Who do you trust more to handle the
public finances? This is the most pertinent question a pollster can ask.
Regardless of how big a lead Labour has in the polls – and trust me that lead
is not nearly as big as it should be at this stage of a Parliament – Ed
Miliband and Ed Balls still trail David Cameron and George Osborne when it
comes to the question of economic competency. If they don’t start eating in to
this lead, then the 2015 election will be tighter than most ‘experts’ are
already predicting.
Which leads me to the Budget. The
media has begun its countdown to the 20 March. The starting pistol was fired on
Friday night following the news that a ratings agency had downgraded Britain’s
AAA rating for the first time in 35 years. Some on the Right predictably called
for a change in direction based on tax cuts for everyone and fewer regulations.
Ed Balls responded by admitting
that Labour would borrow more to boost growth if they were in government.
Osborne is left in somewhat of a
dilemma. He must produce a Budget that is attractive to two audiences. Firstly,
he has to come up with an initiative which will be seen as fair to the ordinary
person trying to get on in life or the ‘striver’ (a word that I object to –
when was the last time you heard someone in the pub use it?). Secondly, he
needs to give his party something that keeps the attack dogs at bay. You only
have to look at anonymous briefings from “senior sources in the party” over the
weekend to see that there is more than an iota of discontent towards the
Chancellor’s performance to date.
“Now let’s see if I’ve just cost us
the election.” This line delivered by George Osborne to his advisers
after his party conference speech in 2009 helps explain the Chancellor’s long
term political calculations. In the midst of the financial crisis and a
deteriorating economy, Osborne had just committed the Conservative Party to
public spending cuts eight months before a general election. Voters now knew
what they stood to lose from a Tory government.
Osborne knew that Gordon Brown and
the Labour party would use his speech to paint Cameron’s modernisers as the
same old ‘nasty’ party, ideologically committed to reducing the size of the
state and attacking public sector workers. That’s exactly what Brown did in the
months leading up to the election. The Conservative’s embrace of austerity
probably cost the party at least twenty seats.
However risky Osborne’s speech was – and the Shadow Chancellor was well aware of its political implications – it did
make it a lot easier for the Coalition to proceed with its deficit reduction
programme. Unlike the Liberal Democrats’ broken pledge to oppose hikes in tuition
fees, which has severely dented the standing of the party on the national stage
and clobbered Clegg’s own personal ratings, the Conservatives had a clear
mandate to proceed with reforming Britain’s hospitals, schools and other vital
public services to drive up the quality in a more cost effective way.
Tory high command has appointed Lynton Crosby to head up their 2015 general election campaign. With two and a half years to go, the man who masterminded Boris’ two Mayoral election victories will want to hit the ground running when he steps in to Conservative Campaign Headquarters (CCHQ).
There is a huge amount of work to do if the Conservatives are to stand a chance of gaining a majority next time around. No sitting Prime Minister has increased his or her share of the vote since 1974. So where should Crosby start? I believe there are three main priorities that will need to be addressed straight away. There are, of course, many other issues that he’ll have to address but everyone has to start somewhere.
Swing seats
Election campaign co-ordinator Stephen Gilbert, has briefed Conservative MPs (and the media) that the next election will be fought in 80 key seats. 40 which must be retained from the 2010 election and 40 new seats, predominantly located in Northern and Midland urban areas. This presents the Conservatives with a huge challenge. According to research that Policy Exchange conducted earlier this year, they have a +15% lead in the countryside and +17% in the suburbs of towns. Yet in city suburbs (-4%) and among people living within towns their lead is -8%. Their lead is -19% for those who live inside a city. And, this is exacerbated by second order issues.
Despite Ian Blair’s protestations, England and Wales will have 41 newly elected Police & Crime Commissioners (PCCs) on November 16. The first 100 days of any new administration – while purely symbolic - are often scrutinised by political opponents and the media. PCCs will, undoubtedly, be under the spotlight, but it’s important that they do not fall into the trap of announcing a rash of policies straight away.
For the first few weeks, everyone is going to want to meet the successful candidates. My advice would be; clear the diary, appoint a brilliant personal assistant and sit down with a communications professional who understands the local area. I say communications rather than press adviser because politicians too easily think that speaking to journalists is the only way to get their message across to the public.
My brother-in-law to be is a self confessed ‘spreadsheet monkey’. He’s also politically extremely savvy and has come up with a very interesting piece of analysis that highlights the Conservative Party’s urban problem.
He has produced a table listing 32 marginal seats that the Tories ought to be targeting at the next election (defined as requiring a 5% or under swing from red or yellow to blue). He has then created an urbanity index by overlaying 2001 Census data on population density – a proxy measure for urbanity – onto these marginal seats.
Constituency
Win from
Swing to Win
Urbanity
Quartile
Tooting
Labour
5.00
83.61
4
Hampstead and Kilburn
Labour
0.10
62.79
4
Sutton and Cheam
Liberal
3.30
48.18
4
Southampton Itchen
Labour
0.40
44.79
4
Eltham
Labour
4.00
40.60
4
Plymouth Moor View
Labour
3.80
37.28
4
Dudley North
Labour
1.70
34.76
4
Walsall North
Labour
2.70
34.07
4
Birmingham Edgbaston
Labour
3.10
32.02
3
Great Grimsby
Labour
2.20
31.20
3
Bradford East
Liberal
0.90
30.33
3
Nottingham South
Labour
4.30
29.20
3
Walsall South
Labour
4.30
27.99
3
Solihull
Liberal
0.30
27.24
3
Derby North
Labour
1.40
27.11
3
Norwich South
Liberal
0.70
24.82
3
Gedling
Labour
3.90
24.16
2
Telford
Labour
2.40
17.63
2
Halifax
Labour
3.40
16.42
2
Morley and Outwood
Labour
2.30
12.92
2
Bolton West
Labour
0.20
11.78
2
Wirral South
Labour
1.30
11.66
2
Newcastle-under-Lyme
Labour
3.60
10.72
2
Oldham East and Saddleworth
Labour
0.20
8.30
2
Wakefield
Labour
3.60
6.44
1
Dorset Mid and Poole North
Liberal
0.60
5.09
1
Middlesbrough South and Clevel
Labour
3.60
4.70
1
Wells
Liberal
1.40
1.66
1
Chippenham
Liberal
4.70
1.63
1
St Ives
Liberal
3.70
1.57
1
St Austell and Newquay
Liberal
2.80
1.25
1
Somerton and Frome
Liberal
3.00
1.07
1
The results make grim reading for Downing Street. The urban challenge facing the Conservatives represents more of a mountain than a molehill. Electoral calculus dictates that the Tories need to win 19 of these marginal seats to secure an overall majority at the next election. Even if the least urban constituencies (those listed in Quartiles 1 and 2) – from Nottingham’s Gedling and the New Town of Telford, down to Cider-producing Somerton & Frome – went to the Conservatives, this would still leave the party some three short of an overall majority.
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