YouGov’s
latest general election forecast for the Times, of how many seats in
Parliament each party will win at the general election next week has caused panic in the
Tory Party. The Tories may lose their overall majority, and a hung Parliament
would be the result on 8 June, according to YouGov. There is a health warning
with this poll from the pollster themselves, saying alternatively the Tories
could gain an extra 15 seats. This poll is of course also open doubt anyway,
given the recent inaccuracy of the polling industry generally.
Whilst the
media report much scepticism from Labour MPs about this poll, Tory
MPs are apparently plotting away, in an attempt to find one candidate to
replace Theresa May as leader, should all of this come to pass. We know from
experience just how ruthless the Tories are with leaders they perceive as
losers, and even though the Tories would be the largest party on these
calculations, there is no doubt it would finish off Theresa May as Prime
Minister and Tory Party leader.
Remember,
there was no real need for this election to be called in the first place, with
three years to run of the Parliament, and with the Tories holding a small, but
workable majority in the House of Commons. May claimed that she needed to call
the election because the opposition parties, were err opposing her, on the
terms of Brexit. It was a clear piece of political opportunism on May’s behalf,
an attempted power grab, whilst the opposition was in some disarray.
May has also
made this election a very personal one, one where the choice of the country’s
leader is down to her or the Labour leader, Jeremy Corbyn, who she says is
unelectable. The whole focus of the Tory campaign was to be her, and her
leadership qualities, but this started to unravel almost immediately, with
public perceptions becoming increasingly negative. The refusal to face Corbyn
in a televised debate, the hiding away in remote locations where speeches were
delivered to groups of Tory loyalists, all started to chip away at the
favourable view of May the public had at the start of the campaign.
The wider
campaign itself, has been by far the worst Tory Party general election campaign
I can remember, which culminated in the disastrous policy U-Turn on social
care, quickly dubbed the ‘dementia tax,’ and compounded by withdrawing winter
fuel allowance from most pensioners and removing the ‘triple lock’ on pension
increases, which would lead to lower pension rises in future. From this moment
on, the campaign came alive as real contest.
The limited
opportunities for the public and journalists to question May, that finally came have not gone well at all, with May
looking awkward and robotic under questioning, which has further reduced her standing,
it appears.
Some
commentators are saying this poll will play to the Tories advantage, as Tory
intending voters will now not be so complacent about turning out to cast their
ballots. There could be some truth in this, and we will hear a lot about the
infamous ‘coalition of chaos’ that the Tories say would be case if the result
turns out like this YouGov forecast. This worked well for Tories in 2015, with
scaremongering about the SNP forcing policies on the English, and may well do so again.
Or it could
be that voters don’t want May to have a big majority and therefore force
through whatever she deems to be in Britain’s interest. At least a coalition,
even an informal one would have the advantage of speaking for different parts
of the country and for supporters of different parties.
We will have
to wait and see which view prevails, but one thing is for sure, even if the
Tories manage a small majority again, May’s credibility will be shot. And
anything worst than the Tories 12 seat majority from 2015, will spell the end
for May as Prime Minister. Good riddance, I say, to this untalented megalomaniac.
I’ll leave you with Captain Ska’s ‘She’s a Liar, Liar,’ which has just reached number one in the music download charts.
No comments:
Post a Comment