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Ajouter un commentaireSo the date was finally official and the campaign trail could be plotted in public. Reaction was muted. The electorate initially responded as though preparing for a visit to a bad dentist ; accepting it’s necessary but it’s not fun and you don’t even know if there will be an improvement afterwards. However, this election is the tightest for a generation, as the Conservatives under David Cameron have a chance for the first time in 13 years of ousting Labour from government. It is also the first in 31 years in which all three party leaders, Gordon Brown, David Cameron and Nick Clegg, are new, that is, they were not party leaders at the general election in 2005. Perhaps excitement is stifled because it is also the first election since the 1970s to be contested during a serious recession, with some economists already claiming that the economy in Britain is in worse shape than in Greece. The new government will have to perform no mean feat in determining the measures for promoting economic recovery, in so far as this is possible.
Focus on economy
Thus, it comes as no surprise that the economy and ways through the crisis overshadowed the opening rounds of the campaign. This saw the Chancellor Alistair Darling and his Shadow counterpart George Osborne – not to mention the respective leaders - engage in a complicated game of linguistic hopscotch, desperately avoiding mention of that which all know must come but the electorate seemingly should not hear : there will be significant cuts. Painful, significant cuts. Jargon was on hand to circumvent forbidden words ; the most favored was efficiency savings.
Efficiency savings
- Gordon Brown
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Source : Flickr
Efficiency savings are the parties’ plans to save money by organizing the public sector more efficiently, thereby cutting costly waste. Labour offered savings of £15 billion, reached in part by a National Insurance increase beginning in 2011. The Tories claimed tampering with National Insurance would be harmful to growth as it would discourage employers from hiring. They offered £12 billion in savings in addition to the £15 billion, beginning this year. The majority of is to be made by scrapping IT projects, cutting procurement and pruning staff costs and contracts. A slinging match ensued between Labour and the Tories, the former accusing the latter of drawing up their economic plan “on the back of an envelope”. And indeed the four page document presented by the Tories with the promise that there were concrete calculations behind everything, they just weren’t going to release them, did seem meagre next to the weighty Labour Budget plan. However, the business sector largely disagreed and publicly rallied behind Cameron.
Manifestos
The campaign continued with the release this week of each party’s manifestos. Pledges include :
Labour
Halving the budget deficit by 2014 through growth, fair taxes and cuts to lower priority spending
Minimum wage rise in line with average earnings
Guarantees of a cancer test results within a week and a maximum wait of 18 weeks for treatment
Routine check-ups for over-40s
Parents have power to bring in new school leadership teams if they are unhappy with a school’s performance
Primary school children who require it will receive one-to-one tuition
Guaranteed education for young people up to 18 with further training up to age of 30
Link between basic state pension and earnings re-established
Constitutional reform from first past the post to alternative vote depending on referendum in October 2011
Failing police forces to be taken over by neighbouring forces
Cross party commission to review future of local government finance
Conservatives
One year public sector pay freeze in 2011
Raising age of state pensions to 66
Pay cap for Ministers and 10% reduction in the overall number of MPs
Putting patients in charge of their medical records and allowing them to rate hospitals and doctors
National Citizens Service, voluntary community service for teenagers
Reading test at age of six
Raising inheritance tax threshold to £1 million
Full opt-out of Charter of Fundamental Rights
Doubling operational bonus for troops in Afghanistan
Launch of Strategic Defence Review
Creating National Security Council
Supporting new business with National Insurance waiver for employers on first ten new employees
Liberal Democrats
Raising income tax threshold to £10,000
Reform of tax system
Restoring link between state pension and national earnings
Giving people control over their local health services
Improving access to GPs around the clock
Extra £2.5 billion on schools to cut class sizes and offer more one-to-one tuition
Scrap university tuition fees
Replacing Air Passenger Duty with a per-plane tax
Working towards global elimination of nuclear weapons
Increasing the percentage of energy and electricity from renewable sources
Launching Future Transport Fund
Cutting rate of corporation tax
Further policies
Interesting was, as always, what was not mentioned in the manifesto. Labour faced some difficult questions about its vague wording on VAT, leaving the possibility for a rise wide open. Definite rebuttals on this point were not forthcoming.
- David Cameron
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Source : European Commission
The Tory proposals also came in for questioning as they played to conservative values by proposing a tax break on married couples and a three-strike- and-you’re-out “Crackdown on Cheats” policy for benefit cheats. Placing rhetoric before facts could be a new motto since the tax break works out at £3 a week per couple and there has yet to be a case of anyone convicted three times for benefit fraud. As things got desperate Brown and Cameron’s wives, Sarah and Samantha respectively, were pushed into the campaign arena. Samantha scored higher due to being pregnant, although Sarah won points for her willingness to actually speak. Clegg’s wife Miriam presumably watched then decided to stay out completely.
TV Debate
And then, after the rounds of stump speeches and soundbites had begun, there was the TV debate. In this respect, Britain is somewhat behind the US or Germany, having taken 46 years to mull the idea over. To make up for the delay, this year there will be not one but three. The first one on April 15 was to centre on domestic affairs, with the three party leaders guiding the debate, steered by questions from a studio audience, albeit an audience not allowed to laugh, clap or engage in the proceedings in any way. The debate began as they always do, with one carefully coached anecdote after another. Generalisations were avoided in favour of stories about Bob the Builder who I met yesterday. However after the beginning, something unexpected happened. The debate got interesting. No one blundered into a hideous faux pas, nor crashed and burned on live TV, which would have made it truly dramatic. But an actual debate began to take place. Immigration, crime, the economy, the NHS, the armed forces were discussed heatedly. Brown attacked Cameron repeatedly, saying « You can airbrush your posters, but you cannot airbrush your policies. » Cameron countered, and Clegg took advantage, claiming « The more they attack each other the more they sound like one another. » Following the expenses scandal, one quality deemed important during the campaign has been the “honesty” of politicians. Asking this of someone up for election is a bit like asking kids in a sweet shop to choose carrots, therefore honesty seems to be the first efficiency saving made across the board. However it was a quality Nick Clegg has capitalized on, repeatedly accusing both other leaders of making false promises.
- Nick Clegg
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Source : Flickr
And it was Nick Clegg who was the outright winner of the debate. Compared to Brown’s ominous chuckling at inappropriate moments and Cameron’s po-faced recounting of “personal” experiences, Nick Clegg seemed, well, normal. Countless polls tracked viewers’ thoughts throughout and after the debate, with all rating Clegg highest, one awarding him a 51% approval rate. Not bad for a leader vast sections of the electorate hadn’t even heard of a few weeks ago.
Hung Parliament ?
A hung parliament could be the most interesting outcome of the election. And following the debate, this possibility may have come somewhat closer to realization. Although the most recent opinion polls show Cameron squeezing a lead with a very small majority, the surge in Liberal Democrat popularity has been huge. It may yet be the case that neither Labour nor Conservative has enough of a majority to ensure victory. And in this scenario Nick Clegg would taste what so many Liberal Democrats before him have only imagined : power. During the debate, Clegg sidestepped Brown’s attempt to ally himself, leaving the possibility of alliance with either party open. 2010 may yet be the year of the Liberal Democrats. That would make it interesting. Let’s however not forget that Cameron and the Conservatives have been clear favourites to win for months. A few weeks ago, it looked as though all Cameron had to do in order to be elected was not be Gordon Brown, and even now it’s more a question of a smaller margin rather than a return to Labour. The likelihood is still that 7th May will welcome a Tory government. Despite Cameron’s poor showing in the first TV debate, the Tories still have the majority of the opinion polls behind them. Despite current speculation that Clegg is experiencing his “Iowa moment”, Britain is still overwhelmingly dominated by bilateral politics. Luckily for the Tories, Gordon Brown’s public persona has never failed to let him down. It is unlikely the coming weeks will prove different.
Headline picture : Flickr
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