General Election Betting 
/ Paul Krishnamurty / 21 June 2011 / Leave a Comment Ed Miliband needs to make the speech of his life at September's Labour Party conference
"Will the SNP's dramatic advance be sustained? If so, Britain's electoral maths will be drastically altered, and Labour's task to gain future majorities will become considerably tougher."
Labour's leader is said to be embattled but Paul Krishnamurty believes that the party remain the most likely to win the next General Election. The upcoming by-election in Inverclyde could tell us a lot though...
British politics is in a bizarre place right now. We have an increasingly unpopular government, split on many issues, repeatedly being forced to u-turn, and yet supposedly the man whose job is under the greatest threat is the leader of the opposition. Nine months into the job, Ed Miliband has taken his party's poll ratings to a nine-year high, yet has to face down plots from his own side and is written off by media pundits.
Such is the fate of being a Labour leader in opposition. We haven't seen anything like it at least since the 1980s, when Neil Kinnock had to face down his far Left despite regularly leading the polls. Then as now, such indisciplined opposition makes a difficult job all the harder, and the last thing Miliband needs right now is a by-election where Labour has everything to lose, and nothing to gain. Fair or not, changing the media narrative is never an easy task, so anything short of a resounding Labour victory in Inverclyde next Thursday is likely to result in knives being sharpened.
Doubtless some of Miliband's problems stem from last year's victory over his brother, but it was a disastrous defeat in the Scottish Parliament elections that gave his enemies ammunition. That defeat to the SNP took any shine off Labour's gains in English council elections, allowing a typically superficial commentariat to label a mixed night as a failure. Before we part with any cash on the Inverclyde outcome, or Miliband's future, we need to take a balanced look at those 'Super Thursday' results.
Without taking anything away from Alex Salmond, whose persona drove the SNP to an unprecedented victory and may yet transform British history, the nationwide results were predictable, accurately reflecting developments and polling since the last General Election. Lets rewind to that May 2010 contest. New Labour was a moribund brand. Bankrupt in both financial and philosophical terms, shorn of it's activist base, tired and divided after a long spell in government. They had already ceded Holyrood to the SNP, and if anything, the scale of defeat was better than expected.
Then British politics was turned on it's head, with a previously unthinkable coalition formed between the Tories and Lib Dems. The latter owed their electoral advances over the past decade to disaffected Labour supporters, attracted by first Charles Kennedy and then Nick Clegg's apparently left-wing platform. Given that their party originated from a 1980s alliance between the old Liberal Party and the centre-left SDP, it was no surprise to see the polls record the transfer en masse of left-wing Lib Dem voters to Labour. So when he finally took over in September, rather than inheriting Gordon Brown's 29% ratings, Miliband found himself in charge of a party in a promising high-30s polling position.
Apart from that understandable switch from Lib Dem to Labour, it is hard to see where public opinion has changed over the past 12 months, or how Miliband has affected it in either a positive or negative way. Labour remains an unpopular brand, blamed for the deficit and trailing on economic competance. Voters who switched from Labour to Conservative have yet to change their minds. Nor have the Scottish voters who supported Alex Salmond's centre-left alternative in 2006.
All of that was reflected last month. The Lib Dem vote collapsed, transferring to the SNP in Scotland, enabling Labour to gain 800 council seats in England and the Tories to pick up numerous Southern Tory/Lib Dem marginals. Labour's vote share in each region was in line with polling expectations. The results had little or no relevance to Ed Miliband's personal performance - the two stories were the Lib Dem collapse and a spectacular vote of confidence in Alex Salmond.
Labour clearly need to undergo the root and branch reforms that Miliband has set in train, but over all the national polling picture is very positive. If they are recording up to 43% at what should be their low point during this Parliament, they should take the world of beating at the next General Election when the arguments of 2010 will be old hat. Given the Tories long-term inability to advance beyond a core 37%, a return to the old two-party politics surely suits Labour better. I remain firmly of the view that [2.24] to win the next election is a fantastic bet, whoever is leader.
Scotland, however, is pivotal. The key question concerns whether the SNP's dramatic advance can be sustained in other elections. If so, Britain's electoral maths will be drastically altered, and Labour's task to gain future majorities will become considerably tougher. I'm not convinced they can. For the last two Holyrood elections, the inspirational Salmond has marshalled a strange anti-Labour tactical coalition, but when it comes to Westminster, voters tend to return to their own party.
Moreover, in order to break Labour's dominance in constituencies like Inverclyde, the SNP must improve on longstanding trends that have seen them underperform in elections for Westminster, compared to Holyrood. This phenomenon often applies to minority nationalist parties, such as the Quebec Nationalists in Canada, and can probably be explained by voters preferring a nationwide alternative when it comes to defending their interests in the capital.
Nevertheless, they do have by-election pedigree, most recently causing a massive upset in Glasgow East which put the skids under Gordon Brown's leadership. Given the media narrative, a similar upset would do the same to Ed Miliband. Winning Inverclyde, however, will be a gargantuan task for the SNP. This is rock-solid Labour territory, where they earned a 14,000 majority even in last May's disastrous poll. Granted the SNP came within 500 of victory in the equivalent Holyrood seat last month, but set against other losses elsewhere, holding on was a good result for Labour! Critically, Alex Salmond's name isn't on this ballot paper, so Labour must be the call, even at the prohibitive quote of [1.3].
The problem for Miliband is that his majority will almost certainly be substantially reduced. A lower turnout alone will hurt Labour, who always struggle to get their supporters out for minor elections. Gordon Brown probably benefitted from a personal vote in Scotland last May, whereas London-intelligentsia types like Miliband rarely connect north of the border. The likelihood is that, while victory might keep the dogs at bay for a while, Miliband's internal opponents are unlikely to disappear just yet. Ed's future, and the battle for the party's soul, will doubtless continue through to the party conference season in September, when he needs to make the speech of his life.
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