BRITAIN:From campaign meltdown to televised debates, Election 2010 was truly unusual
BEFORE Gillian Duffy left her home in Rochdale on April 28th to get a loaf of bread, she was known only by family and neighbours. By the time she got home, she was known to millions of television viewers as Gordon Brown, thinking he was speaking in private in the back of his car as it sped to the next election event, called her a racist.
The two had met on Brown’s street walkabout. Ironically, the encounter had gone well for Brown, who lacks the glad- handing skills of most politicians.
Although she had begun complaining about immigration, Duffy (65) had praised Labour’s efforts to improve schools during its 13 years in power and told the prime minister as they parted that he was “a nice man”.
In the car, though, Brown was livid. To one of his staff, Justin Forsyth, he said: “That was a disaster . . . should never have put me with that woman. Whose idea was that?”
Seeking someone to blame, he laid responsibility on one of his most loyal people, Sue Nye. “What did she say?” Forsyth asked about Duffy. “Everything,” replied Brown. “She was just a sort of bigoted woman who said she used to be Labour. I mean, it’s just ridiculous. Sue pushed her up towards me.”
Such talk about voters is not unusual in private, but Brown had forgotten to remove a Sky News microphone. Sky, perhaps seeking cover in numbers, had shared the audio with competitors. In minutes, Labour’s election campaign, underfunded, riven with divisions, frequently despairing, went into near meltdown.
The tape was played back to Brown during a BBC Radio 2 studio interview shortly afterwards. Brown was seen with his head in his hands as he issued grovelling apologies. Later, he went to Duffy’s home and spent 45 minutes with her but the lifelong Labour supporter would not accompany him to the door to say all was forgiven.
Election 2010 was one Labour did not look like winning. Three times elected, the party looked tired. Brown’s premiership, taken over from Tony Blair in 2007, had begun with much talk of renewal and some early scores, notably international regard for Brown’s handling of the global financial crisis, but it got bogged down.
However, the Conservatives, who for significant periods from 2007 had looked as if they would easily command an overall majority on their own, had, in the American phrase, “failed to close the deal”.Voters became concerned that leader David Cameron did not have the experience necessary to take over No 10 Downing Street.
Morale in the House of Commons before parliament’s dissolution was at its lowest for decades, as the standing of MPs in the public’s eyes collapsed in the wake of the disclosure that many had been involved in systematic abuse of the rules regarding expenses, some for years, as shown in a computer disc sold to the Daily Telegraph.
In all, almost 150 MPs decided not to run again – including 100 from Labour and 35 from the Tory party, the largest number not to stand since the 1945 election.
This cleared the way for a new generation of candidates – many of whom had cut their teeth in the House of Commons as researchers and later special advisers, rather than in the real world.
There was much that was new, or unusual about Election 2010.
The leaders of each of the three main parties – Brown, Cameron and Nick Clegg of the Liberal Democrats – had never faced the British electorate in the headline role, the first time this happened since 1979 when Margaret Thatcher, James Callaghan and David Steel had occupied the roles.
Equally, it was the first time that US and Irish-style leaders’ debates involving the three main parties were to be part of the agenda. This followed a lengthy campaign conducted by Sky News, supported later by the BBC and ITV. Labour eventually agreed, as did the Conservatives, although the latter had more reason to rue their decision subsequently.
The first debate, held in the Granada TV studios in Manchester, created a sensation. Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg was fluent, interested and interesting, and persuasive as he encouraged voters to think anew, to think outside the old party allegiances.
His opponents, each believing they might need him after the election, rushed to “agree with Nick”.
The Liberal Democrats’ poll ratings surged, with growing speculation that the third party of British politics, long-ignored and often ridiculed, could overtake Labour. In the end, however, they lost Commons seats, down five to 57, but with the largest vote share in its history.
More importantly, the final numbers made the party the pivot on which the new government would be formed.
The Conservative leader quickly took control, surprising many of his colleagues and even more of his backbenchers, with a generously toned enticement to the Liberal Democrats, offering a fully-fledged, co-operative coalition, as long as it accepted the Conservative analysis that major spending cuts were necessary to right the country’s finances.
The talks went on for five days. Cameron and Clegg met frequently and got on well. So, too, did their negotiators. Trying to keep an outside bet alive, the Liberal Democrats also spoke to Labour, although the relationship went nowhere. The smaller party was convinced that offers made were not genuine and that, even if they were, they could not be delivered upon.
In a bid to stave off the wilderness years, Brown decided on Monday, May 10th, to announce that he would quit in the September, but shortly afterwards Labour was convinced that Clegg wanted to do a deal with Cameron. The following day, even before the pact had been finalised, Brown went to Buckingham Palace and quit, surprising even the queen.
Since then, the Liberal Democrats, as smaller parties so often do, have suffered in coalition, particularly with the recent bitter battles about tuition fees.
This has led to fears that many of the 2010 seats, on the back of votes from third-level students, will be vulnerable next time. Clegg and others have urged colleagues to hold their ground believing that matters will turn by 2015, if by then the economy has been turned right.
Equally, Cameron will not have everything his own way.
Many in his party are becoming increasingly convinced that he is a not a true Conservative, driven with ambition for one-party rule. If anything, they believe he is a natural coalitionist, happy with the compromises of sharing, as long as most of the compromises are in his favour; but, equally happy to use the existence of the coalition as a means of fending off his far-right contingent’s demands.
However, politics will not be fought just inside the Houses of Parliament. The tuition fee protests have shown that tens of thousands are prepared to take
to the streets. For now, it is students, soon, it will be public servants and those who depend
on their services who will do so, once billions worth of public spending cuts bite hard.
This year brought power for Cameron and Clegg; 2011 will bring some baleful fruit.
