June to be the end of May?
Prime Minister May had a double-digit lead in the polls before the campaign started
All elections are unique, but the British general election of June 8th is as remarkable, but for very different reasons, as that which saw Donald Trump into the White House last year. Prime Minister Theresa May won the greatest number of seats and is forecast to win 319 ahead of the Labour Party’s 261. This is not enough to attain what is called an ‘overall majority’ and is going to result in a ‘hung parliament’. The Conservatives have ended up with 12 fewer seats than they had when the election was called — and there was no need to have called the election in the first place as they had a workable parliamentary majority.
Prime Minister May had a double-digit lead in the polls before the campaign started — which narrowed to between one and three per cent by polling day. She ran a lacklustre and characterless campaign as opposed to that run by Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, who had a costed manifesto, a sharp way with communicating with the electorate and an unshakeable belief that his party could win. That was never in truth a possibility, but he gave the Conservatives the electoral fright of their lives. Whether May can survive the inevitable storm within the party and be an effective negotiator in the Brexit talks that commence in 10 days are open questions — along with many others. Knives are being sharpened, names bandied about as possible successors form an orderly queue to knife May behind the arras.
Far from there being a period of strength and stability, there is now going to be turbulence and conflict as a weakened prime minister battles to form and then hold together a government as the Corbyn wolves circle. As one defeated candidate remarked in his concession speech ‘those that live by the sword die by the sword.’ A small party in Northern Ireland are going to be the lifeboat for the Conservatives. They are a historical Conservative offshoot but will be wanting their own pound of flesh as a price for their cooperation. A final takeaway after a remarkable night — 72 per cent of the 18-24 demographic turned out to vote, a sleeping Leviathan that just awoke. We live in interesting times.
Published in The Express Tribune, June 10th, 2017.
Prime Minister May had a double-digit lead in the polls before the campaign started — which narrowed to between one and three per cent by polling day. She ran a lacklustre and characterless campaign as opposed to that run by Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, who had a costed manifesto, a sharp way with communicating with the electorate and an unshakeable belief that his party could win. That was never in truth a possibility, but he gave the Conservatives the electoral fright of their lives. Whether May can survive the inevitable storm within the party and be an effective negotiator in the Brexit talks that commence in 10 days are open questions — along with many others. Knives are being sharpened, names bandied about as possible successors form an orderly queue to knife May behind the arras.
Far from there being a period of strength and stability, there is now going to be turbulence and conflict as a weakened prime minister battles to form and then hold together a government as the Corbyn wolves circle. As one defeated candidate remarked in his concession speech ‘those that live by the sword die by the sword.’ A small party in Northern Ireland are going to be the lifeboat for the Conservatives. They are a historical Conservative offshoot but will be wanting their own pound of flesh as a price for their cooperation. A final takeaway after a remarkable night — 72 per cent of the 18-24 demographic turned out to vote, a sleeping Leviathan that just awoke. We live in interesting times.
Published in The Express Tribune, June 10th, 2017.