A respected left-of-centre commentator suggests the Tories could win [View All]

[non sociopath skin]

The Guardian's Martin Kettle is getting jittery. I know what he means about it not "feeling" the same. I remain worried that the deserved swing away from Blair may turn out to be a swing further right unless the left gets its tactics sorted out.

Are you thinking what I'm thinking about the election?

Thanks to tactical voting and electoral apathy the Tories could win it

Martin Kettle
Tuesday March 8, 2005
The Guardian

In the Hertfordshire town where I live there have been no real signs of the impending general election so far. Until this weekend, that is.
Driving out of the Sainsbury's car park with the weekly groceries, you now pass a large and prominent political billboard. "Are you thinking what we're thinking?" it asks. Then it explains: "It's not racist to impose limits on immigration."

It is only a single Conservative poster. And the election is probably still 58 days away. A lot can happen between now and then. But that billboard makes me uncomfortable. What is this country really thinking? It forces you to ask yourself this: can the Tories win? And there is something about the knowing confidence of that message that makes you think the answer is: yes, they really can.

Now I know all the reasons why this is not a reasoned view. That Labour has a far better record than it is given credit for. That it is consistently ahead in the polls. That the electoral system is stacked in Labour's favour. That the Tories need to be three points ahead in the popular vote to deprive Labour of a majority, and perhaps nine points ahead to win outright themselves.

Reason, therefore, says that Labour will win again. But instinct, notoriously fallible, increasingly warns otherwise. It says that, at least in Hertfordshire, this no longer feels like a Labour country, certainly not in the way it felt in 1997 or even 2001. Instead it feels like a part of the world that has lost interest in the choices it made in those years. It feels, in fact, a bit like it felt in 1970.

Full article at:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/Columnists/Column/0,5673,1432661,00.html

The Skin