The escape possibilities of a hung parliament

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Good morning. Rishi Sunak has ruled out joining a coalition with the DUP. Likewise, I can rule out that I will visit the surface of Neptune.

I was the first person to start talking about hung parliaments on local election night this year, because at 3am on Thursday, that was what the results we were seeing suggested. But now we have more data, I think I was wrong: and talking about who will end up in coalition with whom seems increasingly redundant.

A story told twice

Why did I say on the radio election night and in this bulletin the next morning the results suggested that the UK was heading for a hung parliament: with Labor in pole position but short of a majority? Good, because that’s what a first look at the result suggested. For what it’s worth, here are my underlying assumptions about the upcoming election and what history suggests about the outcome.

1) Double the Green vote compared to 2019, at the expense of Labour. Although Jeremy Corbyn was wildly unpopular in 2019, he wasn’t unpopular with everyone. Corbynism had, and continues to have, a constituency in the UK. The Greens’ vote fell behind in 2017 after their best overall election performance in 2015. I assume that a Labor party led by Keir Starmer will experience some shift towards the Greens as a result. Also, the closest thing the Green Party has to a possible seat in England is Bristol West, which is held by Labour. I assume, therefore, that the national Greens campaign will be more critical of Labor than in previous elections.

2) Increase Labor’s vote from the 2023 local election, at the expense of the Liberal Democrats. This is one of the oldest trends in British politics. While there are major ideological and philosophical differences between the two parties, most people who vote for these two parties will switch to the other when their favorite party has no chance of winning. While this trend benefits the Liberal Democrats in some seats, it benefits Labor much more. This has been the consistent story throughout this parliament and I see no compelling reason to think that this will change. The recent election means the two parties are no longer competing for each other’s parliamentary seats in a major way, and Starmer and Ed Davey will mostly steer clear of each other.

3) Raise the Conservative vote by five points from the 2023 local election, at the expense of Labour. The ruling party tends to bounce back in general elections, even in races where it waited until the last moment to go on campaign, such as in 1997 and 2010, and even in 1979, where it lost control of the calendar. This is one of the most consistent findings in political science and I assume it will therefore hold up.

4) Suppose the reform party won’t match their opinion poll rating – to the benefit of the Conservatives. While I’ve met many people who hold reformist views, very few people have heard of Reform. I think Nigel Farage’s decision to rename the party is a catastrophic mistake for that party and their impact on the upcoming election will be marginal at best.

Add them all together and you end up with an election that looks a lot like 1964 or 2010: the opposition party clearly the largest by far, but short of an active majority.

But the more I look at the results the more I look at the old results on Andrew Teale’s invaluable local election archive project the more I think I have underestimated the degree of tactical voting between Labour, Liberal Democrats and Greens.

In the wards Labor won from the Conservatives, the Liberal Democrats did as badly or worse than they did in their worst ever coalition results. In the wards that the Liberal Democrats won over the Conservatives, the Labor Party did as badly or worse than their most disastrous performance in New Labour’s dying days.

What we are seeing is best understood as ‘negative partisanship’ – people forming their opinions in relation to the party they dislike, rather than those they do like. We basically have people pulling a Tory lever or an anti-Tory lever which comes in red, yellow or green depending on which part of the country you live. This is the verdict of Rob Ford, one of the academics behind the UK general election exit poll, in its handy (and free!) Substack. It’s Stephen Fisher’s verdict, one of the academics behind the expected national quota in local elections.

And that’s the verdict of pollsters Redfield and Wilton, in the latest edition of theirs Enlarged weekly newsletter:

We predicted “a difficult night for the Conservatives” ahead of local elections across England. And indeed, the Conservatives have moved on lose over 1,000 council seats, the worst-case scenario that insiders within the Conservative Party had previously broadcast to the media in an attempt to manage expectations. Meanwhile, the Labor Party has taken control of a majority of councils across the UK for the first time in two decades.

However, the abundantly clear conclusion that should have been drawn from such a devastating defeat was lacking consequentially. Instead, owing to a well-publicized modeled extrapolation of local election results into a general election scenario, much of the Westminster bubble engaged last week with the possibility of a hung parliament, which would likely see Labor enter a coalition with the Liberal Democrats to form a government.

Note by Redfield & Wilton it is worth reading in full, but the short version is this: Rishi Sunak and Jeremy Hunt’s ratings follow those of Starmer and Rachel Reeves, government ratings on policy areas that voters consistently say will decide their vote – the economy, immigration and the NHS – they are consistently terrible. And the local elections showed surprisingly high levels of tactical voting (that word again), far exceeding what is required for Labor victories in the right places.

I’m aware I’m a locked record on this part, so I’ll keep it brief. The biggest and most important story in politics right now is really a political story. Rishi Sunak inherited a party whose record of economic proficiency had been badly damaged by the short-lived premiership of Liz Truss. I met many people who were still angry about the Truss government as I traveled the country ahead of local elections. MPs from all parties told me they heard the same thing.

To make matters worse, the UK is facing a series of external crises, we’ve had slow growth for a long time, public services are in a state and there’s no prospect that Sunak will deliver on his five pledges to the public .

That’s not to say the Conservatives can’t turn things around, or, at least, turn things around to the extent that Labor has to govern with the help of another party. But it must be said that the morning after the local elections I thought that the simple work of the usual trends and factors was enough to drive parliament crazy. Looking in detail at both the election results and the very challenging political environment, I now think the Conservatives need something major to happen just to get it done.

Now try this

I witnessed a wonderful performance by the Philharmonia last night – two brilliant pieces by Sergei Prokofiev followed by a wonderful interpretation by Igor Stravinsky The Firebird.

Stravinsky, in addition to his immense talent, lived a very long life: he was born in Tsarist Russia, long before the Russian Revolution, and died in New York in 1971. He was still touring and performing at the same time as the Beatles. In fact he survived them.

Driving home from the concert, I idly wondered on Twitter if Stravinsky had ever expressed an opinion about the Beatles. I’ve been rewarded with any number of lovely responses, full of interesting bits and links. First off, here, via Robert Groves, is a YouTube video of Stravinsky himself conducting the Philharmonic during a performance of The Firebirdon what was his last UK tour in 1965.

AS I learned from this wonderful Gramophone piece by director Tony Palmer, during that tour Stravinsky asked Palmer if he could help arrange a meeting with John Lennon. Palmer doesn’t know if the meeting went ahead, but Stravinsky definitely met jazz musician Charlie Parker. The story of their brief meeting at the Birdland Jazz Club in New York is very encouraging and you can read about it here. As Parker said of Stravinsky: the cat knew what he was doing! And here a 1966 interview with the man himself in Commentary.

Another great composer who met a rising star he admired was Dmitri Shostakovich, who during his 1975 visit to the UK I liked it Jesus Christ Superstar so much so that he saw it twice.

Anyway, I’m going to listen The Firebird Still. However you spend it, have a wonderful weekend.

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