John Rapley
BRITONS GO to the polls today in a general election widely expected to return Tony Blair's Labour government to office. Labour, unaccustomed to power when Mr. Blair took over the party in the 1990s, will probably set a new record for longevity by winning its third straight mandate.
Not that Britain is in love with Mr. Blair. In fact, his popularity, along with his Labour Party, has suffered badly since he first became Prime Minister. There is discontent at the state of public services in Britain. Moreover, opposition to Mr. Blair's decision to support the American-led invasion of Iraq remains very strong. Indeed, during the campaign, Mr. Blair's credibility over Iraq was hotly questioned, and most voters do not think he has been fully honest with them.
Nevertheless, Labour appears likely to coast to victory for the simple reason that at the moment, there appears to be no viable alternative to it. It wasn't that long ago that the Conservatives looked to be the permanent party of government in the United Kingdom. Labour was riven by divisions and stood too far to the left of most of the electorate.
MIDDLE GROUND
But throughout the 1980s and into the 1990s, successive Labour leaders had been changing that. They shifted the party rightwards, appealing to the middle ground that had been locked up for so long by Margaret Thatcher's Tories. And when Tony Blair finally took the leadership, Labour's left-wing decried the move as a further betrayal.
Their warnings were not far off. "New Labour" is, ideologically, a shadow of its old self. Back in the old party's socialist days, a moderate faction broke away and went on to help found the Liberal Democrats. Today, these same Liberal Democrats, the scions of the moderate rebellion against Labour extremism, now stand on many issues to the left of their old party.
However, the Liberal Democrats have suffered from Britain's single-member-plurality electoral system (which is like ours). Because their support is evenly spread, they seldom win enough votes in any one constituency to grab the seat. As a result, while their poll figures make them look competitive nearly a quarter of the electorate say they will cast their ballots for them today their seat-share in parliament will fall well shy of that.
That leaves the Conservatives. By most accounts, they are a mess. With Tony Blair having pulled the centre-ground out from under them, they have been left to try and find a new place for themselves. Their instinct repeatedly has been to shore up their right-wing support base.
However, with Labour moving so far to the right, this means the Tories must move even further out on the wings. There, they look mean-spirited at times, and their conservative stance has won little sympathy among the professionals who provided so much of the support for Margaret Thatcher.
GOOD START
The Conservative campaign actually seemed to get off to a good start. At one point the Tory leader, Michael Howard, seemed to have tripped up Tony Blair over issues like immigration and Iraq.
However, with the economy basically sound, voters were not going to expel Labour over a single issue. Besides, Mr. Howard supported the Iraq invasion, so he could not make much headway over Mr. Blair's unpopularity on that issue.
That left but one hope for the Tories. Labour leaders have feared that apathy among their supporters, or protest votes cast for the Liberal Democrats, might draw enough support away from them to enable the Tories to grab some marginal seats. Tories appeared to be pinning their hopes on this. In marginal seats, Labour seemed more vulnerable to a surge towards the Liberal Democrats than in the country at large.
However, the most recent polls indicate that Labour has now pulled so far ahead that this eventuality is unlikely. The best that the opposition can hope for is that the returned government soon runs into difficulties. The economy is slowing. The budget deficit is rising. Tough choices on public spending lie ahead.
But it is likely to be the next election, at least, before Britain's many disaffected voters will be able to sanction the Labour Party. Like him or not, Britons are probably stuck with Tony Blair for now.
John Rapley is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Government, UWI, Mona.
