My piece for the Sunday Telegraph has earned me a riposte from the great Mike Smithson at Political Betting. I even get a place in the headline: “Why Iain Martin is wrong about an early election.”
It could be the start of a series:
“Why Iain Martin is wrong to prefer Revolver to Sergeant Pepper.”
“Why Iain Martin is wrong to order that second bottle.”
And: “Why Iain Martin is just wrong.”
John Rentoul also accuses me of “pointless speculation”. If John is now moving to ban pointless speculation by journalists there are going to be a lot of empty pages in the nation’s newspapers. On some days the sports pages will be almost completely devoid of content.
Incidentally, it’s not just me who thinks the coalition will or should break up. My former colleague Kenny Farquhurson, writing in Scotland on Sunday, says that whilst the coalition once had a value for the Tories it has now run its course: Tories marriage of convenience is crying out for a quickie divorce.
I think it unlikely that the coalition will make it to 2015. The Lib Dems desire for differentation is too strong and the Tory need for a distinctive Conservative programme grows daily. Whether the trigger is Europe or an unseemly fight to the death if there is a need for a by-election in Chris Huhne’s seat (the marginal Eastleigh), my money is on the coalition in its current form not getting beyond 2013.
Lots of Tory MPs express such thoughts, privately.
Perhaps there could then be a minority Tory government, or an early election.
The Lib Dems who love to point out that people are forever forgetting about the Fixed Parliaments Act are themselves missing a rather important point. The Act makes early elections more difficult, but far from impossible.
As I wrote in the Sunday Telegraph:
“Of course, the conventional wisdom is that Mr Cameron cannot go early, thanks to the Fixed Parliament Act, which was introduced as part of the Coalition Agreement. It was designed to reassure nervous Lib Dems, who feared being dumped at a time of maximum advantage for the Tories. But the importance of the measure is somewhat over-stated, particularly by Lib Dems. It does remove a Prime Minister’s right to go to the Queen and unilaterally demand an election. He needs two-thirds of MPs to vote for a dissolution. But in practical terms that means that if a great issue – such as Europe or economic reform – was at stake then a Prime Minister could quickly put his call for an election to a vote in the Commons. No leader of the Opposition would conceivably have his party vote against an election. If he did it would be a politically suicidal denial of the electorate’s chance to decide.”
In such circumstances, at a moment of crisis, the two major parties would vote to take it to the country. The Lib Dems would presumably vote against, a position easily carcicatured by their opponents as: “Please don’t make us face the voters.”
Rather mysteriously, this post starts off saying that Mike Smithson is saying you’re wrong, then completely ignores his point.
Mike’s point is that the Tories must wait until October 2013 for the new boundaries to be in place. Well, perhaps. But the boundaries are now a lot less important to the Tories than they were a few months ago. The notional gains are not nearly as good as they expected.
What would you say is the gap between Tory expectations vs likely outcome on the boundary changes?
I was under the impression that they weren’t too far apart – but clearly this isn’t a universal view…
Electoral Calculus (2010 article) suggests the Conservatives would gain 7 seats from equal sized constituencies.
http://www.electoralcalculus.co.uk/PVSCBill_analysis.html
Yes, Electoral Calculus only shows them going on the 2010 vote share from 19 short of an overall majority to 4 short. So Tory expectations that gains from boundary changes would be difference between Conservative majority and coalition were not borne out. I think it’s fair to say that the boundary changes do not have as dramatic an impact as anticipated.
All that is needed for Iain’s dreamt-of early election to come true is for the Labour MPs to help the Conservatives by voting with them.
OK, can anybody see the flaw in the plan here?
Anthony Wells of UK polling report puts the gain at more like 20 seats. Definitely worth having. And his analysis is the most thorough I have seen anywhere.
You also continue to ignore the point that the only time Cameron could go for an election would be when the polls were showing the Conservatives getting a majority, and there is not a snowball’s chance in hell of labour voting for that. And vice versa for Labour agreeing to a poll.
The only possible scenario is when Labour and the Conservatives are pretty level and them both joining in a devil’s pact to call an election to destroy the Lib Dems. But that would be a massive risk. And generally political parties are far more risk averse than that when it comes to elections. Especially considering Cameron’s chumminess with the Lib Dems.
Basically this line of thinking, though an intriguing and exciting idea has vast practical problems that you’re just not acknowledging. Unless something extremely dramatic happens odds are the Coalition going on until the end.
I fully agree with you Iain, the Huhne affair and the byelection that will surely follow will be the catalyst that will force an early GE. It will lead to another inconclusive result, the RW of the Tory Party will then go cosmic and blame Cameron and the Libdems. Cameron will eventually end up as PM leading a National Government, the RW of the Tory Party will then absorb UKIP and form a new party.
As for Mike, (I’m calling this GE for David Cameron) Smithson, arse!!
but would ed agree or would he put together a minority government with the Lib Dems who wouldn’t want to have an election which would reduce them to a tandem. 315 of them (possibly 314 due to a court case), 9 nationalists, 1 green and the 3 non Sinn fein republicans would give enough to form an administration with 327 plus Huhne.
Against 306 Tories and 8 DUP and possibly 1 other
Ed and Nick could sell it as saving a country an unnecessary election. Also would HM have to accept if there was another leader happy to form an administration?