As you start to read this piece, you might well be expecting (and be readying yourself to be bored) by the usual pre-polling day political spin, so instead I am going to pick out four key points to watch out for as the results come in on Thursday and Friday to judge how the parties are doing.
First: how do the Liberal Democrats do in Scotland? Historically, when Labour has gone down in the polls and the Conservatives up, the Liberals and then the Alliance have suffered. Recent elections – including both the last two general elections – have seen this pattern broken. With Labour’s popularity clearly on the ropes in Scotland, will the Liberal Democrats prosper or not? The outlook from the last batch of opinion polls is looking promising for gains, and Scotland was of course the scene of the famous Dunfermline by-election victory in 2006.
Second: how do the Liberal Democrats do in the key Westminster marginals? A divergence between overall results and those in key Parliamentary contests was seen last year in London. In several key seats for the next general election the party made substantial progress (such as in Brent, Camden, Haringey and Lewisham). Whilst there were less good results elsewhere, the overall result was that the Lib Dems are far better poised to elect more MPs next time in London than we were before the London elections. We may well see a similar pattern this year, with the Liberal Democrats doing significantly better in many of the key marginal Parliamentary seats than elsewhere.
Third: how credible will any Conservatives claims to be back on the road to power turn out to be? After the May 1978 elections (i.e. the last round of elections before they won the general election) the Conservatives had 49.6% of councillors. After May 1996 (i.e. the last round of elections before they won the general election) Labour had 48.1% of councillors. The Conservatives had 38.6% after last May’s elections, so to get up to 48.1% would require net gains of over 2,000 councillors (even allowing for by-election gains in the interim).
Anything short of 2,000 gains would still leave them well short of the position they and Labour were both in last time they won from opposition.
Fourth: how does the Liberal Democrat share of the vote compare with Labour? On the estimated equivalent national share of the vote, the Liberal Democrats and Labour were neck and neck in 2004 and 2006. Will the party emerge in a clear second place this time?
As for the result I’ll be looking out for most closely … it’ll be the one where I was involved in a last minute legal scramble to sort out problems with the nomination paperwork. Let’s hope that hassle was worth it!
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