New Labour is in total panic among its campaigning echelons: Botched campaigning, though publicity grabbing has done them no favours (see the flying-pigs and Fagin posters of late January, early February). Alan Milburn, Alistair Campbell and Tony Blair: The Triple alliance dream team of the latest battle between Left and Right. Italy, Austro-Hungary and Germany’s latest future-historical incarnations in a world post-Imperialism: You see Italy may have the reputation for effectiveness, but is Germany’s stooge in this case. Austro-Hungary has been discredited and didn’t make a real comeback after the first great conflict and Germany has made the mistake of running into manpower expensive and intensive exercises that shoot the professionalism of its forces to pieces.

It is essential for the future good of the country that this process of oncoming loss for the current ‘left’ (and I use the small ‘l’ advisedly) continues at full speed: Only then can the real Left reform to recapture the appropriate elements of its old ideology and bring back proper adversarial politics to Britain, allowing a clear choice for an electorate bombarded with chameleon-‘conservative’ tactics (note small ‘c’ and quotation marks, they are there for a reason). The case for adversarial politics is created through the effect of galvanising a government into action. Of course with some governments, they are simply beyond help (see James Callaghan, 1976-9) owing to the present circumstances of the country. For the ex-Prime Minister, turned Lord, the problem was the indomitable and insatiable Trades Unions. This government has had conditions very conducive to good government for eight years and has failed to use them, because of its own volition it has attempted to destroy adversarial politics with a cynical cyclical campaign of spin, misleadership and camouflage tactics. Tony Blair has prided himself on his powers of political transformation, persuasion and quote, ‘shameless opportunism’. The quote is of course out of context, as it was directed against Michael Howard, the Conservative Party leader, originally. The trouble is, that by definition, it cannot apply as Michael Howard has a reasonably firm ideology. Tony Blair has no such ideological strength, his political skin started to wrinkle long ago, his belly started to sag and he grew overweight into middle age before he had cut his political teeth as a nipper in Sedgefield in 1983. Pragmatism without ideology is bad government, more often than not, especially when having to use this from a Leftist party. Benjamin Disraeli (PM 1868, 1874-80) is often accused of having no ideology: I dismiss this as flagrant nonsense, finding as I do, the idea of accusing the founding father of British one-nation Toryism or Uninationalist conservatism, ridiculous, risible and royally disingenuous.

There’s a reason why Labour’s worried, incidentally: Firstly, we ought to think what their private polls are confirming for them: A number of things most likely: I) the death of tactical voting on which 20 Labour and 14 Liberal Democrat seats depended in 2001. ii) That even by the standards of the most leftist of pollsters they have consistently been running at equal or below the Conservatives. At various points during the last campaign Labour was predicted between six and twelve points ahead of the result it actually achieved. The Conservatives were left 3% underestimated. By this logic, assuming a total correlation (which will not happen) of inaccuracy Labour is scheduled to be (according to the ICM poll in today’s Guardian Newspaper) on a maximum score of 31% and a plausible minimum of 27%. The Conservatives are put by the same logic to be on 37%. And this was before their recent council tax rebate pledges were announced. The progressive nature of the Conservative party in recent months has done them great credit. This indicates a rough lead of between 5% at worst and 10%, of the Tories over Labour. I do not think Labour will plunge as low as 27%. But I do not believe they will achieve their previous heights of landslide victory at 42%. Those glorious days shall be behind them for some years now. And doesn’t Mr. Blair know it? I would sooner lay money on Labour being in the early 30s region with the Tories on a comfortable, if relatively modest lead. The trouble with polls that are biased against the Tories is that they are conducted along the lines of between 4 and 10 voters per constituency in around 200 marginal seats normally. This is statistically and mathematically spurious with no hope of providing an accurate mathematical result. They would be far better advised trying at least 100 per seat and even then being cautious. Iii) Labour has governed poorly on a scale rarely, if ever known before. It has achieved little that is recogniseable or not subject to total denigration by we of the right. The public recognise this fundamentally, many are fed up and many are quite happy to switch. Iv) the rise of the phenomenon I shall coin as the ‘Tory-TV* effect’ or more colloquially the ‘Bugger-Blair-Ballot.’ Left-wing Labour voters, labour voters of all and every other kind, Liberal Democrat voters, small-party voters are queuing up with a single-minded aim. Get that man out of office. Ironic, I feel, and deliciously so as this has been what has happening as people tried to keep the Tories out of office for the last eight years. It think it shows therefore that the Conservatives have demonstrated themselves once more ready for government and therefore returned as heavy-weight political force in British politics. These and other factors I look forward to elaborating on in other articles are some of the keys to Downing Street for Michael Howard and terror for Tony Blair.

Labour would not be so frightened if they thought the Tories really are nothing to worry about: The truth of the matter seems to be that they are re-charged, re-invigorated and raring to go. Tory party membership now outnumbers the combined total for Labour and the Liberal Democrats in days of increasing disassociation with parties. The Conservatives have been able to prove their progressive nature with policies not just on traditional strong points and the laudable achievements of precipitating their own mature debates on these vital issues (eg. Crime, Immigration, Tax, Europe and asylum) but also on Pensions, Schools, Hospitals, Foreign policy, Social Security, Rights legislation, Universities, Police, Low-Income assistance and De-regulation.

But let’s for a moment look over the numbers: In the past few weeks I stumbled across a delightful website called www.vote-2005.co.uk. On it persons from all parties and denominations discuss the likely outcomes in individual seats across the country with lively results. I would advise contributing and reading to learn about the UK’s makeup. But let us get back to figures: Assuming the Conservatives take back those 34 tactical voting losses mentioned earlier that shifts them up to 199 (I include Robert Jackson’s seat as he is stepping down this election)**. Take into account the enormous decline of the Labour vote from a 45% highpoint in 1997 in the main marginal seats across the United Kingdom down to the early to mid-thirties mark it now resides at, combined with the conservative advances there, that means Tory gains across election night. Furthermore there is the effect of the ‘Bugger-Blair-Ballot’ or ‘Treble-B’ voting to take into account. A Possible Welsh and Scottish resurgence furthermore, with the possibility of as many as 9 seats in Wales, compared to the present zilch. Most likely this will be only 6 or less, but an improvement nonetheless. In Scotland the Tories could take as many as another 5 seats to add to their solitary 1 at the moment. Treble-B voting’s actual effect in seat terms, will not be seen so much in the traditional mild-marginal seats (those in which a smaller swing is required) as in the wild-card results of the night: Those seats which we were not expecting to either change or to go over to the Tories. Furthermore, Scotland thanks to the Scottish parliament will have 12 fewer seats at the beginning of the next parliament, I understand, one of them being Alan Duncan’s abolished, but he is standing in a broadly similar constituency. Many of them are Labour seats though, meaning that Labour starts the election at around –10 to its present majority and meaning that one is easier to form for the Tories. So that leaves the current working total of seats at 647 in addition to any other boundary changes. A further 100 gains out of the remaining 165 odd very winnable marginal constituencies would leave the Conservatives on 299 seats. If the Liberal democrats cling onto 40 seats and increase at Labour’s expense (or possibly mildly at the Tories’) that will mean 637-339=308 seats left to win, automatically denying Labour an overall majority. Factor in the nationalists at let’s say 12 seats between them to be generous at their prospects: Brings the total down to 296. Take away the Northern Irish seats: 296 – 18 = 278.

In the new parliament 324 seats will be required for a majority of just 1. The Tories even after these calculations require another 25. They have 65 likely seats they could also take in the marginal regions, the wild-cards and Treble-B vote to consider and a well-fought campaign and sympathetic electorate to rest upon. I think, though it may be a little presumptuous, that a Tory majority in the early thirties might not be such a far off possibility. Worry on Mr. Blair, after all, in a twist on one of your slogans in 1997, “Things can only get better.” This time they really can, for the country.