Ukip - Don't panic Captain Miliband - well, maybe just a bit!

Thanks to some new research from Matthew Goodwin and Robert Ford, we now have the clearest picture yet of where Ukip’s support is coming from. The profile of Ukip supporters is strongly skewed towards older, white, male voters who finished their education at an early age.

The reality of life to many people in this group is that they grew up in a society of low unemployment, where manufacturing and heavy manual work was available and well paid, where physical strength and resilience were prized. From other research, we know that immigration overall has been positive for the country as a whole, but has had a negative impact on a minority of the population. This minority of the population are primarily these older, less qualified, male, former-manual workers. These are today’s Ukip supporters.

There are two starkly different realities of life – both are true for the people living them. For a young, graduate in the south of England, immigration is the source of variety of life, Europe is a market and work comes and goes, but it is there if your cv and inter-personal skills are up to scratch.

For many Ukip supporters, cvs, inter-personal skills, immigration and contract work are threats, not a means to a life-affirming career. While other groups in society have been the focus of sympathetic, or sometimes unsympathetic, attention, who has been taking any notice of this group? Their forbears were the, fit, vocal and respected, salt of the earth – glamorised in election posters, history books and fiction.

What are the implications of all this for the other parties? Ukip has certainly drawn some support from protest voters who have moved from the Lib Dems now that they are in government. Ukip has drawn some support from Conservatives who are strongly Eurosceptic. But, for the most part the Ukip supporters sound just like the bedrock of Labour support up to the 1980s.

The Labour Party has, partly deliberately, and in many ways sensibly in view of changing demographics, shifted its support towards women, younger and more highly-educated voters. In the long run this is likely to be a productive strategy, going with the grain of society. In the short run, older, white, men without degrees are left more or less disenfranchised and ripe for being recruited by a new, angrier, party which might shake things up on their behalf.

Ukip has in some ways been lucky and in some ways very clever. The party’s main focus on Europe is not a major concern of many of its supporters, but in the process of putting this message out it has stumbled on a relatively-untapped pool of support. This pool is limited and never likely to be sufficient to make much of an impact in Westminster politics, but it is enough to give the other parties a fright and to get people talking about the formerly-taboo subjects of immigration and Europe.

The Conservatives have panicked first and panicked most over Ukip, perhaps unnecessarily. The Lib Dems are resigned to losing the protest vote. That came with the territory of being in government. Labour has been preoccupied with its internal affairs and relations with the trades unions and has probably not yet woken up fully to the potential impact of Ukip in some of its safe seats, especially in northern England – seats where the Conservatives are not the threat.

This risk has already been glimpsed when George Galloway won the Bradford West by-election, taking a seat that had had a Labour majority of 5,763 in 2010. The Lib Dems won Redcar in 2010, a seat which had had a Labour majority of over 21,000 in 1997.In Scotland, the SNP took Glasgow East in the 2008 by-election, where the Labour majority was 13,507 in 2005. Some of Labour’s safe seats are clearly only safe as long as no-one really attacks them. In many that attack is not going to come from the Conservatives.

Overall, the Conservatives have probably over-panicked and Labour need to do a bit more (but not too much) panicking about their northern strongholds. For the Lib Dems, there may have been a loss of protest voters, but no point in panicking – they have already gone and they are not coming back.

Don’t panic Captain Miliband – well, maybe just a bit!

How significant was Eastleigh?

Since 1945 the Liberals/LibDems have won 30 by-elections. (This includes five which were defences of seats already held – Montgomeryshire, Truro, Cheadle, Winchester and Eastleigh.) Which was the most important victory?

Four possible measures of importance could be analysed:

1) Swing - the percentage change in votes cast at the by-election

2) Durability - the number of years the seat was subsequently continuously held

3) Political importance of the winner - the positions held by the winning candidate

4) Changing the political narrative - the political and media reaction to the victory.

The top 3 victories on each measure would be:

Swing:

Top: Bermondsey 1983 (44.2%), Second: Christchurch 1993 (35.4%), Third: Sutton and Cheam 1972 (32.6%)

Durability of Victory:

Top: Roxburgh 1965 (49 years), Second: Berwick 1973 (41 years), Third: Bermondsey 1983 (31 years)

Importance of Winner:

Top: Roxburgh (David Steel, party leader), Second: Bermondsey (Simon Hughes, deputy party leader, party president), Third: Berwick-upon-Tweed (Alan Beith, party deputy leader)

Changing the political narrative:

This last category is rather subjective, but both Orpington and Eastleigh gave a severe jolt to the Conservative Party’s confidence about winning the next election and both demonstrated that the Liberals/LibDems are more resilient than many people believed. Torrington was the first of the Liberal post-war victories, but the seat was only held for one year, until the Conservatives won the 1959 election and regained the seat. Eastbourne in 1990 came at a time when the LibDems were struggling. It gave a significant boost to party morale and credibility and hastened the demise of Margaret Thatcher.

Eastleigh – a million miles from Carmarthen

Since the formation of the Liberal Democrats in 1988, the party has never lost a seat at a by-election. Before 1988 the Liberals also actually had a record of holding seats in all by-elections since 1934 - with just one exception - the Carmarthen by-election held on this day in 1957.

The Liberals, with a new inexperienced party leader, Jo Grimond, had to defend Carmarthen after the death of MP Rhys Hopkin Morris. Grimond dithered over supporting the views of the Liberal candidate, John Morgan Davies, on Suez and undermined an already-lacklustre Liberal campaign.

But, the biggest problem which the Liberals faced at that by-election was that the Labour candidate was Megan Lloyd George, daughter of former Liberal prime minster David and herself a former Liberal MP and deputy leader of the Liberal Party. Megan had defected to the Labour Party in 1955. She won the by-election for Labour. The Liberal Party was reduced to its lowest total of just five MPs. (However, Jo Grimond managed to bring the party’s total back to six by capturing Torrington the following year.)

Carmarthen had more than its fair share of deaths, defections and by-elections - in 1924, 1928, 1941, 1957 and again in 1966, after Megan Lloyd George died. It was represented by MPs of four different parties between 1926 and 1966.

So, when the Eastleigh by-election was called for 28 February 2013, there was a lot at stake for the LibDems. The ominous date acted as a reminder of the one failure in the last 79 years and the LibDems were subjected to regular forecasts in the media of impending doom and plunder of their seats by the Conservatives at the next general election. To make the context more tricky, the by-election was caused by the resignation of LibDem cabinet minister, Chris Huhne, after admitting swapping speeding points with his former wife – a criminal offence, for which both were later imprisoned.

The Conservatives had been convinced that they would be able to take the seat from their second place at the 2010 election. Ukip adopted a strong candidate in Diane James and Labour chose John O’Farrell as a high profile candidate.

In the end, Lib Dem candidate, Mike Thornton, won with 13,342 votes, Ukip came second with 11,571. The Conservative candidate, Maria Hutchings, who had declared the contest ‘a two-horse race’, came third with 10,559 votes and John O’Farrell trailed in fourth with 4,088.

The prevailing narrative in the media has since changed from a prospective LibDem annihilation at the next election and has instead focused on the threat posed by Ukip to all the other parties and the absence of a Labour recovery in southern England.

Eastleigh turned out to be a million miles from Carmarthen.

Coalition v Minority Government. Which is Better?

There is some talk of a minority government after 2015. What does history tell us about the track records of minority governments, compared to coalitions?

Britain has had several minority governments:

The first Labour government in 1924

The second Labour government 1929-31

Harold Wilson’s government between elections of February and October 1974

The end of Jim Callaghan’s government leading up to 1979

The end of John Major’s government in 1997

The country has also had coalitions during this time:

The National Governments of 1931 to 1940

Churchill’s wartime coalition 1940 to 1945

The current Conservative/LibDem coalition since 2010.

Whatever your political allegiance, it is hard to argue that the track records of the minority governments is better than that of the coalitions.

In terms of stability, the longevity of the coalition governments far exceeds that of the minority governments.

We can all make our choice of how to interpret the history, but in 2015 how many voters would opt for a minority government over a coalition, based on the histories of the two?

It is interesting that the voices in favour of a minority govenment come from the right of the Conservative Party and the left of Labour. A minority government would almost certainly give the more extreme elements a bigger influence on their party. Sir John Major's experience after his majority disappeared at the end of his premiership can testify to this.

Coaltion more likely as result of Cameron veto?

David Cameron has let it be known (but not actually said) that he wants to rule out another coalition after the next election.

His reasoning is almost entirely to do with the internal dynamics of his own party and hardly anything to do with the current coalition government.

What might be the consequences? From YouGov’s research, we already know that around 50% of the electorate is likely to change from what they did at the last election. The electorate is volatile, with strong cross-currents of support moving in different directions.

The background to the next election is going to be quite different from 2010.

We now have experience of coalition government at Westminster for the first time since 1945. The prevailing view before 2010 that a coalition would be ‘weak’ or ‘unstable’ has been proved wrong. Many voters may not like the coalition, but few could argue that its faults have been its weakness or instability. The coalition has meant that a third party has ministerial experience at Westminster. Labour and the Conservatives clearly do not have a monopoly on ministerial competence. The devolved administrations in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland have reinforced this point. We will have the Green Party defending a toe-hold at Westminster. We may have a post-referendum SNP competing for seats in Scotland, or even a Scotland which has voted to remove itself from Westminster politics. We have a significant amount of support in opinion polls for Ukip.

So what are the likely dynamics? Professor David Butler has estimated that there is around a 50% chance of a hung parliament after the next election. If neither Labour nor the Conservatives wins an overall majority, it would be possible for one of these parties to run a minority government. Possible, but not easy. There would be a constant need for deals with other parties. As we saw with Jim Callaghan’s government before the Winter of Discontent, or John Major’s struggle with his back-benchers in the lead up to 1997, this may not be a pretty sight.

In 2015, loyal Conservative voters may well stay loyal – but there are not enough of them to give the party an overall majority. Some voters inclined to support Ukip might return to supporting the Conservative Party if they knew that it would only form a single-party government.

But, when it comes to making decisions in individual constituencies, many voters may decide that they would rather vote tactically for Labour or the Liberal Democrats to avoid having a purely-Conservative (and possibly minority) government. A Labour government or a Labour-LibDem coalition may prove a more attractive option to a significant number of voters, and possibly enough to change the outcome.

David Cameron’s anti-coalition views have probably made another coalition more likely – a Labour/Lib Dem coalition.

Anniversary of Bermondsey by-election

Today is the anniversary of the Bermondsey by-election of 1983. On a record swing of 44.2%, the Liberals won the formerly-safe Labour seat.

There was much focus on two of the candidates – Simon Hughes, who won the seat for the Liberals and who has remained the MP ever since, and Peter Tatchell, the defeated Labour candidate who has since forged a highly effective career in equality campaigning (including his attempted arrest of Robert Mugabe).

Much of the comment about the by-election focused on gay rights, an issue which has seen dramatic progress since. However there were other issues at stake in Bermondsey in 1983 and one of these seems to have progressed very little, or even gone into reverse.

At the time of the by-election Peter Tatchell was seen as a local candidate with first-hand experience of the local housing conditions. He lived in a council flat in the constituency. There were comments from some voters that they desperately wanted to move to better conditions and that they would not support a candidate who had failed to move on himself.

Aspiration still plays a major part in politics. People often approve of tax rises for those much richer than themselves, but are against increases for those a few notches higher up the income scale – they aspire to reach that income level themselves one day.

While candidates who have achieved no more than the local electorate tend not to appeal, those who have achieved too much wealth are equally distrusted. There are on-going negative comments about the number of millionaires in the cabinet. However, anyone reaching the cabinet will be earning £130,000 a year. They will usually have been an MP for a decade or more, earning £66,000 a year. To have become an MP in the first place they will have gone through a selection process within their own party and they will have won a seat. They are highly likely to have had a previous well-paid job. This filtering process almost guarantees that cabinet ministers will be quite wealthy and with the value of London properties taken into account, it is not surprising that many (from all parties) will be millionaires.

The moral of this seems to be that successful candidates are increasingly drawn from the ranks of the fairly wealthy. Gone are the days when a miner or a top industrialist would be welcomed into Parliament. Once MPs were paid from 1911, the aim was to attract a wide range of candidates, regardless of wealth. However, these days, it seems that only the slightly above average are welcome.