THE 6 MAY 2010 GENERAL ELECTION

Introduction

The 2010 election campaign began with all the main parties in precarious positions. The scandal stricken and divided Labour government had been trailing in the opinion polls since late 2007 against a resurgent Conservative Party under David Cameron. Despite this lead Cameron had not conclusively gained the confidence of the country in his ability to disassociate his party from its discredited former New Right incarnation. Moreover it had an electoral mountain to climb, only possessing 198 seats to Labour’s 355. To achieve power it would have had to attain the largest swing in post-war British political history. At the start of the campaign the Liberal Democrats were having difficulties too, their leader Nick Clegg failing to capture the public imagination with his message. All polls pointed to an exceptionally close contest, enlivened for the first time by TV debates between the three main party leaders.

Key points from the Manifestoes (from the Guardian)

Labour

Economy

• Halve the budget deficit within four years through a mixture of spending restraint and tax increases, mainly for the higher paid.
• No increase to either the basic or top rate of income tax in the next parliament, and a promise not to extend VAT to food, children’s clothes, books, newspapers and public transport fares. The manifesto, however, leaves open the possibility of raising the level of VAT.
• A commitment to an internationally-agreed levy on banks.
• UK banks in which the government holds a controlling stake will be broken up and sold off.

Crime and immigration

• Failing police forces will be taken over by successful ones – although this promise is hedged with caveats, indicating it is likely to be rarely used.
• On immigration, a pledge for all public sector workers to speak English will apply only to those in contact with the public.

Health

• Patients to get legally-binding guarantees on the treatment they will receive in the NHS, including the right to cancer test results within one week of referral to a specialist.
• Maximum 18 weeks’ wait for treatment – with the backup of an offer to be treated in the private sector.
• A new right to see a GP at evenings and weekends, and more high street services.
• All hospitals to become foundation trusts, with greater freedom to manage their budgets and decide their priorities. Poorly performing hospitals will be taken over by successful trusts.

Education

• The party wants 1,000 secondary schools – roughly a third – to be part of a chain of schools run by an executive head teacher.
• Labour aims to save £950m from increased efficiencies in education and £500m from education quangos and civil servants. The party would make parents sign up to a behaviour contract when their child started primary school.
• Higher education: Labour 75% of 18- to 30-year-olds to obtain a degree or an advanced apprenticeship. Higher education would be expanded with priority for places given to part-time students.

Social affairs

• Paid paternity leave doubled to a month.
• Sure Start nursery centres to be converted into children centres offering “one-stop shops, open to all families, offering excellent affordable childcare, healthcare and parenting advice”.
• Link between earnings and the basic state pensions to be restored from 2012.

Foreign policy and defence

• A promise to play a leading role in Europe.
• No switch to the euro without a referendum.
• A “forces charter” for soldiers, their families, and veterans. Birmingham’s new Queen Elizabeth hospital – where the manifesto was launched – will have a military ward, and “the largest single-floor critical care unit in the world”.

Scotland

• New tax powers for Scotland “as soon as possible” in the next parliament, giving the Scottish parliament the right to set separate income tax rates, control over other minor taxes and new rights to borrow money.
• New legal powers over airguns, drink-driving and speed limits.

Conservatives:

The economy

• Emergency budget within 50 days of election to include immediate £6bn cut in wasteful spending and one-year freeze on public sector pay in 2011
• Scrapping of planned increase in national insurance for employers and workers earnings less than £35,000. Main rate of corporation tax to be cut to 25%
• Pledge to match Labour’s spending plans for 2010-11 in health and overseas aid
• Abolition of Financial Services Authority with supervision of the City handed back to the Bank of England

Education

• Develop schools under the Swedish “free schools” and the US “charter school” models: small, autonomous institutions run and set up by parents, teachers, universities, faith groups and voluntary groups
• More money for schools that take more than average numbers of poor pupils. But no detail on how much money will be allocated
• National curriculum to be focused around traditional subjects, such as history, science and maths in primary schools

Health

• Scrap waiting-list targets
• New 24/7 urgent care service and weekend access to GPs
• Stop closures of A&E and maternity wards

Home affairs

• Elected police commissioners to replace police authorities; instant grounding orders for antisocial youngsters; prison sentences for carrying a knife; ban on below-cost alcohol sales; new border police force
• ID cards and register and Contactpoint children’s database to be scrapped; Human Rights Act to be replaced by British Bill of Rights
• Annual limit on non-EU economic migrants; overseas students to pay bond on arrival; English language tests for those coming to Britain to get married

Social affairs

• Big Society bank using unclaimed assets to fund charities and neighbourhood groups
• Neighbourhood groups, the “little platoons” of civil society will be able to take over failing public services
• National Citizen Service for 16 year olds

Families

• Tax breaks to promote marriage and civil partnerships
• Conservative government will freeze council tax for two years
• Ending tax credits for households earning more than £50,000

Sport and the Lottery

• Restore the national lottery to its original “four pillars”, cutting down administration costs and ensuring money is not spent on “ministers’ pet projects”. Sports, heritage and the arts will each see their original allocations of 20% of good cause money restored
• Part of the community sports budget of the lottery diverted to deliver an Olympic legacy, including the “vigorous promotion” of a new national Olympic-style school competition.
• Deliver a successful Olympics in 2012, Rugby League World Cup in 2013, Commonwealth Games in 2014 and Rugby Union World Cup in 2015

Defence

• Replace Trident nuclear missile system
• Double operational allowance for troops in Afghanistan
• Set up National Security Council “to integrate at the highest levels of government the work of our foreign, defence, energy, home and international development departments”

The environment

• To make the UK “the world’s first low-carbon economy”, including becoming a world leader in green goods and services
• Energy mix from more renewables, nuclear and “clean coal”, backed by an emissions performance standard on power stations
• White paper on protecting the natural environment would introduce “conservation credits”, and protected areas to be extended

Liberal Democrats

Business and the economy

• The first £10,000 people earn will be tax-free. The party makes that a tax cut of £700 for “most people”
• A pledge to free 3.6 million low earners and pensioners from income tax
• Break up the banks and “get them lending again”

Education

• The Liberal Democrats have pledged an extra £2.5bn to cut class sizes to 20 in primary schools, increase one-to-one tuition and provide catch-up classes for 160 pupils in each secondary school
• Replace academies with schools that are accountable to local authorities, but that have a charity or parent group as sponsor
• Slim down the national curriculum and scale back Sats. Bring GCSEs, A-levels and vocational courses under a single diploma qualification

Health

• Prioritise the prevention of ill-health through payments to GPs and hospitals
• Patient entitlement to diagnosis and treatment on time or the right to go private
• Patient right to register with any GP and access GP by email

Crime, immigration and civil liberties

• Recruit 3,000 more police officers, paid for by scrapping ID cards, electronic fingerprints on passports, the prison building programme and Whitehall plans to track all emails and internet use.
• Replace prison sentences of six months or less with community penalties and cancel the £800m prison-building programme.
• Immigration: A regional points-based system to ensure migrants can only work where they are needed. An independent agency to decide asylum claims and an end to the detention of children.

Defence and foreign policy

• There would be a full judicial inquiry into allegations of British complicity in torture and state kidnapping
• No like-for-like replacement of the Trident nuclear missile system
• The Lib Dems say it is in Britain’s long-term interests to join the euro, but only after a referendum

Families

• Extend shared parental leave to 18 months, allowing parents to share their allocation of maternity and paternity leave
• Immediately restore the link between the basic state pension and earnings
• Scrap compulsory retirement ages, allowing those who wish to continue in work to do so

Environment

• Work for a global deal to limit temperature rise to 1.7C, based on equalising emissions between developed and developing countries
• Push the EU to adopt a 30% emissions cuts by 2020 without waiting for a global deal
• 100% clean energy for the UK by 2050, including no nuclear, and coal only if it meets the highest standards

 

The Campaign – key events

• Labour: Labour’s campaign was lacklustre and disaster prone from start to end. The party failed to support Gordon Brown and the visible cracks caused a decline in public support. Brown’s accidentally public description of one Labour voter Gillian Duffy as a ‘bigot’ was a huge PR disaster exacerbated by three lacklustre TV debates in which the other two leaders consistently beat him. The situation declined still further when one Labour candidate Manish Sood described Brown as ‘the worst ever British Prime minister’. Only firm management of the campaign by Peter Mandelson prevented a complete collapse.
• Conservatives: Pollsters suggested a single figure Conservative victory at the start of the campaign. However Nick Clegg’s unexpected success in TV debates made a hung parliament the more realistic prospect. The Conservatives were very well financed and campaigned with relentless energy, and David Cameron’s much improved performance in the last TV debate suggested a recovery of support. Although they undoubtedly capitalised on Labour weakness, key parts of the Conservative manifesto failed to engage public enthusiasm, notably Cameron’s flagship social policy ‘the Big Society’.
• Liberal Democrats: After a mediocre start the Liberal Democrats campaign exploded after a stellar performance from Nick Clegg in the first two TV debates, pushing Labour into third place in the polls for a considerable period and even challenging the Conservatives for first. Clegg made voting reform a central feature of his campaign and as Liberal Democrat fortunes rose speculation increased as to the price he would extract in return for a coalition agreement with the two other main parties.
• Expenses Scandal: All parties had been tainted by this affair and it did not appear to work to the advantage of any particular party. What it did do was ensure that a record number of MPs retired from the Commons at the 2010 election. As a result regardless of who won the election the composition of government looked set to change radically.
• The Economy: Given global financial insecurity, it was inevitable that discussion of the economy would be central to the campaign. Labour advocated continued public expenditure to help regenerate the economy, postponing the reduction of the public deficit by a raising of National Insurance. The Conservatives and to a lesser extent the Liberal Democrats accused Labour of running a bloated and unsustainable level of debt and pressed for urgent spending cuts to stimulate the economy. In the last TV debate Cameron seemed to gain the initiative in this area by labelling Labour’s planned National Insurance rise as a ‘tax on jobs’.
• Electoral Problems: The campaign for electoral reform was boosted by a number of problems with the mechanics of voting in this election. Postal vote ballot papers arrived too late for expatriates in the Antipodes to vote in many cases whilst the number of people turning out to vote overwhelmed some polling stations leading to a considerable number of people missing the 10pm deadline for voting.

Results

• The results were almost exactly as pollsters predicted for the largest parties– 306 Conservative seats (up 97) and 258 Labour (down 91). The shock was the failure of the Liberal Democrats to make inroads – indeed they ended up with 57 seats, 6 down on the last election.
• Labour had undoubtedly lost the election, and the Conservatives secured the largest swing in their favour in recent memory (5%). It was not sufficient for them to form a majority however, even with the potential support of the DUP of Northern Ireland.
• The country was now in a state of political limbo – Gordon Brown was still caretaker Prime Minister until a new government could be formed or else a new election called. There were four options available: (1) a fresh election (2) a Conservative minority government (3) a Liberal-Democrat/Conservative coalition (4) a Liberal Democrat/Labour coalition
• Because the Conservatives had the largest number of seats Clegg believed that he should enter into coalition discussions with them first.
• For the first three days these talks appeared to be going well then appeared to founder in the face of Conservative opposition to Liberal Democrat commitments to voting reform.
• Preliminary discussions were opened with Labour. Brown offered to resign, to institute AV immediately and offer a referendum on a PR based voting system. However their remained serious problems with this proposal – Labour and Liberal Democrat seats combined still did not make up a majority in the Commons, to achieve this would have required the support of the nationalist parties and the Green Party in a so-called ‘Rainbow Coalition’, a politically very unstable option. Moreover there was a feeling amongst many Liberal Democrats and even Labour politicians such as David Blunkett that Labour had been defeated and that any government with them would lack popular legitimacy.
• Whether or not these discussions were serious, Clegg was able to use them to lever Cameron into agreeing a referendum on AV as a condition of coalition. Cameron was able to persuade his party to accept this arrangement and coalition talks resumed. With an agreement clearly in sight Gordon Brown tendered his resignation to the Queen who in turn invited David Cameron to become her Prime Minister on 11 May, five days after the General Election as leader of a Liberal Democrat/Conservative Coalition government with Nick Clegg as his Deputy Prime Minister. 13 years of New Labour government were over.