SNP Tactical Voting: Timing is everything
The Conservatives are gathering in Manchester today for the latest party conference in the Autumn series. It follows on from Labour's conference last week and the Liberal Democrats' a fortnight ago.
In 2007, the Conservative party had its conference before Labour and it may be worth pausing for reflection on what could have resulted had the order been the other way around.
Going into that Conservative conference almost exactly two years ago, Gordon Brown was enjoying a healthy lead in the polls and was on the verge of calling a snap general election to cement his weak mandate as Prime Minister. However, David Cameron received a healthy post-conference bump in the polls which brought his party close enough to Labour to leave Brown agonising, dithering even, over whether to sanction the election or not.
Of course, eventually, the Prime Minister decided against and Gordon Brown has not been in a position to realistically win a general election since.
Had Labour happened to hold its conference before the Conservatives, the probable subsequent bump in the polls would have been sufficient to give Brown the confidence to call that snap election that never was and it's not outrageous to suggest that David Cameron would have went on to win it with a slim majority or with a minority Government.
Consequently, we would now have Prime Minister Cameron and Chancellor Osborne leading the UK, the entire approach to the recession would have been significantly different, we would not have John Bercow as Speaker of the House, 'Lord Mandelson' and 'Lord Sugar' would not have entered the political lexicon, there would have been a referendum on EU integration and Tony Blair ever becoming the first President of the European Union would be a very remote possibility.
Furthermore, with a Tory Government in London, precious few Tory MPs in Scotland and a popular SNP Government in Edinburgh, the climate surrounding the question of constitutional change would be markedly different with the Nationalists arguably holding a more persuasive position with their independence arguments.
Indeed, we might even have had an independence referendum arranged by now either via the Scottish Parliament or directly with David Cameron, as a consequence of hung parliament negotiations.
So as the Conference season progresses, there are two key factors to remember:
(1) Timing is everything and (2) The best is always saved for last
In 2007, the Conservative party had its conference before Labour and it may be worth pausing for reflection on what could have resulted had the order been the other way around.
Going into that Conservative conference almost exactly two years ago, Gordon Brown was enjoying a healthy lead in the polls and was on the verge of calling a snap general election to cement his weak mandate as Prime Minister. However, David Cameron received a healthy post-conference bump in the polls which brought his party close enough to Labour to leave Brown agonising, dithering even, over whether to sanction the election or not.
Of course, eventually, the Prime Minister decided against and Gordon Brown has not been in a position to realistically win a general election since.
Had Labour happened to hold its conference before the Conservatives, the probable subsequent bump in the polls would have been sufficient to give Brown the confidence to call that snap election that never was and it's not outrageous to suggest that David Cameron would have went on to win it with a slim majority or with a minority Government.
Consequently, we would now have Prime Minister Cameron and Chancellor Osborne leading the UK, the entire approach to the recession would have been significantly different, we would not have John Bercow as Speaker of the House, 'Lord Mandelson' and 'Lord Sugar' would not have entered the political lexicon, there would have been a referendum on EU integration and Tony Blair ever becoming the first President of the European Union would be a very remote possibility.
Furthermore, with a Tory Government in London, precious few Tory MPs in Scotland and a popular SNP Government in Edinburgh, the climate surrounding the question of constitutional change would be markedly different with the Nationalists arguably holding a more persuasive position with their independence arguments.
Indeed, we might even have had an independence referendum arranged by now either via the Scottish Parliament or directly with David Cameron, as a consequence of hung parliament negotiations.
So as the Conference season progresses, there are two key factors to remember:
(1) Timing is everything and (2) The best is always saved for last
posted by Jeff at
14:19
6 Comments:
This year you're right, the best is last. Green conference is on the weekend of 31st October/1st November.
marvelous thing 'IF'
Ha, I suspected something like that would happen James. Well played Sir.
Mr M, fair enough, I don't usually like indulging in the 'imagine if' style of thinking but this particular scenario and the coin toss upon which the lay of our land apparently depended upon was too interesting to pass up.
I don't think Macavity would have gone to the country no matter what the runes said.
That's not his way.
He is a control freak and you can't control elections.
He'll just keep on trying to control things right up until the bitter end. He will last for as long as he can.
The premise of this post is completely wrong. In 2007 Labour held its annual conference in the last week of September. The Tories held theirs in the first week of October. I'm all for opening up The Steamie to other bloggers (And Jeff is normally pretty good) but some basic fact checking would be nice.
Oh dear, let's put this down as a dry run shall we Andrew.
I did check just, somehow, not well enough.
At least the underlying point remains that a few polling percentage points here or there in those crazy conference weeks and we could be living in a very different UK.
But I'll be sure to triple-check the next post that I hope will be back to my usual best! (thanks for the compliment)
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