04 May 2010

The ‘tipping point’ is nearly here




A few weeks ago the FD talked about the ‘tipping point’ that the British Conservatives needed to get in order to win next Thursday’s general election. Up to now they were only five or six points ahead of Labour in the opinion polls, but this has changed. Excluding Gordon Brown’s monumental lack of judgement over the Gillian Duffy catastrophe, Labour are in a significant position of weakness. Not only are they trailing the Tories in all the polls but in some they are behind the Liberal Democrats.

Unlike some, I felt that Nick Clegg won the final television debate (BBC) by some distance. I cannot understand the general view that David Cameron was the victor. True he did improve considerably, but Clegg seems to be closer to public opinion than either the prime minister or the main opposition leader. He’s more of a natural performer and, regardless of the outcome on 6 May, Clegg has now got a fan base not previously evident.

At the last general election (2005), Charles Kennedy brought the Liberal Democrat tally to over 60 MPs and this was seen as being exceptionally strong. Could they repeat that performance? Conventional thinking said a firm no, but Clegg seems to have bucked that and surprisingly his party may breach 100 seats in the early hours of next Friday. ‘Oh to be a Lib Dem’ many must be thinking.

The party with most to gain are the Conservatives. Some polls are, at time of writing, putting them up to ten points ahead of Labour. This is big news because lately there has been a lot of talk about a hung parliament. The ‘tipping point’ is finally being applied by the public and will, most probably, lead to a Tory victory. The exit polls, I believe, will confirm this. Far from being a disaster, this is democracy in good health and if that means the Cameron family moving into Downing Street, next week, then so be it. Not a natural fan of Conservative thinking, the FD is of the view that a new chapter in British political history can be written on 6 May 2010.

Gordon Brown has no right to coerce voters to flock to Labour. His party, and the government he leads, will be humbled (as John Major was in 1997) by mass public opinion. True he was a good chancellor of the exchequer, but he has been less successful as pm. The incident with Mrs Duffy, in Rochdale last week, was shameful and Brown’s rather odd grinning demonstrated how out of touch he and his colleagues in government are with the wider population.

So British citizens and foreign observers, such as me, will now have to prepare for a new Conservative led administration. However David Cameron will soon have to feel the heat on the many issues facing Britain: the economy, Afghanistan, international relations, the EU, civil liberties etc. We wait with interest the new, unfolding era in UK politics. Plenty of scrutiny will be eying everything the Conservatives do when they, almost certainly, take the reins of power next Friday morn. Then there will be someone else to blame for the problems facing the British people. Gordon Brown will be a distant memory.

No comments:

Irish Blog Directory