please empty your brain below
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You have said that Corbyn isn't going to win...expect the cult to turn up in the comments now DG!
Simon Guy | 23.04.17 - 8:07 a.m. | #
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Why no 'centre'? Perhaps we're not being offered the candidates we would wish to vote for. If so, what change is needed?
Add 'None of the above' to the ballot paper. If 'None of the above' gets the most votes, re-run the election, but with none of the original candidates allowed to stand. As with last years referendum, it should bring up the proportion of people voting, because they will feel they have a direct influence on the election.
RayL | 23.04.17 - 8:11 a.m. | #
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The last opportunity for a single party to occupy a strong position on the centre ground was when the leftist SDP joined the Liberal Party to form the Liberal Democrats.
They had successes in some areas, but over time fell victim to the seemingly inevitable polarisation that your piece accurately describes.
For a new centre party to emerge would take someone with a vision and the backing of serious money... and they're normally already tucked in behind the Tories!
Frank F | 23.04.17 - 8:15 a.m. | #
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No party can win here if it calls itself "centrist". (At least, not since 1945). But Tony Blair seems to have taken policies from both sides, and look where his reputations is now.
I would suggest that may be because he took the bad bits from each side, and finished up worse than either.
Malcolm | 23.04.17 - 8:44 a.m. | #
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The election was called because the PM hopes to dilute the influence of the 'Tory Taliban', or 'Bastards' as John Major called them, might work, its hard to judge, although many Labour areas voted Brexit, it's unlikely they'll switch - after all Stoke didn't vote UKIP.
The other element is the Liberals, there might be more Richmonds, it's possible she doesn't end up significantly better off than she is already, possibly 30-40 seat majority instead of around 100 as their poll lead would suggest.
The other problem is the message about stability doesn't work, in 2015 we were told to vote Conservative to avoid chaos, after only two years we told to vote Conservative to erm, avoid chaos.
Note that the no tax increases promises are being dropped too, they have looked at the books and they know we are stuffed, and without any chance of a Labour victory, the Tories own the problem.
Still anon | 23.04.17 - 8:50 a.m. | #
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"We had the chance to opt for PR and threw it away, because we prefer to be ruled by one lot or the other, not a compromise."
Is this a reference to the AV referendum? If only campaign was fought on such sensible grounds. If I recall, it was full of lies and personal attacks and the conclusion had little to do with electoral science.
Madison | 23.04.17 - 9:13 a.m. | #
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It could be argued that the Blair governments were relatively centrist on most issues. But as the left and right shift (and both have consistently shifted to the right over the last thirty years) the centre shifts with them. The centre now is way to the right of where the right was in the early seventies. So 'the centre' is pretty much a meaningless concept.
Sarah | Homepage | 23.04.17 - 9:38 a.m. | #
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@Still anon - Stoke not voting UKIP owes more to do with the totally unexpected Tory surge (despite a no hope no campaign approach) taking a lot (almost half of blue+purple) of the erronously-assumed UKIP vote (and the Lib Dems failing to make any ground there as the party of Remain and taking votes off of Labour) than that they wanted Labour. Those northern red-blue marginals held by Labour will be tight.
Si | 23.04.17 - 10:01 a.m. | #
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My theory is that it's down to the fact that activists who have at least of some of the control over our parties are naturally the ones with strong political views, and they want the party to follow them. Meanwhile the professional politicians and strategists know that to win you need to capture the centre ground, which will involve policies which will enrage the activists.
Blair pulled Labour towards the center with "New Labour" and won three consectuive general elections. Under Corbyn they have retreated back to the left again.
Cameron did the same thing - he was more to the center than many Conservatives would have liked him to be.
There might be a lot of public support for a "common sense, stability is good, most things are fine" party, but not from the people who are actually prepared to fund it, and go round putting up posters and knocking on doors.
Jonathan | 23.04.17 - 10:11 a.m. | #
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DG - I think you need to put BOTH 1974 elections on your chart to keep it consistent with where we are now...
daveid76 | 23.04.17 - 11:05 a.m. | #
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Well, actually we don't get extreme governments of left or right. We get governments who are pulled, with varying degrees of protest or acquiescence, towards the centre.
Yes, they fiddle with each other's previous decisions and policies (but not as much as they pretend they do), and yes, their natural instincts are towards different priorities, but the electorate doesn't actually reward what is perceived as dogmatism.
Personally I'd prefer an electoral system that is a bit less of a blunt instrument, and allows that basic inertial centrism in the electorate to work more transparently: but the centre of gravity in the electorate doesn't shift that much to either side.
Autolycus | Homepage | 23.04.17 - 11:06 a.m. | #
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Agree with Sarah that the political pendulum has swung way to the right compared to what it was a few years ago. Its ludicrous to suggest that this current conservative government and the previous coalition occupied the 'centre ground' when they did so much to destroy the post-war consensus on NHS and welfare state, egged on by their powerful friends in the media and lobbying groups.
Regarding PR, I'd say the Lib Dems played their cards v poorly on this one. The AV option was a half-baked compromise (I still voted for it myself) which people found difficult to understand, but they caved in too easily on this issue.
Bill | 23.04.17 - 11:26 a.m. | #
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The Labour Party is not a left wing party and hasn't been for a long time. Although Corbyn is a lefty, his view are in the minority within the PLP. The outcomes of elections haven't been an issue of left vs right in many, many years.
Adam | 23.04.17 - 11:35 a.m. | #
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The old leftwing socialist parties in western Europe, have since the 1970’s betrayed the working class that they were meant to represent.
Into this gap the populist parties evolved, but so far they have only managed to have limited electoral sucess.
IMO what makes the UK politics very different to the rest of Europe is the media.
When the The Sun & The Daily Mail are your two biggest newspapers.
There is only Right and extreme Right in the UK.
“Our Boys our boys…..We won the war…..And we will never ever stop talking about it.”
“Our Boys our boys…..We drive BMW’s …Minis and if we could RR, which are now owned by Germany.”
“Our Boys our boys…..We work the longest hours….But still we don’t seem to get anywhere better”
Michael | 23.04.17 - 12:45 p.m. | #
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It is difficult to see how your chart would depict anything other than a left/right back-and-forth. Two post-war parliaments (Feb 1974 and 2010) were in fact "hung", with the PM reliant on the support of one or more centre parties, but these are depicted as red and blue respectively.
dg writes: Yes, that's what the paragraph under the table says.
Inevitably, the two biggest parties (in any country, and in any era) will be seen as left and right. (Compare the policies of our Conservative Party with the Democratic party in the USA, for example)
If you extended your chart back to Victorian times, you would see a similar see-sawing, but between the Liberals and the Conservatives.
And if the LibDems now made it into second place the see-saw would be recalibrated with them as the left (or right) party
timbo | 23.04.17 - 1:20 p.m. | #
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I must have been seeing things......SNP centrist? They make Corbyn seem right wing!
100andthirty | 23.04.17 - 2:26 p.m. | #
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SNP sentenced deleted, thanks.
diamond geezer | Homepage | 23.04.17 - 5:37 p.m. | #
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...no comment
Grumpy Anon | 23.04.17 - 5:47 p.m. | #
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The lib dems are proud that the vast majority of their manifesto commitments made it into law. Tuition fees however was too heavy a price to pay, as was the mood of those who voted for the lib dems as an alternative left wing party and were upset when they got in government with the tories.
Messiah | 23.04.17 - 10:51 p.m. | #
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A "forcefully charismatic middle of the road politician" sounds like an oxymoron.
Great Aunt Annie | 24.04.17 - 8:17 a.m. | #
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The nature of FPTP means that the two main parties are, in fact, coalitions. The Tory party is a coalition of low tax libertarians, one nation Tories, ardent Brexiteeers etc. Theresa May has just done a better job of bringing them together than Jeremy Corbyn has with the various factions of his party.
Tintinhaddock | 24.04.17 - 12:21 p.m. | #
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@Great Aunt Annie
"'forcefully charismatic middle of the road politician' sounds like an oxymoron"
Emmanuel Macron seems to have squared that circle.
timbo | 24.04.17 - 12:30 p.m. | #
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The vested interests in the UK, that are able to exert political influence, are not in the centre. They are to the left or to the right. It's no wonder we have "lurching" politics and governments in this country.
And there I must stop because I am completely fed up with politics in this country and loathe the fact we're plunged into another ******* General Election. I'd be quite happy to see all politicians take a very long walk off a short pier into a sea of boiling oil. Grump.
PC | 24.04.17 - 4:16 p.m. | #
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@timbo: many thanks for that link. I’ve read it with great interest and saved it for future reference.
Great Aunt Annie | 24.04.17 - 10:48 p.m. | #
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