Election Forecast 2015: The Day Labour Lost the General Election

By: Nadeem_Walayat

There is one unique thing about the Labour party that stands out more than anything else, which is that the Labour party with its block votes system that heavily dilutes party member votes to just 1/3rd representation, is usually hell bent on choosing as leader the least electable in terms of prime ministerial material that they can find. Against the 1980's Iron Lady Labour first had the hard to understand what he was talking about Michael Foot, soon followed by 'Were All Right' Kinnock, and then looked set to be destined for another failure under John Smith, election defeat only averted by his untimely death which prompted a battle between Tory Blair and Gordon Brown, luckily for Labour Tory Blair won and so did Labour for the next 3 elections in a row!

However, plotting and scheming Gordon Brown always wanted his turn which eventually came when Tony Blair gave way in mid 2007, just before the economy collapsed and Gordon Brown took the party into the defeat of 2010. Though most Labour MP's at the time knowing how badly they had screwed up the economy were actually relieved not to win that year as they looked to the Tories to make all of the painful decisions to fix their mess which meant that Labour would win an resounding victory in 2015.

Clutching Defeat from the Jaws of Victory

Following abandoning government in 2010, Labour then had an golden opportunity to plan for their next government in 2015, all they had to do was to take their time to choose a new leader who would appeal to the voters and then sit back and profit from the Coalitions painful attempts at fixing a near bankrupted economy, where 5 years of economic austerity virtually guaranteed that Labour would win in 2015.

However, as I mentioned at the start, Labour is good at choosing the WRONG leader and the following video shows exactly what happened in 2010 -

The the highly charismatic clear and present danger to the Tories, David Milliband was beaten by his 'can't even eat a hamburger properly' younger brother, Ed Milliband to audible gasps from the audience. How could David Milliband lose when the majority of party members and MP's voted for him, the answer is the back room deals union block votes, which means those that the likes of the GMB and Unite favour (candidates suck up to the most) get elected as leader.

The most recent party leader popularity polls illustrate the problem Labour has, as an Ipsos Mori poll states only 30% of voters like the labour leader compared to 39% for David Cameron.

Therefore, Labour lost the next election in September 2010 which sowed the seeds for the slow evaporation of any certainty of Labour winning the next general election, as each passing year has seen Labours lead in the polls melt away to now stand approximately where they were on election day 2010!

The problem is the unions, for until Labour makes the change to one member one vote then Labour will nearly always select unelectable unionites who tend to be weak leaders who are subservient to the unions and not priministerial material.

In terms of the election probabilities, Ed Milliband has always worked in the Tories favour, as the more he is seen the more voters are put off from voting Labour to the point today where as my earlier analysis concluded there is now an increasing chance for an outright Conservative election victory, especially as voters have several more weeks of Ed Milliband to look forward to.

15 Mar 2015 - Election Forecast 2015 - Opinion Polls Trending Towards Conservative Outright Win

Hung Parliament is NOT a Certainty!

If the current trend continues then it is possible that the Conservatives could win an outright majority on May 7th as per my long standing analysis of seats vs house prices trend trajectory that painted a picture for a likely probable Conservative general election victory.

16 Dec 2013 - UK General Election Forecast 2015, Who Will Win, Coalition, Conservative or Labour?

The updated election seats trend graph illustrates that the Conservatives are virtually ON TRACK to achieve the forecast outcome for an outright election victory on a majority of about 30 seats which NO ONE, and I mean no serious commentators / analysts has or is currently advocating.

UK General Election Forecast 2015

In terms of what I actually see as the most probable outcome for the general election, I refer to my in-depth analysis that concluded in the following detailed seats per party forecast:

• 28 Feb 2015 - UK General Election 2015 Seats Forecast - Who Will Win?
• 28 Feb 2015 - UK General Election 2015 - Forecasting Seats for SNP, LIb-Dems, UKIP and Others

UK General Election May 2015 Forecast Conclusion

My forecast conclusion is for the Conservatives to win 296 seats at the May 7th general election, Labour 2nd on 262 seats, with the full seats per political party breakdown as follows:

Therefore the most probable outcome is for a continuation of the ConDem Coalition government on 326 seats (296+30) where any shortfall would likely find support from the DUP's 8 seats.

The alternative is for a truly messy Lab-Lib SNP supported chaotic government on 327 seats (262+30+35) which in my opinion would be a truly disastrous outcome for Britain, nearly as bad as if Scotland had voted for independence last September.

Another possibility is that should the Conservatives do better than forecast i.e. secure over 300 seats but still fail to win an overall majority, then they may chose to go it alone with the plan to work towards winning a May 2016 general election.

The bottom line is that the opinion polls do not reflect how people will actually vote on May 7th when they are faced with a stark choice of steady as she goes ConDem government or take a huge gamble on Ed Milliband's Labour party. So in my opinion several millions of voters will chose to play it safe with ConDem which thus is the most probable outcome.

Also available a youtube video version of my forecast:

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By Nadeem Walayat

http://www.marketoracle.co.uk

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Nadeem Walayat has over 25 years experience of trading derivatives, portfolio management and analysing the financial markets, including one of few who both anticipated and Beat the 1987 Crash. Nadeem's forward looking analysis focuses on UK inflation, economy, interest rates and housing market. He is the author of five ebook's in the The Inflation Mega-Trend and Stocks Stealth Bull Market series that can be downloaded for Free.

Nadeem is the Editor of The Market Oracle, a FREE Daily Financial Markets Analysis & Forecasting online publication that presents in-depth analysis from over 1000 experienced analysts on a range of views of the probable direction of the financial markets, thus enabling our readers to arrive at an informed opinion on future market direction. http://www.marketoracle.co.uk

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