Don’t get too carried away Nick Clegg…

A poll in this weekend’s Observer newspaper has, apparently, caused quite a stir in Westminster.  An Ipsos MORI poll – contrary to those which only 6 months ago had the Tories sitting atop of a handsome 20-point lead – has cut their estimation down to a mere 6 points.  Given the House of Commons current composition of 349 Labour MPs to the Tories’ 193 such a swing would, if followed to the letter in a general election, leave David Cameron and his party 35 seats short of an overall majority.  The result: the first hung parliament since 1974.

The news was met with delight and surprise in what I can only imagine was equal measure at Lib Dem HQ. Danny Alexander, chief of staff to Nick Clegg, reportedly told the Observer that the Lib Dems were now having to “look very closely and seriously” at what would happen if they became the kingmakers in a hung parliament.  But they are wrong to get too carried away too soon.

Nick Clegg has since spent his entire time sitting on Andrew Marr’s cozy armchair and that of any other channel he can get his face on, in an attempt to portray his party as one of real relevance once again.  But he would do well to take stock of even recent political history.  His subtle overtures towards David Cameron, whilst undoubtedly a cause of excitement in his otherwise banal existence, are likely to mean very little in the term long. Does he not remember all the talk of Lib-Lab pacts back before the 1997 general election?  With the then leader of the Liberals, Paddy Ashdown, lured into talk of coalitions, cabinet positions and even – thrown in for the most gullible within his ranks – PR, until… until Labour romped home and immediately abandoned all such nonsense.  Indeed, according to the The Ashdown Diaries, the former leader of the liberals claims that Blair was even still in talks with his party regarding a coalition on the day of the election itself, only to be abandoning unsanctimoniously when the full scale of their victory became apparent later that evening.  The lesson – you will be dropped quicker than porno mag when the wife walks in unless you are actually a political force in your own right.

And this is why all talks of the Liberals as ‘kingmakers’ seems misplaced to me.   A huge number of unlikely trends need to stay constant (or improve, even) for the Liberals to be in with a shout of being able to ‘make’ anyone’s majority: the SNP have to translate by-election victories into a national success across the entire of Scotland at a time when the economic arguments for staying part of the union have become more pronounced than ever; the BNP ‘protest vote’ has to survive Nick Griffin’s disastrous expose on Question Time and be improved upon from the naturally nationalistic tendencies of voters during European elections.  Further still, for a party who could only just impact upon a hung parliament by themselves with their current 60-odd MPs, it does not fair well given that 6 of the top 20 target seats for the Tories are theirs – the equivalent of 10% of their current composition.  By contrast 14 of the top Liberal 20 target seats are Tory seats.  Given the likelihood of a general swing, this doesn’t bode well at all for increasing their numbers.

And finally, for a party that depends so much upon the respect its individual MPs garner within their own constituencies once elected, the announcements that Paul Keetch and the much respected champion of civil liberties Cambridge MP David Howarth are to stand down at the next election brings these otherwise safe seats back into play.  So too does Mark Oaten (he of rent-boy fame).  How their replacements will fare is a real cause for concern.

Howarth, who was only elected in 2005, came to power on the back of a strong anti-war and anti-top up fee vote, both of which the vast majority of the public no longer associate with the Liberals the same way they did under the seemingly principled and widely recognised leadership of Charles Kennedy.  Without such a clear stance, voters are likely to consider it a two horse race.  So despite the dire predictions for Labour, it is quite likely that the Liberals could fair even worse proportionally speaking. And what influence would they have then?  The numbers would have to fall very, very specifically in their favour – namely, above the 15 or seats that unionists plus other conservative tendencies in the Commons could offer, but below their reduced number of MPs…  And above all else, lest we forget, even one poll – ICM – was still predicting a Tory victory in April 1997.  Probably best not to get too overexcited just yet then, Nick?