Public will find a way of limiting Starmer’s power
ELECTION night can sometimes produce nailbiting entertainment – but not, apparently, this year. John Curtice, the nation’s psephologist-in-chief, has predicted a 99 per cent chance of Labour forming the next government. I don’t know what the BBC pays him for an eight-hour nocturnal shift in front of the swingometer, but it might as well save its money and show some old Westerns instead.
Yet it is the near-certainty of a Labour victory which, counterintuitively, provides the Conservatives with their greatest hope – not necessarily of victory, but at least of limiting the damage. If voters get into the polling booth and suddenly balk at the prospect of a 200seat majority under Keir Starmer – which some polls have projected – we could see a substantially different outcome.
Think back to 2017 when Theresa May initially appeared to be headed for a comfortable majority. Until the Tories published their manifesto three weeks into their campaign, it seemed more like a coronation.
While her opponent Jeremy Corbyn struggled to be taken seriously, May was very popular – so much so that those who might have voted Conservative in a tighter election began to consider casting a protest vote.
May didn’t help matters by creating a deeply unpopular policy which would have forced some people to pay more for old age care – the “death tax”, as Labour cleverly called it.
SINCE Corbyn clearly wasn’t going to win, some habitual Tory voters wondered whether voting for him would send May a message that she couldn’t take them for granted.
As we learned on election night, the result was like that famous scene in the Italian Job where Michael Caine reprimands the technician who has just blown up a van: “You’re only supposed to blow the bloody doors off.”
Corbyn won 40 per cent of the vote and May lost her majority, forcing her to seek an arrangement with the DUP to remain in Downing Street.
Could 2024 spring a similar surprise? After all, there is hardly great enthusiasm for Starmer. Assuming he wins, he will be more of a prime minister by default. There is a palpable difference between now and when Tony Blair won his massive majority in 1997.
Then, large swathes of the public held genuine personal enthusiasm for Blair, who seemed to radiate energy and hope. Starmer, by comparison, seems wooden and uninspiring.
And the greater his poll lead, the more people will ask whether we want to gift him what could be the largest majority in modern political history. They would be quite right to fear this outcome – it is not good for any government to have weak opposition.
If Starmer really did end up with a majority of 200, not only would the rump of remaining Tories struggle to be heard, but Starmer’s backbenchers would become an irrelevance. Several dozen could try to rebel against a policy they did not like – and still, Starmer would be assured of winning a Commons vote. Labour’s whips could treat offmessage MPs with contempt.
This is, after all, exactly what happened during Blair’s first two parliamentary terms, which led the premier – who entered Downing Street with well-tuned political antennae – to become detached and arrogant.
Had he had a majority of 50 instead of more than 150 in 2002, it is hard to imagine him allowing himself to be dragged into the Gulf War. He might have been forced to hear salient voices, like that of Robin Cook,
who warned of the risks of our getting mired in the management of Iraq after the removal of Saddam Hussein.
I can’t claim to have John Curtice’s insight, but here are my predictions for this year’s election.
THE FIRST is that a good proportion of people telling pollsters they intend to vote Labour will have a change of heart once they reach the polling booth – for the aforementioned reasons.
And Reform UK, which has at times looked capable of pushing the Tories into third place, will not do well on the night. It is not that the party lacks good policies – it is right on the button on the costs of net zero, for example. But the closer we get to election day, the more the inevitable arithmetic of a firstpast-the-post system will come into play. Many electors will be loath to vote for a party they don’t think can win.
It’s not that I expect to see Rishi Sunak back in Downing Street. But I think the British public will find some way of limiting Starmer’s power.
It will be a Labour win, but by a far smaller margin than many presently believe.
‘Not good for any government to have weak opposition’