Forget the crystal ball, foregone conclusions a no-no in politics
COLUMNIST
IT’S a week since we knew the outcome of the General Election, but the implications are still sinking in.
Political events are often predictable, but there are occasions when the level of unpredictability is such as to more than make up for the unsurprising.
When the exit poll was announced, and when the results confirmed that voters had denied Theresa May the landslide she had expected, I wondered whether I had been the victim of a hoax.
The day before the election I had two separate briefings from senior Welsh Labour officials. They told me they weren’t expecting to make any gains, and that there was a number of seats they were likely to lose. Overall, having consulted colleagues across Britain, these officials were looking at a potential Tory majority of between 70 and 80 seats.
As the results trickled through, I wondered whether they had been deliberately downplaying my expectations, and those of other journalists who had similar briefings. Maybe, by giving the impression that Labour was going to lose badly, they thought stories I wrote suggesting that was likely to happen could galvanise supporters of the party into going out to vote.
I quickly came to the conclusion that wasn’t the case, and that the Labour officials had genuinely thought they were in for a drubbing.
What does that tell us about the state of politics in the UK today? Several things. Firstly, that however knowledgeable and sophisticated in their understanding those involved in the political world may consider themselves to be – not excluding journalists like myself – it is still possible to be taken unawares by political events. On such occasions our ability to predict accurately what is going to happen is no greater than that of the most disengaged voter.
Secondly, that it is wrong to assume that pollsters necessarily know what they are talking about. After their failure to predict the result of the 2015 General Election, the big polling firms went quiet for a while before engaging in tortuous selfexamination about what had gone wrong. When they came out the other side, they devised differing “experimental methodologies” for use in future polls.
Despite evidence that many young people were enthused by Jeremy Corbyn, many pollsters stuck by the old assumption that a much smaller proportion of them would actually bother to vote than was the case with pensioners, most of whom vote Conservative. Even when young people said they were certain to vote, some pollsters refused to believe them based on data from earlier elections.
When they kept their promise and voted, the pollsters were made to look stupid. We can now expect more hand-wringing and introspection.
Thirdly, that party leaders should never assume voters will lap up vacuous catchphrases and accept the demonisation of opponents at face value. The Conservatives thought it would be sufficient for Theresa May to repeat endlessly her “strong and stable leadership” mantra, while making snide comments about Jeremy Corbyn. But slogans themselves are never enough, and if the leader uttering them falls far short of what they promise it would be better not to use them in the first place.
And fourthly, we should never be surprised by the capacity of politicians to change their stance seamlessly, even on quite big issues. Less than a year ago I remember attending the launch of Owen Smith’s doomed bid for the Labour leadership at Coleg y Cymoedd in his Pontypridd constituency.
He saw himself as the potential saviour of the party, which he and his supporters clearly believed was heading for the rocks under Corbyn. Smith is an ambitious man – there’s nothing wrong with that – but he gave the impression that he was putting himself forward as a challenger with considerable reluctance, and only because he had been press-ganged into doing so for the good of the party.
He obviously thought he could win, but when he lost badly he refused to serve under Corbyn and joined many others in a sulk on the backbenches.
Since the election saw Labour under Corbyn gaining its biggest increase in vote share since 1945, Smith, in common with many other Labour MPs, has had a change of heart, admitting he was wrong about his party leader. He has, in fact, metaphorically taken his hat off to him.
Nothing could better symbolise the metamorphosis that has occurred within the Labour Party over the last week than the mental image of Owen Smith doffing his miner’s cap to Corbyn, the man he thought was on the verge of wrecking the party he loved.
It’s good that Smith is returning to the opposition front bench. He’s clearly a man of ability and learned a lot about Northern Ireland when he was a special adviser to Paul Murphy, who did an excellent job as Secretary of State.
It’s a good thing too that the MP for Pontypridd has had to eat some humble pie – an action that’s quite new for him.
After what has happened, it’s wise not to make any firm predictions about how events will unfold, beyond saying that Mrs May’s promise of “certainty” is likely to be way off beam.
Brexit talks start on Monday and a row is on the cards about the extent of the UK’s “divorce bill”. Beyond that, we don’t know what will be in the postponed Queen’s Speech, how much of a bribe the DUP will have extorted from Mrs May and whether Wales, Scotland and the English regions will be able to win similar concessions by working together.
A hung parliament need not be a recipe for chaos: it should be seen as an opportunity.