Echoes of Eighty Three, and That Sinking Feeling

[f4f3]

The news that the Guardian has chosen to endorse Nick Clegg's Liberal Democrats in the General Election hardly came as a surprise to me (they supported the attempted coup against Brown last year, and have been anti-Labour for a while now) but it still left me with a horrible sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach. 
The first general election I was eligible to vote at was in 1983. At that time moderate and senior Labour politicians had jumped ship to form a new political party, the SDP. A lot of what they said was reasonable, a lot of their thinking sound. I was at Glasgow University at the time, and the SDP leader Roy Jenkins won a bye-election to become our local MP. I think I saw Roy, David Owen and Shirley Williams speak at the Union more than once, and they were all polished performances.
I wasn't tempted to vote for them - my belief then, as now, was that only Labour could deliver, was even vaguely interested in delivering, relief from poverty for the greatest numbers - but I did respect them in a way that would have been unthinkable for Thatcher's Tory party.

Going into the election the SDP/Liberal alliance were running Labour a very close second in share of the popular vote, against a background of the Falklands War, three million unemployed, and bitter industrial unrest. Clearly well over 50% of the voters were against the Tories, and when I went to bed 19 year old me hoped to see that reflected the next morning.

When I woke up, the Tories had a 144 seat majority and I was sick to my stomach.

My fear for this election is that the result of splitting the anti-Tory vote will be the same as it was then. That we won't have a hung, or balanced parliament, that instead we'll have a three figure Tory majority on 40% of the vote.

To me that's a horrible prospect, and one that the Guardian's stance only makes more likely.

I really, really hope that I'm wrong.

1983 Votes summary (from Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Kingdom_general_election,_1983)

Popular vote
Conservative			42.44%
Labour			27.58%
SDP/Liberal			25.38%
Scottish National			1.08%
Ulster Unionist			0.85%
Independent			0.28%
Others			2.39%

[edit] Seats summary

Parliamentary seats
Conservative			61.08%
Labour			32.15%
SDP/Liberal			3.54%
Ulster Unionist			1.69%
Others			1.54%

Comments

[psychochicken.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure about the hung parliament thing (literally - I haven't made my mind up whether I think it's good or bad yet). On one hand it does seem closer to a PP arrangement and it should also result in a more balanced government and compromises. In reality I fear it will learn to 'you support this and I'll support that' sort of deals and no real decisive government, which is what we need to get us out of the current mess.

Re. GB/Falkirk : True, but this is a general election, and we are effectively picking the party that will lead the country for the next four years as well as the person who will represent our constituency. Since none of the candidates have bothered their arses to come speak to me, or put anything other than party rhetoric on their literature I can only really vote on the latter.

[f4f3.livejournal.com]

The SNP government up here doesn't seem to be doing too badly on the compromise thing - I think the minority government has reigned in a lot of extremism on all sides. But it is one of those "suck it and see" situations. We won't know until we've tried it. Not that I think a balanced parliament is likely.

I really don't think Brown will stay as Labour leader, win lose or draw.

[psychochicken.livejournal.com]

I think you're right on both counts there.