Allan Massie: General election result up for grabs

Polls can only indicate, its the final count that delivers a result. Picture: Lisa Ferguson

This is an unusual parliament. The coalition agreement included a new law for a fixed-term parliament. We have been accustomed to that here because the Scotland Act decreed that elections for the Scottish Parliament should be held every four years, though the present one will last for five years, because of the new UK law, so that the Scottish and UK elections don’t coincide.

The previous law set a five-year limit on the life of a parliament, but very few have lasted that long. The requirement to hold a general election at the latest five years after the previous one was suspended during the two World Wars – the parliament elected in 1935 endured till 1945; usually, however, parliaments have rarely run to full term because prime ministers have been free to seek a dissolution and election at a time that suited them.

Actually there are two reasons why the present parliament would probably in any case have lasted its full term. First, there could hardly have been a general election this year because of the Scottish Referendum. Second, the Conservatives have consistently been behind Labour in the opinion polls, in which their Liberal Democrat coalition partners have been performing miserably. So there would have been little to tempt David Cameron to go to the country, even if he had been permitted to do so.

Nevertheless five years is a long time between elections. Politicians and the electorate alike become restless. In retrospect it might have been wiser to fix the term at four years rather than five..

Many expected that the coalition would have broken up by now, and that the Conservatives would have had to form a minority government for at least the last year of the parliament. That it hasn’t done so may be attributed either to the Liberal Democrats’ sense of responsibility – it’s desirable for the government of the day to command a majority in the Commons; or, alternatively, to their desperate position in the polls which has persuaded them to remain in government.

Be that as it may, it’s evident that both politicians and the country have had enough of this parliament. MPs are fractious. The government is unpopular; the confusion over the Commons motion on the European Arrest Warrant was an example of the muddle-headedness that tends to characterise exhausted administrations. The continuing buoyancy of Ukip in the polls speaks of the distaste for the two major parties.

The polls also indicate that Ukip are likely to win next week’s by-election in Rochester and Strood. It is being held because the Tory MP, Mark Reckless, switched to Ukip, resigned from the Commons and is now standing as the Ukip candidate – incidentally now opposing things he previously supported. Nobody was surprised when Douglas Carswell did the same thing and won Clacton for Ukip, but the Tories were confident that Mr Reckless couldn’t pull off the same trick. Unless the polls are wrong or a lot of voters change their minds, he will actually do so. And how many other Tory critics of Mr Cameron might then decide that defection may work for them too? The Tories are not in anything like as deep trouble as their coalition partners, but they are in trouble all the same. Ukip, currently at about 15-16 per cent in the poll of polls, don’t look as if they are going to fade away in the months before the election. Indeed, they may even gain support. The anti-political establishment mood seems settled, and it is quite likely that success for Ukip will lead to more success.

Labour are little happier than the Tories. They are stuck in the low 30s in the polls and apparently losing support to Ukip in the north of England and to the SNP in Scotland. Last week’s mutterings of the need to ditch Ed Miliband and choose a new Leader were extraordinary – and extraordinarily foolish. One is tempted to say it can’t possibly happen – except that the times are so strange that little can be ruled out. One thing is certain however. Labour doesn’t look like a party that is ready for government or confident of winning the election. It may admittedly emerge as the party with most seats in the Commons, because the present constituency boundaries give it an in-built advantage, but there will have to be a shift in mood and voting intentions for it to have a majority. We may well be in for a period of coalition governments.

That would suit Ukip fine. Coalition governments, they would say, represent the political establishment to which they are opposed. Any coalition government would be Westminster – the Court Party; they, Ukip, would be the Country Party – even if less than 20 per cent of the electorate supported them. As for the Tory warning, “Vote Ukip, get Miliband”, they would reply: “So what? What’s the difference between Cameron, Clegg and Miliband? Precious little.”

Of course things may turn out differently. Those who flirt with Ukip in by-elections and when questioned by pollsters may return to their old allegiances at the general election. But they may not. The anti-establishment tide is running high. There is confusion everywhere, so much so that London journalists have included the SNP in the ranks of the anti-politics parties – even though it is arguably the best organised, most political and certainly most coherent party in the United Kingdom.

Meanwhile, the government continues on a borrowing spree, spending more than it raises in revenue, and any government formed in May will find itself still obliged to seek deep cuts in departmental budgets. Consequently the next government will be every bit as unpopular as the present one – to the benefit of Ukip and all those who cry “a plague on both your houses”. My guess, for what it’s worth, is that it is still most likely that Ed Miliband will be moving into 10 Downing Street in May, and that he may prove tougher and more capable than most expect. But I wouldn’t lay any money in support of either guess.