#3 This very well might be one of the causes to Labour's coming downfall.
Right now, and ever since the last election, I'd put my money on another Labour win next spring. It's more a case of the opposition being too damn incompetent than people thinking Labour deserves a record third term. The Lib Dems are a sick joke, as usual, and by far the worst of the three main parties, whilst the Tories under Michael Howard have utterly failed to make gains against Blair. People don't really want to vote for Blair (each has his reasons - for many on the Left it's Iraq, and Blair's inexcusably close ties to Bush, for the Right it's Blair's europhilia, and failure to deal with red tape and bureaucracy, and for some it's a mixture of issues), but they don't want to vote for the alternatives either. I predict even more voter apathy than last time round, which would tend to help the smaller and more extreme parties, and/like the Lib Dems. One bad scenario would be a 'no overall majority', and the Lib Dems allying with Labour (they never would support the Tories) and getting their stubby deformed little fingers on the levers of power.
The Tories have potential support for their tougher-than-the-others attitudes towards asylum. Events could yet make that a much bigger issue than it currently is (continued violence in the Netherlands or unrest over here). But they themselves are still very unpopular, and challenged by UKIP. UKIP probably won't do anywhere near as well as they did at the last, European, elections though.
It's still up in the air, but were there an election tomorrow, the Brits would vote to remain with the devil they know. |