Observations on the British election

First, the polls continue to show Conservatives leading, with the Liberal Democrats and Labour vying for second place. As I’ve written before, if you translate the percentages for each party in national polls into seats won by assuming a uniform swing in each district, Conservatives are currently falling short of a 326-seat majority. But if you assume that the uniform swing models are inadequate—as they probably are, given the big swings in opinion since the 2005 election—then Conservatives are right about at the cusp of winning a majority. And this, I gather from what I read and am told, is what both Conservative and Labour party insiders expect. In addition, since the Sinn Fein members elected in Northern Ireland do not take their seats (they don’t want to concede that they’re rightfully in the United Kingdom) and since the Ulster Unionists are likely to vote with the Conservatives, David Cameron and his party do not need quite 326 seats for a majority.

Second observation. I spent some time today in Watford, a suburban London constituency that is rated as the only three-way marginal seat in Britain. It’s just inside the M-25 ring road, with a commercial town center, some industrial development and mixed residential areas. The “notional results” in Watford for 2005 (the district lines have been redrawn since and this is an estimate of the percentages that would have been cast in the new district) were 34% for Labour, 31% for the Liberal Democrats and 30% for the Conservatives. My entirely non-random interviews with a few dozen voters yielded also a three-way split. Comments like “the best of a bad lot,” “sick to the teeth” and “don’t trust any of them” were made by more than one voter; these I believe are in large part a response to the parliamentary expenses scandals unearthed by the Telegraph late last year. Issues mentioned include immigration, taxes and the good performance of the local Lib Dem mayor and council. I found slightly more Conservative than Labour or Lib Dem voters, and a number of 2005 Labour voters who aren’t leaning that way now. I also found a classic British tactical voter, who preferred the Lib Dems all along, but didn’t decide to vote for their candidate until Lib Dem leader Nick Clegg’s good performance in the first televised debate April 15, which led this voter to believe the Lib Dems had a chance. Yup, this does indeed look like a three-way marginal.

Third observation. The Brits don’t do candidate security like the U.S. Secret Service. The three parties’ candidates for prime minister all appeared today at a meeting hosted by London Citizens, a faith-based charity coalition, in Methodist Central Hall, a grand beaux arts building kitty-corner from Westminster Abbey and just two blocks from the Houses of Parliament. A crowd of about 50 people, some of them tourists, waited outside as the candidates came in and left by the front door, flanked by two Bobbies. Two gray Rovers (I think) pulled up as David Cameron left about 4:25 and waved to the crowd before anyone could ask him a question. Half an hour later, a three-car cavalcade drove up, with a Jaguar in the lead followed by a Range Rover which was obviously a security vehicle and Gordon Brown got out of the former, with a broad but transparently forced grin and a wave to the crowd. There was a nice bit of cheering and applause. Then most of the crowd dispersed, with the exception of one man with Lib Dem credentials; he was rewarded when, after his two Jaguars pulled up, Nick Clegg walked out the front door and gave a couple of reporters with microphones three or four sentences of commentary. The sparseness of the crowd throughout contrasted with the hordes of tourists visiting the other sights of Westminster, and the sparsity of security was quite a contrast with the huge entourage that travels with our president and the very sizeable ones that travel with presidential candidates. One reason perhaps for the difference is that no prime minister has been assassinated since Spencer Perceval was shot in the old Westminster Palace in 1812, and no British monarch has suffered an unnatural death since the execution of King Charles I on January 30, 1649.