ohOn the day before the 1992 general election, the bookmakers in Ascot were offering odds of 6 to 1 on John Major’s Conservative Party to win. I was with the economist Roger Bootle, and we agreed that Labour, with a large lead in the opinion polls, was bound to win. Even at those odds, there was no point in betting on the Conservatives. When the results came in, we were disappointed.
Years later, when I told this story to the then Labour leader, Lord Kinnock, he joked that he should have called from Ascot. Driving back from a campaign in south Wales the previous week, he said, he and his wife, Glenys, had a disturbing feeling that the election was “running away” from them, despite the opinion polls.
The general election is fast approaching, on the 4th of July, but the campaign is already looking boring, or even annoying, to many people. While Labour has consistently led in the opinion polls, the divisive Conservative Party is widely thought to be heading for a historic defeat.
The bookmaker odds are quite different this time around. At the time of writing, the Conservatives are at 30/1 odds to win, and Labour are at 1/41 odds to win the most seats. This means that if you bet £41 on Labour, you will only win £1.
Most people don’t find Keir Starmer inspiring, but they seem to think Labour will definitely win.
People are tired of the effects of austerity. And regarding the NHSAnd Brexit is proving to be more of a disaster with each passing day, with the self-destructive measures that take away freedom of movement impacting many areas of life and bureaucratic restrictions on trade causing serious damage to businesses and, ultimately, us, the customers.
The very topic of Brexit has become a no-go zone for the two major parties: the Conservatives because they believe it is responsible, and Labour because they were right about Brexit but fear alienating the so-called “red wall” voters who left last time.
We are facing a general election five years after the Conservatives won a landslide victory on the slogan “Get Brexit Done”. They got Brexit done, but now it’s the end of them.
Brexit is claiming casualties everywhere. As I write this, the radio is predictably reporting that Labour’s massive house-building plans are being thwarted by a shortage of construction workers caused by xenophobic attitudes towards former European partners, potentially leading to an exodus of Eastern European construction workers.
Now, I mention Labour’s plans because, despite my warnings about the 1992 election, the results of which have haunted Labour ever since, there is little doubt that the Conservatives will suffer a major defeat on the Fourth of July. Frankly, people are fed up.
His lie about Labour’s tax reform proposals is just one of many blunders that Rishi Sunak has brought upon himself. Yes, Liz Truss’s mistakes have damaged the Conservative party, but they are not Sunak’s fault. But they are not the only ones. This administration has been exposed by a cumulative body of wrongdoing. The toll of post-2010 austerity measures It affects most people in some way.
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Sunak has been a Brexiteer from the start. The dramatic fallout from leaving the single market is evident in the UK’s dismal growth record. The Centre for European Reform estimates that annual tax revenues would have been around £40 billion higher if the UK hadn’t left the EU. These losses have led both major parties to reject plans for tax hikes, and British people in opinion polls say they would happen anyway. Financial Times “The Conservative Party is the final victim of Brexit,” he said.
It was emblematic of how corrupt the party had become when the prime minister had to apologise for insultingly cutting short the anniversary of the Normandy landings to attend a television interview in London. He denied that he was lying. About the Labour Party’s tax reform proposals.
One of my friends said, “Finally [Brexit] “The Prime Minister has apologised for Brexit.”
Brexit is fast becoming a tragedy. As events since the Normandy landings remind us, the stability and peace of Europe since the Second World War was the product of an economically united Europe. Until the Brexit catastrophe.
Russian actions in Ukraine, and fears of further Moscow revanchistism in Eastern Europe, place a large burden on Starmer’s government.
Economically, Starmer’s growth ambitions require closer ties with the EU, not just the single market, and we Brits must stop distancing ourselves from Europe to address the wider geopolitical threat, especially if a future president, Donald Trump, distances himself from it.
