The general election fringe festival

This spring’s general election has been surrounded by fierce speculation. The role of minor parties, the effect of proposed American-style television debates, and the possibility of a hung parliament are all subjects of debate. The _Boar_ spoke to several experts and politicians about their take on these issues.

For the first time ever we will see televised debates between the three main party leaders here in the UK. Chairing these debates will be David Dimbleby, whom the Boar spoke to after BBC’s Question Time, which took place on 4th February at the Arts Centre.

Dimbleby said the debates will “have a big influence, because we’ve never had them in this country before, they’ll be very dramatic”.

He said the candidates have “each got to find a way of getting through and winning people over. The real victory is to find a way of making your opponent look as though they haven’t thought things through or are a bit stupid.”

He added, “I think the Liberal Democrats have a stroke of good fortune to be there, because it’s called the Prime Ministerial Debates, and it’s difficult to see circumstances in which the leader could become Prime Minister.”

The role of fringe parties is another important factor in the election. Public disillusionment with mainstream politicians could potentially spur an increase in support for parties like Respect, the Green party, UKIP, and the BNP.

“I think they could be very important in marginal seats, where the margin between the Conservatives and Labour is not that great,” said Professor Wyn Grant of Warwick’s politics department.

In terms of winning seats, however, Grant said it is “unlikely” that many seats will go to fringe parties.

“The BNP have a few seats that they are targeting – whether they will win them is another matter – and the UKIP are particularly targeting the seat of the Speaker, John Bercow, which is obviously a seat which is fought on a non-partisan basis, so they might feel that they have some possibility of winning there.”

Respect MP George Galloway told the Boar, “There will be a large number of independent and single issue candidates, as well as RESPECT and the nationalist parties who I think will definitely benefit [from the expenses scandal].

“RESPECT only has one MP and he claimed nothing, so that’s not a bad election platform.”

Professor Grant also discussed each main party’s prospects on polling day. “I think that for Conservative and Labour there is obviously everything still to fight for, the Conservatives are ahead in the opinion polls by nine points, which is probably only just enough to give them an overall majority in the House of Commons.

“The Liberal Democrats I think face a challenging election in terms of whether they can retain the number of seats they have at present.”

The possibility of a hung parliament, in which no party has enough seats to form a government, is also a topic of debate. “I think it’s quite possible given the state of the parties and the opinion polls.

What one’s got to remember is that supposing the Conservatives are the largest party they will probably be quite ahead of Labour, so they will certainly have the support of the Ulster Unionists,” said Grant. A Conservative-Unionist coalition is one possible outcome of a hung parliament.

The expenses scandal has tarnished the reputation of politicians, so this general election takes place at a delicate time for politicians from all parties.

The Boar spoke to Dr Kim Howells, MP for Pontypridd and Chair of the Intelligence and Security Committee, after a lecture he gave to Politics students at the Digital Auditorium on the 28th January.

“I certainly don’t think that the election is in the bag [for the Conservatives]. You can never judge these things on the basis of polling.”

Grant, however, disagreed, saying “I think they’re pretty reliable particularly when they are all revealing relatively similar results which they are at the moment.

When you’re seeing pretty steady leads in different polls of around 9 or 10 percent of the Conservatives over Labour then I think this gives a fairly solid indication of the state of public opinion.”

On the role of leadership, Howells said: “I think there’s been a drift towards a more presidential politics in Britain, and I find that quite worrying actually because then it is about presentation and it’s about the ability to speak in a very slick way and a way which translates difficult issues into far simpler ideas.”

The expenses scandal has dramatically reduced public confidence in Parliament, but Howells thinks politicians handled the issue badly.

“I think they [the leaders] should have been braver and they should have defended their own back-benchers a lot more than they did. I think it is going to take them many years to build back trust in Parliament.”