A Pint of Bitter: The final British Eelction debate, “bigotgate” – and the least predictable election for decades

Last time I wrote, we’d just had the first election debate and it looked as though Nick Clegg’s strong performance promised a breakthrough for his party. It did: Cleggmania swept the country and the Liberal Democrats leapt in the polls, ahead of Labour, making this the most unusual general election for years. It looks now as though the LibDem peak has passed: Labour may have just squeaked back into second place. But this is still the most three-cornered election in living memory, and looks like resulting indecisively in a hung Parliament. We’ll see next week.

Adam Tinworth | CreativeCommons

The campaign has been a disaster for Labour, in all frankness. Gordon Brown always had an uphill fight to stay in power, after 13 years in office and against the background of the credit crunch, the recession and a ballooning national debt. He had to take huge risks. But they’ve just not worked for him. The big gamble was to agree to televised debates, but he’s not landed the kind of punches he was hoping for. He’s not performed all that badly in fact: last night’s final debate was his most combative and best performance even though he looked shattered. But his hope was always to blow David Cameron in particular away with his gravitas, and with luck to embarrass or browbeat the Tory leader into some sort of blunder – perhaps last night, when the questions focused on the economy. It never happened, and most viewers think Brown lost all three debates. Otherwise the campaign has been lacklustre at best. And “bigotgate” didn’t help. Gordon Brown, visiting Rochdale and being cornered by Gillian Duffy, dealt pretty well with her policy concerns, concerns that included the deficit and immigration. But, forgetting to switch off his TV microphone when he got into his getaway car, he was caught calling her a “bigoted woman” and seeming to blame his staff for what he thought a disastrous encounter. See his reaction when his words are put back to him. It’s just ridiculous, you might say.

Dominic Campbell | CreativeCommons

Most people’s immediate reaction was to think this would destroy him completely, and that Labour would plunge further in the polls – but oddly, that’s not happened. Why not? First I think because most British voters are pretty forgiving about small hypocrisies and muck-ups. We know we ourselves are two-faced, and might smile at someone in public, only to insult them in private. Second, many people seem to me to have felt the broadcasters overdid this story – it got wall-to-wall coverage, and I think many people started to feel it was unfair to Brown. On top of that, “bigotgate” happened at a fortunate time for Brown, just as the final debate was about to happen and just as voters’ minds are turning away from surface and presentation, and, finally, towards policy and substance – causing a certain frustration with this sort of trivia. Lastly, though, and less reassuringly for Gordon Brown, many people already dislike him and think him a rude, out of touch bully and boor. His poll ratings may just be incapable of sinking much further because he’s already down to Labour’s 25%+ core vote.

Dominic Campbell | CreativeCommons

David Cameron, though, must also be hugely frustrated: with such an unpopular government, such a widely disliked Prime Minister and with such a difficult economic outlook, he and his party should be streets ahead by now, with over 40% in the polls. Stuck at about 35% as I write, he looks likely to have the most seats in the next Parliament, but no majority. If that’s next week’s result it will be a most unpleasing kind of victory for the Conservatives – and will feel more like a sort of defeat. What’s happened? The global economic crisis is what happened. Of course in one way that’s helped David Cameron. But in another, it threw his 2005 strategy off balance. He had presented himself as a fresh, optimistic face of a more open, modern Conservatism, committed to public services and the environment. But circumstances have forced him back towards an older, drier, more money-minded Toryism focused on cutting public spending and resisting immigration and Europe. That’s been an unpopular stance for at least 15 years, and precisely what Cameron had succeeded in dragging his party away from. Their retreat to that place left a gap for the fresh, optimistic Nick Clegg to fill – which he did.

So what happens now? There’s always the unexpected – who knows what further gaffes Gordon Brown is capable of. But I expect Tory support to firm up a little as undecideds decide. Labour support may also firm, and LibDem poll support is likely to fall. All Labour supporters must hope so, because if they really did come third, as has seemed likely, that would be a terrible, historic defeat. If the Conservatives manage somehow to scrape a majority, the LibDems would have a good moral claim to be the real opposition; there might be no way back, for Labour, from there. If on the other hand we get a hung Parliament – as seems likely – history will be made anyway. Unless the Tories are close enough to a majority to try to govern on their own, we may have a period of coalition government or at least inter-party cooperation, something that would change the political game here dramatically, and perhaps for good.

Liberal Democrats | CreativeCommons

Who would govern with whom? That’s the big question. Under our constitutional system, Gordon Brown as the incumbent will have the first chance to negotiate another party’s support. But if Labour and the LibDems can do a deal, it’s almost certain someone other than him would be Prime Minister – and the most likely someone else is Nick Clegg. If they can’t, Clegg may negotiate with Cameron – but if he does he may well split his party at the moment of its greatest triumph. The political possibilities are awesome, and the week after the vote looks like being much, much more dramatic than the week before. Is it obvious I’ve no idea what’s going to happen? Almost anything could.