-like act of futility (though of
course Canute’s act was deliberate), whilst the Tories didn’t deviate from the
tactics of their last election night of declaring victory whatever the final
numbers said. Much of this may be down to innate caution, but David Cameron’s
words the next morning, that he didn’t expect to be returning to Downing Street
that quickly, indicated no-one was confident enough of the majority. Whatever the claims being bandied about, the
words of William Goldman about Hollywood were perfectly repurposed about this
election by David Hepworth on Twitter: no-one knows anything.
George Osborne, heading for Europe, of course claimed that
he now had a strong mandate for his party’s European policy, that the result
vindicated his austerity rhetoric (not always matched in policy, but that’s a
different debate). Much was made of
Cameron being the first party leader in power to increase his vote share since
1900 and that uplift, even a tiny one of 0.8% is no mean feat. Both of these
are true on at least a technical level – the Tories now command a majority in
the House of Commons by democratic means and their vote share also went up.
What both ignore (quite deliberately) is the crucial factor in the election,
our ‘first past the post’ electoral system.
I’m not going to attempt to directly analyse the party politics and why
voters in key areas voted the way they did (there will be elements of that, but
it’s not the main point).
In brief, our electoral system currently divides England,
Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland into 650 constituencies with each one of
those constituencies returning a Member of Parliament to represent them. All
this is done by a simple method of which candidate polls the most votes in the
constituency (so a seat such as Knowsley where George Howarth recorded 78.1% of
the vote counts for the same as South Belfast where Alasdair McDonnell won with
a record lowest share of the vote for an MP of 24.5%. The former result argues that in certain
circumstances the electoral system still functions well – where a party is
dominant or where it’s a straight choice between two parties. By and large it’s
representative of the viewpoint of the majority of the constituency. The latter shows the weaknesses of the system
– when there’s a genuine split across the constituency it’s a ‘best loser’
scenario which doesn’t reflect that the constituency’s electors haven’t
overwhelmingly endorsed one candidate.
The strength of first past the post is that it’s a relatively simple
system which allows every person some form of representation (even if it’s by
someone they disagree with politically) and in recent decades has tended to
produce a decisive majority for either Tory or Labour parties. The weakness is
that it doesn’t cope at all well if any sort of third element is introduced.
This is demonstrated at several points in UK history. First
the Irish Nationalists, who allowed Gladstone to govern. Then with the rise of
Labour in the early part of the twentieth century. And finally in 2010 where the Liberal
Democrats achieved 23% of the vote. Lynton Crosby, who ran the Tory campaign,
was quick to damn his opponents and laud his own party (naturally). I’d agree
that overall the Tory strategy was superior, even if their actual campaigning
tended to be lacklustre and uninspired and seemed to emphasise a disconnection
from the electorate. The essential
secret of the Tory election success lay in their understanding of the electoral
system and how they exploited the collapse in LibDem support.
At this point it’s necessary to go back to the last General
Election. You can often understand the
most recent election by looking back at what happened at the last one. One of the key points of the election was
Clegg’s pledge to oppose an increase in tuition fees for students. In terms of
the campaign it was a brilliant move which, for obvious reasons, raised their
popularity amongst students. The problem
came in negotiating the coalition agreement. Given the student fees pledge was
such a high profile promise it really should have been one of the ‘red lines’
in any agreement. For whatever reason, it wasn’t. The LibDem negotiating team were persuaded to
accept a policy that would allow universities to raise their fees up to £9,000,
a threefold rise. Apparently there was
much shock in the LibDem ranks when universities, funnily enough looking for
more money to fund themselves, raised their fees to the full amount. I’m not here to debate the merits or
otherwise of that policy but from a LibDem perspective the politics of that
were appalling. They had a potential source of younger voters who they could
persuade to vote for them in the long term and, almost as soon as they had a
hint of power, they sold those voters out. Former LibDem supporters turned on
them, culminating in the National Union of Students organising a ‘payback time’campaign which branded the party
as liars. That’s an awful lot of
students saddled with a potential £40,000 of debt who wouldn’t be voting LibDem
again for a long time, if ever. Apologies don’t tend to have any value when
contemplating a scale of large long term debt. Clegg may have protested in
response that his party was only 8% of the House of Commons so didn’t have much
power but given his bloc of seats enabled the coalition government a Commons
majority he seemed to lack an understanding of how crucial that was. His negotiators allowed electoral reform to
be watered down to a referendum on a compromise system and Clegg took the post
of Deputy Prime Minister instead of one of the great offices of state where he
or a colleague might make an impact (seriously, has anyone actually explained
what a Deputy Prime Minister’s job entails?).
The LibDems comprehensively made all the mistakes a small party going
into coalition could make, compromising on a lot of policies and not appearing
to achieve much in return. They gambled on being able to demonstrate their
ability to rein in a Tory government and appearing noble. Let’s not beat around the bush on this, it
was idiocy. You need concrete
achievement at elections, not hypotheticals about what you stopped. It’s also
as if they were unfamiliar with the notion of confidence and supply (a means
whereby they will generally vote with the government but aren’t tied to them on
less pleasant policies). Result? A party that goes from 8% of the House of Commons
to 8% of the country’s vote and 8 seats.
The biggest wipeout since the Fat Boys met the Beach Boys. Clegg and his
party had become toxic; even those like Simon Hughes who’d deliberately
distanced themselves from the Tories. What had been a genuine nationwide third
party with just under a quarter of the vote collapsed completely, destroying
the years of hard work put in by David Steel, Paddy Ashdown and the former
Social Democratic Party. Merely a rump left, the scale of defeat emphasised by
the quirk that to be nominated for the leadership a candidate needed
endorsement by 0.8 MPs. Some of us rather hope that leads to each remaining MP
standing to emphasise the absurdity of the situation.
And this is where the means the Tories used to secure a
democratic mandate come in. Let’s go back to the Tory boast, that Cameron
secured a rise in his party’s vote (from 36.1% to 36.9%). If he had been
leading a solely Conservative government it’d be worth remarking on. But he
wasn’t. He led a coalition government
where his partners immediately toxified themselves by reneging on a high profile
pledge. The Coalition itself had a good claim to being the most legitimate
government in decades, claiming 59.1% of the votes cast at the election and
having a clear Commons majority. By
pretty much any definition that’s a democratic mandate satisfying both a
definition by the popular vote and the legislature. The last UK government with
an equivalent mandate? 1931 (though MacMillan and Eden were just shy). The LibDems may have paid the price for their
decision but isn’t democratic legitimacy like that an argument for co-operative
government? Fast forward five years to Osborne’s declaration of having a strong
mandate. Cameron’s government (as
opposed to party) saw its vote share dip from 59.1% to 44.8% (Conservative 36.9%,
LibDem 7.9%). Granted, part of this was down to the issues peculiar to the
LibDems but it’s hardly a ringing endorsement for your government to lose 24
seats overall and 14.3% of their vote. That’s not a popular endorsement of your
policies, despite the Telegraph, Times and Sun rushing to shore up a narrative of mass endorsement.
What it is though is the key to the Tories winning. The First Past the Post system took a
hammering at the last election as it failed to fulfil its supposed virtue,
providing a strong government with a clear mandate for its policies. Much of
this, as I’ve said, was due to there being a national third force with a
significant share of the national vote. The vote in seats splits, becomes
messy. This election there wasn’t that true third force – the LibDems have a
small but significant share, the SNP likewise and the biggest party in terms of
votes, UKIP, merely scrambled to 12%.
For all the share of the main parties has retreated from their
respective heydays under Blair and Thatcher that’s still a very distant third.
With only two parties competitive nationwide First Past the Post now has a
chance of determining a winner. It’s at this point that the genius of the Tory
strategy kicks in.
One of the accusations the Tories threw at Ed Miliband
during his time as Labour leader was that he stabbed his brother in the back
when claiming the leadership. You can
take this as true or not depending on your viewpoint and how sympathetic you
are to Miliband. This fades into insignificance when compared to the Tory
ruthlessness in pursuing a successful election strategy. The Tories were in
government with the LibDems for five years. You can dismiss the sniping during
the election between the parties as simple electioneering, part of the showbiz
for grey people that comes up once every five years or so. What the Tories
realised was the LibDem vote was likely to collapse, partly due to the student
vote and partly as their left wing credentials were almost completely
undermined by their co-operation with the Tories. So, whilst shoring up their vote
in marginal constituencies the Tories campaigned hard in the LibDem seats they
were the main opposition in last time. They used social media to spread their
word (apparently specifically targeting Facebook as the most popular medium and
disdaining the ‘elitist’ Twitter. I certainly recall seeing a lot of Tory
advertising on Facebook during the election, apparently tailored toward
me. How effective was that
strategy? Of the Conservative gains on
the night 27 were former LibDem seats. 27 of 28 net gain. The crucial margin
that took David Cameron from coalition Prime Minister to Conservative Prime
Minister was essentially stabbing their coalition partners in the back. That’s simply the ruthlessness of British
politics, the willingness to do what it takes within an imperfect system to
wear the crown. The Tories simply saw that they needed to marginally increase
their vote share in the right seats and otherwise pursue their core vote – as
you could see from the red meat they were tossing out to their right wing base
during the campaign with lower taxes, smaller state, European Union referendum
and repeal of the Human Rights Act. It’s simply playing the electoral system to
your advantage, something Labour were either unwilling or unable to do. It provided access to the levers of power for
another five years. That isn’t illegal,
nor immoral, it’s simply what had to be done to win.
Noticeably afterwards there were a surfeit of commentators
proclaiming this a democratic decision that couldn’t be complained about (particularly
Dominic Lawson who dismissed any need for electoral reform). They’re correct in
it being a democratic decision under our current system but it’s one that
leaves a bad taste in the mouth, much as it did when Tony Blair took his last
majority on a 35.2% share of the vote. Nearly two thirds of the electorate
didn’t vote for these policies and their voice is effectively denied. UKIP and
Green voters are essentially almost locked out of politics with one MP each.
Similarly the SNP are comparatively overrepresented by virtue of dominating one
area of the UK. In all honesty it’s
something of a mess. And despite Labour upping their vote share they lost a
huge chunk of seats (in truth the SNP surge wasn’t a cause of their defeat, it
merely made it look worse and took Miliband’s position from shaky to
untenable). However you disagree with these parties it’s unrepresentative. It’s
not unreasonable for the Tories to have the largest number of seats, but it’s
difficult to justify them having an absolute majority on their vote share.
It’s at this point that I’ll divert briefly to point out the
sheer idiocy of defending First Past the Post on the basis it produces strong
governments. That’s an absolute nonsense unless you’re fortunate enough to be a
partisan of the winning side. In theory
a government can have carte blanche for five years. That’s a fair amount of
time to put agendas in place or, indeed, your version of electoral reform. The
Tory version of electoral reform is to make things ‘fairer’ by levelling
population differences. Quite coincidentally this notionally provides 20 extra
seats for the Tories and stacks the chips in the Tory favour for the next
election. It *was* originally meant to streamline Parliament to 600 or so MPs
but strangely, with MPs nervous about voting themselves into non-existence
that’s gone by the wayside. It’s gaming
a system which is already stacked toward the Tories even further. And fairer?
The system may have favoured Labour before, primarily due to the Tory vote
being concentrated and Labour being strong in Scotland which requires less
votes per MP to gain seats, but that rationale becomes a nonsense now – in
terms of votes per seat the Tories were comfortably ahead of all but the
SNP. If this was a football game the
Tories would have tilted the pitch thirty degrees or so and be playing
downhill. Whatever the merits or
otherwise of the current Government First Past the Post is clearly open to
being gamed by either of the major parties.
An electoral system should defend against selfishness, stupidity and
madness from any of the major parties and, on current evidence it would be
incapable of doing that if either were at the height of the political cycle and
inclined to go on some Caligula style orgy of repressive legislation (well,
theoretically there’s the House of Lords…). And, for all the fears of coalition
government (something the Tories tried to exploit in the election) didn’t the
actual coalition we’ve just had function perfectly well? In past decades Italy
was always raised as a monster that proved proportional representation didn’t
work, proven by the number of governments since World War 2 (currently:
64). Thing is, that’s a simple selection
of the worst possible example. Germany,
arguably the most successful country in Europe, has long had an element of
proportional representation to its elections and only one government in recent
history has had an absolute majority.
And they’re doing quite well…
In short then I think in a modern world where there’s a lot
of emphasis on participation and having your say then the most important lesson
of the election is that change is needed to address the deep flaws in our
system. The trouble is that our current
system leaves the major parties with no real motivation to change a system that
ultimately favours a rotating power structure. We’ve got a binary political
debate with two loud voices shouting at each other. That leaves fertile ground for populist
dissatisfaction with modern politics, something UKIP and (to a lesser extent)
the SNP have exploited.
So what does it need to change to? The Alternative Vote, a
shoddy cobbled together compromise, was rejected in 2011 after the Tories
campaigned against it. I’m not sure how total reform on the legislature would
work – the House of Commons (or whatever replaces it) needs an Upper House with
checks and balances on it. If we retain
First Past the Post then perhaps this chamber at least could be subject to PR
rather than the result of an often shabby honours system. But does that also leave that chamber
vulnerable to the whims of populism?
Whilst I’ve criticised First Past the Post here it should be recalled
that studies have shown there to be no perfect voting system when trying to
deal with more than two parties. Some
form of proportional representation seems to be a solid basis to start with,
but then we need to hammer out questions of how these representatives would be
allocated to constituencies, or if the constituency system would continue. D’Hondt? Plurality voting system? Cop out as
it is I’m not going to offer answers as they’d be woefully underinformed
against anyone who’s properly studied the subject. I’m merely taking the view
that if we exclude a viewpoint from being represented we to store up trouble
from people who feel unrepresented. Equally though, there needs to be checks
and balances against extremism, corruption, selfishness and groupthink
madness. Theoretically a PR system would
make it harder for any of those to affect the governance of a country than one
which tends to produce absolute majorities.
But then the UK’s hardly been a hotbed of extremism in its history…
One thing’s for sure, it’s not a decision currently best
made by politicians.
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