Two weeks away from polling day – and hasn’t it seemed like a very long election – we’re in what I call the ‘what if?’ stage of analysis.
It’s taken for granted that Labour will have a very good election and that the Conservatives will be stuffed. But since we live in such strange times, no-one should dismiss the possibility of a major surprise.
Polls now have a tendency to leap around in the last two or three days (we’re already seeing some evidence of that in Reform closing in on the Conservatives), delivering outcomes that were routinely dismissed a few weeks earlier.
Just look at what happened to Sinn Féin in the Euro and local elections: plunging from biggest party status with ratings of 30% in the polls to come in with an average of around 12%.
Mary Lou McDonald accepted that it “hasn’t been our day” and promised to examine every aspect of the campaign. Meanwhile, a member of her party put it more graphically to me: “It’s been a complete bollix and most of the people running the campaign don’t seem to have any idea why.”
I don’t see how the Conservatives pull off the sort of surprise that would save Rishi Sunak from a leadership resignation speech in the early hours of July 5, but I would still be surprised (it does happen now and again) if Labour’s victory will be as epic as the polls suggest at the time of writing.
We’ve never had a ‘super-majority’ result in a general election, and I have a hunch that enough people will, especially in the last few days of the campaign, decide that they don’t want one.
Yes, a majority wants a change of government, but I think they’d also like the comfort blanket of an opposition big enough to do the job of an opposition.
Meanwhile, what about our election in Northern Ireland? I say ‘our’ election, because it bears very little resemblance to what is happening in Great Britain.
Labour will not be standing. The Lib-Dems will not be standing. The Conservatives will, but only in five seats and with their votes counted in hundreds.
I’m not sure what Reform’s position is. It was supposed to be standing in a pact with the TUV, but since it didn’t, or so it says, get enough time to register for election purposes, it’s not really a pact any more. Which is why Nigel Farage had no problem backing Ian Paisley and Sammy Wilson, albeit in a personal capacity.
There will be a number of close contests, so close in fact that it’s genuinely difficult to make a hard call. Yes, you can trawl through the statistics as much as you like and bend one way or the other with tight margins, but voters in Northern Ireland can still be pretty thran on the day.
I was speaking to a man in North Down at the start of the campaign and he assured me that he was 100% Alex Easton. Three days ago he was 100% Tim Collins. Heaven knows which of them will get his vote on July 4.
I was speaking to a man in North Down at the start of the campaign and he assured me that he was 100% Alex Easton. Three days ago he was 100% Tim Collins
Let me give you a number of possible scenarios.
Gavin Robinson loses East Belfast and South Antrim and hangs on by a whisker in Lagan Valley and Strangford. What happens to his leadership?
Naomi Long doesn’t make it in East Belfast, Stephen Farry loses North Down and Sorcha Eastwood underperforms in Lagan Valley. What happens to Long’s leadership?
Colum Eastwood loses Foyle and the SDLP polls badly everywhere accept South Belfast/Mid Down. What happens to his leadership?
Tim Collins tanks in North Down, Robin Swann doesn’t make it in South Antrim and the UUP polls badly overall. What happens to Doug Beattie’s leadership?
The TUV barely makes a dent. What happens to Jim Allister’s leadership?
Sinn Féin loses Fermanagh/South Tyrone and underperform elsewhere. What happens to Mary Lou McDonald’s leadership?
Not all of these outcomes will happen, of course. But some will: and each will have an impact on the leadership of the main parties – the sort of impact which will put enormous pressure on some of them to step down.
When the election was called I didn’t think it would have much of an impact locally. But I’m now beginning to think that the results could lead to some very significant shake-ups.
And to be honest about it, that might be no bad thing.
