Martin Kettle's Blog, page 37
December 12, 2019
If the exit poll is right, this election will transform British politics | Martin Kettle
It looks like a triumph for Boris Johnson, and an epochal collapse for Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour
For the last four UK general elections, bar 2015, the 10pm exit poll on election day has been almost exactly correct, even if sometimes the predictions have been a shock to many experts. So the likelihood is that the pollsters have got it right again in 2019. But whereas in 2017 their correct prediction of a hung parliament guaranteed a embattled legislature, the 2019 prediction may even transform British politics.
The Jeremy Corbyn project has taken what is surely a terminal beating
Related: UK general election 2019: exit poll predicts 86-seat Conservative majority – live news
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December 11, 2019
This is a Brexit election. But Boris Johnson will not get Brexit done | Martin Kettle
There is only one reason why today’s election is happening: Brexit. Six weeks on, the 2019 election is still a Brexit election. You may want it to be about other things. You may be fed up and distressed with the whole Brexit argument. All this, though, is escapism. What is primarily at stake today is whether Britain leaves the EU on the Conservatives’ terms, or whether it doesn’t. Today, the nation’s votes will decide which it shall be.
The leitmotif of Boris Johnson’s campaign has been Brexit. For someone who loves to speechify as much as he does, Johnson’s message discipline has been awesome. “Get Brexit done” has been the “strong and stable” of the 2019 campaign. The slogan is brilliantly succinct and well chosen. But it is a fraud.
Related: I’ve always been Labour, but tomorrow I will be voting tactically | Steve Coogan
Continue reading...December 6, 2019
The Corbyn and Johnson TV debate: our writers’ verdicts | Martin Kettle, Katy Balls, Owen Jones, Gaby Hinsliff
With less than a week until polling day, Jeremy Corbyn and Boris Johnson made a late pitch to voters. What did we learn?
Related: BBC debate: Johnson and Corbyn clash over Brexit, NHS and racist language – live news
Continue reading...December 4, 2019
The Liberal Democrats misread the political mood. Yet perhaps not all is lost | Martin Kettle
It used to be an article of faith among Liberal Democrats that general election campaigns would always mean good news for their party. The party’s axiom was that, once balanced election time media reporting rules kicked in, they would get a fairer crack of the whip and increase their support. For many years the facts bore this out. In every election from 1992 to 2015, the Lib Dems saw their share of support increase over the course of the campaign. Leaders including Paddy Ashdown, Charles Kennedy and Nick Clegg became bigger national figures in this way.
That is no longer true. The 2017 election was the first since 1987 in which the Lib Dems did worse on polling day than they were doing when the campaign began. An initial average poll rating of 11% in that election became an actual vote of 7.4% when the votes were cast. The Lib Dem postmortem concluded that the election had come too soon after the post-coalition drubbing of 2015, and that Tim Farron had proved a useless leader.
Events may shift the numbers. But things could get worse for the party, not just better
Continue reading...November 27, 2019
You’d never know it, but the future of the United Kingdom is at stake | Martin Kettle
The upcoming election could trigger the breakup of the union, and yet the main all-UK parties have barely mentioned it
If the Conservatives win a majority on 12 December, as they are favourites to do, they will claim a mandate to “get Brexit done”. As a result, there is an extremely real possibility that, by the time of the next scheduled election in 2024, the United Kingdom as we know it will no longer exist. Scotland may by then have voted to become an independent country. Northern Ireland may have voted to unify with the Irish republic. But you would hardly know any of this from the general election campaign so far.
In the leaders’ debate between Boris Johnson and Jeremy Corbyn, there was much discussion of Brexit. But there was no discussion about Brexit’s consequences for the parts of the UK – Scotland and Northern Ireland – that did not vote for it. Nor was there a single word about Brexit’s effect on the unresolved divides in Ireland. This was genuinely remarkable. For the past three years, the issue of Ireland has been at the very core of the argument about Brexit. But now, from the leaders of Britain’s two main parties, there was absolutely nothing. Not for the first time in British political debate, it was as though Ireland simply did not exist.
There is a black hole not just in the election campaign, but in our politics where a unified nation is supposed to be
Related: Majority of Scottish voters feel ignored by UK ministers on Brexit
Continue reading...November 22, 2019
The Question Time leaders’ special: our panel’s verdicts | The panel
Boris Johnson, Jeremy Corbyn, Jo Swinson and Nicola Sturgeon faced questions from a live BBC audience in Sheffield
Owen Jones: There is new hope Labour can turn fortunes around
Continue reading...November 20, 2019
It’s time for tactical voting – Brexit is too terrifying for political piety | Martin Kettle
“I think there are millions of us,” says David Gauke as he hands out election leaflets in Berkhamsted high street. “Politically homeless people who want reasonable and respectful politics back.” The former justice secretary and anti-Brexit rebel, who is running as an independent in South West Hertfordshire, says Tuesday’s TV debate between Boris Johnson and Jeremy Corbyn has simply made things worse. “Many, many voters this morning have been telling me they are disheartened. They want a better choice.”
Related: In the Tory heartlands of the commuter belt, remainers may revolt | John Harris
Continue reading...November 13, 2019
The floods have exposed Johnson – he is equal parts reckless, careless and useless | Martin Kettle
The prime minister promises money and maximum preparations against swollen rivers – but it’s all talk
Back when Boris Johnson and his advisers started plotting a December election, it’s a fair bet that they stress-tested a list of possible seasonal negatives for a winter poll. They will have discussed factors such as the dark and the cold, the reluctance of older voters to answer the door at night, the effect on the student vote, and the wider preoccupation with Christmas. They will have weighed whether these problems would help or hinder their Brexit cause. And, self-evidently, they have decided that they were worth the risk.
What is clear is that they completely forgot about floods. It’s an astonishing oversight. November and December have become serious flooding months in Britain in recent years. The now politically fashionable town of Workington was almost cut off from the rest of the country by floodwater in November 2009. Yorkshire and Lincolnshire were flooded in December 2013; so were Kent and Sussex. In early 2014, the Somerset Levels were overwhelmed. In December 2015, Lancashire and Cumbria were inundated. At Christmas that year, it was Yorkshire’s turn again.
The floods took place in precisely the kind of leave-voting parts of the north that the Conservatives are targeting
Related: Plant some trees to save a town from flooding? Not a bad idea | Nick Cohen
Continue reading...November 6, 2019
This Brexit election is another symptom of a global order in decline
Europe is no longer a beacon of stability, but Britain will remain reliant on its shared values, Brexit or no Brexit
Arguably the most surreal event during the general election campaign is scheduled for the week before polling day. On 3 December, Nato leaders, including Donald Trump and Boris Johnson, will gather at a Buckingham Palace reception. The next day, the Nato chiefs will meet in a luxury – but thankfully non-Trump-owned – hotel outside Watford. It’s the event where the leaders will discuss big subjects including Syria, Afghanistan, Russia and military burden-sharing – and where none of these big subjects is likely to be solved.
In the not so distant past, a leader fighting an election might have seen an international summit they were hosting as a golden opportunity. The grandeur and importance of such a gathering would mean free publicity from the campaign gods, reminding voters that the incumbent is someone who bestrides the world stage, has the ear of powerful allies, and is at ease with the deepest responsibilities of office. As a prime minister milked the occasion, opponents could only grind their teeth in frustration.
Brexit should be seen as another symptom of this wider fragmentation rather than simply as an insular psychodrama for Britain
Related: John Bercow: Brexit is UK's biggest mistake since second world war
Martin Kettle is a Guardian columnist
The headline and standfirst on this article were amended on 12 November 2019 to better reflect the content of the piece.
Continue reading...It’s not just Britain that’s breaking up, Europe is too | Martin Kettle
The tremors of this Brexit election will be felt across a continent whose powers are on the wane
Arguably the most surreal event during the general election campaign is scheduled for the week before polling day. On 3 December, Nato leaders, including Donald Trump and Boris Johnson, will gather at a Buckingham Palace reception. The next day, the Nato chiefs will meet in a luxury – but thankfully non-Trump-owned – hotel outside Watford. It’s the event where the leaders will discuss big subjects including Syria, Afghanistan, Russia and military burden-sharing – and where none of these big subjects is likely to be solved.
In the not so distant past, a leader fighting an election might have seen an international summit they were hosting as a golden opportunity. The grandeur and importance of such a gathering would mean free publicity from the campaign gods, reminding voters that the incumbent is someone who bestrides the world stage, has the ear of powerful allies, and is at ease with the deepest responsibilities of office. As a prime minister milked the occasion, opponents could only grind their teeth in frustration.
Brexit should be seen as another symptom of this wider fragmentation rather than simply as an insular psychodrama for Britain
Related: John Bercow: Brexit is UK's biggest mistake since second world war
Continue reading...Martin Kettle's Blog
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