Thursday, May 5

Predicting the 2005 Election

Of Predictions and Politicians - an essay for tomorrow

The General Election of 2005 started with a whimper and will, I suspect, end in a bang. The bang being the start of the end of the New Labour culture. Predicting election results is a dangerous occupation. If the opinion polls of June last year in Scotland were accurate I would now be an MEP on the gravy train between Brussels and Strasbourg Both MORI and YOU GOV somewhat over estimated the UKIP vote in the European Parliament elections and I find my self a blogger not a meper.

Having been involved in elections since before I could vote, politics is as much apart of my being as is 'Land of Hope and Glory', this election campaign I must note as the most boring in my life time. The vital issue the extent of the UK's rule from the European Union has been mostly ignored by the press and the three largest parties. The results from the constituencies however, I now confidently predict could well be more note worthy than the campaign and not to Mr Blair's liking.

Talking to people and asking them, as I do, who they are going to vote for I was up until today of the view that the UK apathy party was well ahead of all other contenders. I strongly suspect that tomorrow that at long last the British public have seen through the con trick of New Labour but not (understandably) shown great enthusiasm for Howard's Conservative way.

The LibDems, for all the wrong reasons will gain seats and the UK Independence Party will double it's vote from 2001. What the BBC describes as 'the others' will receive a large share of the protest vote. In Scotland the crowded political scene makes accurate predictions difficult but I believe that the shifting ground from Labour will by-pass the declining Scottish National Party (SNP) and pass straight to the Scottish Socialist Party. My friends in the Scottish UKIP will I have no doubt hold the ground we gained in the Euro elections last year.{1}

I confidently predict that it will be back not forward for Labour who will lose some 100 plus seats, may be up to 130, reducing its over all majority in the House of Commons to between 30 to 40.

Labour's loss will be gains, or rather long lost regains, back to the Tories in a ratio of 2:1 with the Lib Dems.

Mr Blair has three long term political objectives. One, to win a third term for Labour; two, to be known as the political leader who integrated the UK in to the EU; thirdly to be recorded as one of the country's best ever leaders.

I have no doubts that the first will be a pyrrhic victory, the second will be unachievable, the third will be in the long term reversed. When the facts of Tony Blaire's full contempt for British Parliamentary democracy and his disrespect to the Crown are fully recorded into history, The Rt. Hon Anthony Charles Linton Blair will be correctly judged as the second worst Prime Minister {2} in the long history of our great nation
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Peter Troy
Editor

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Note 1 - The number of Westminster Parliamentary Seats in Scotland has been reduced from 72 to 59, which will not benefit Labour or the SNP.

Note 2 - The worst Prime Minister in UK history has to have been Lord North who occupied 10 Downing Street from January 1770 to March 1782. In the intervening period America was lost, parliament was held in contempt by the people and economic chaos ensued. Lord North proved that longevity at No 10 is not necessarily a plus point.

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