So soon we will know what the outcome is of the election, which given how much time I'm wasted being absorbed in the build-up is probably a good thing! I've decided not to stay up, as an early night and an early(ish) morning seems more realistic. But anyway, I thought I'd give my thoughts as I haven't blogged in a while.
Personality and Fear vs Character and Hope
These former two themes seem to me have been central to the campaigns of, at the very least, the Labour and Conservative parties (as well as the BNP obviously) much to my distress. On the one hand we have Labour saying that if you vote for the Conservatives then there'll be cuts, the recovery will collapse, and we'll go back to the 'dark days of the 1980s'. On the other the hand the Conservatives seem to want to convince us that Labour intentions are to increase unemployment, destroy the health service and turn our children into ill-educated delinquents. Both are pretty preposterous, whilst the idea that a hung Parliament will lead to Armageddon is to be honest extremely patronising (and hardly surprising given that the Conservatives want to be in overall control). Having said that, if no party has a working majority come this time tomorrow I probably will burn my neighbour's house down and eat my own hand.
I don't for a minute think the Liberal Democrats are amazingly better, but at least they've talked of something different, of being distinct and trying something new. It hasn't exactly been Obama-style, but at least they have some policies that look slightly daring, such as raising the personal allowance, questioning Trident, and other politically bold things such as scrapping the Child Trust Fund.
Europe
Having said that I'm not too sure about going further into Europe. In fact I'm quite keen to withdraw from the EU. This isn't for the UK's sake necessarily though, as my main reason is that half the EU budget goes on the Common Agricultural Policy, the main purpose of which seems to be screwing over Africa to the benefit of southern-European farmers. My issue isn't that we shouldn't care about Europeans, but that we should care for the rest of the world just as much.
Why can't the children just get along?
My main gripe though is just how little politicians seem to get along, at least the high-profile ones. David Cameron has a sound-bite that says in society currently we treat the adults as children and the children as adults. Well I think the politicians behave like children and until they can grow up and sort their differences out, we shouldn't let anyone have a majority (kind of the political equivalent of putting them on the naughty step...)
I think it's obvious that the main reason MPs go into politicians is because of a passion to change society for the better (at least in their eyes), however they just don't seem to be able to do it in cooperation. Gone are the days of the unions vs big business, with things a lot more 'central' on the political spectrum. This is a positive thing as, at the very least, there is pressure on the ruling party to do well otherwise the other party may well be voted in - in contrast, in the past if you didn't like the unions then if the Conservatives were doing badly you might not think voting 'red' would make things any better).
But much further this, I think it means that there is more common ground, where politicians can look across party divisions to see how the nation can be helped, particularly in the current economic and social climate. A practical point is that, whoever gets in, they're going to have to cut spending, and, from a party-political view, would you rather take the decision as a coalition, or be labelled for a generation as the party that put taxes up and spending down and then the economy didn't recover anyway (maybe...)? Let's have a cabinet with a mixture of the three parties (in addition to the Scotland minister coming from a Scottish party and the same for Wales and Northern Ireland), and if we really need a Prime Minister (which I am highly dubious about), let the three have it for six months each on a rotating basis! In simple terms we need politicians who put the people before their party.
My prediction
So... here's what I reckon seats-wise. Bit of a stab in the dark as I don't think the swing will be uniform at all, but I reckon that a lot of first-time voters will go Lib Dem, and that in any place where they are marginal they will seriously challenge. The Conservatives will be close to a majority but not quite, as they haven't managed to capitalise on Labour's failings as general dissatisfaction, as I don't think a lot of people have confidence in where the Conservatives want to take things. Labour will lose a lot of seats, but I think people still see them as more caring than the Conservatives, and also see Gordon Brown and other cabinet ministers as more heavyweight than their counterparts, which people will bear in mind when envisaging who they wish to govern. So here goes:
Conservatives..........290
Labour.....................255
Liberal Democrats....85
Others......................20
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