MAY 2015 GENERAL ELECTION

The outcome of the May 2015 general election has been a surprise outright win for the Tories. Quite why every opinion poll until the exit poll turned out to be a wrong indicator is a matter for the pollsters to consider. Political pundits and candidates themselves have stated that fear of an SNP influence on a Labour government was a late swing factor. It would seem that the Tory tactic of keeping the Scottish MPs at Westminster and frighten the English voters worked.


If that is true, then the rumbling English vote has had a major impact on the election result. The Tories have been able to trump UKIP on the English vote and this has enabled them to win the election. UKIP have only themselves to blame for this; they have repeatedly rejected any move towards properly addressing the issue of an English Parliament and have only finally done so in an exercise of 'Me Too'.


The SNP have swept to victory across Scotland. The feeling of national community – i.e. patriotism – has continued after the independence referendum and that feeling has expressed itself in SNP support.


By comparison, UKIP have failed to engender the same sense of national community with the English. UKIP, as its name implies, see themselves as British and reject Englishness. Although UKIP have achieved a significant vote in terms of votes cast, they have bombed in terms of seats won. They have simply clung on to one seat previously won in a by-election and lost another. Their campaign, was on their own admission lacklustre, and they failed to convert the momentum gained into victory in target seats. This is a failure of campaigning. UKIP have failed to develop a ideological counterargument to political correctness and are unable to oppose the establishment parties on an ideological level. UKIP played safe, highlighted the VAT on tampons, and made some controversial comments in a 'shock and awful' strategy. This ideological failure proved fatal as was the decision to tell its voters to vote Tory in those seats UKIP were not targeting.


UKIP were not alone in allowing the Tories to go almost unchallenged on the economy. Labour focused on a promise to spend more on the NHS and almost totally failed to defend themselves on their previous stewardship of the economy. They did not get it across that the Tories were fully supportive of both the lack of supervision of the banks, and of the massive bank bailouts and Quantitative Easing. The Tories have refused to insist that the banks clean up their act once elected. The Tories therefore shared some of the blame for the 2008 credit crunch and are solely responsible for the absence of a genuine recovery. The usual bounce-back following a recession has not occurred and the Tories are responsible for this. Labour ducked out of the economic argument and Ed Balls is surely as much to blame for this as Ed Miliband who, it should be acknowledged, personally fought a good campaign despite the personal attacks on him.


Ed Miliband bungled the handling of the SNP surge and committed himself to an unconvincing form of words about not seeking SNP support should Labour be in a position to form a minority government. This helped the Tory smear of the SNP issue and made Labour look shifty and dishonest. Of course Labour would have needed SNP support, would have had to have secured that support, and the parliamentary system makes this entirely proper. Ed Miliband resembled a philanderer who has been cheating on his wife, is trying to prevent a family row before Christmas, if only he could get his mistress to shut up. Whereas the mistress is determined to force the breakup of the marriage to her own advantage by publicizing the affair to the philanderer's family, friends, neighbours and work colleagues. Nicola Sturgeon would not shut up and was forever on television telling everybody all about how Miliband would be jumping into bed with her once the general election was over – and no detail was spared.


With the resignations as leaders of their parties by Ed Miliband, Nick Clegg and Nigel Farage [although Farage may put his name forward again]; the scale of the SNP strength; and with the Tories now having an overall majority, then Britain is in a new political landscape. David Cameron is a PR man. His panache is spin, stunts, gimmicks and image. Yet on the EU and the British constitution the Tories will be forced to take decisions and to govern; a failure to do so will be disastrous for Britain and for them. The EU referendum which Cameron has pledged himself to will be divisive and a major battle is looming should that referendum proceed. If the constitution of Britain is not rebalanced to create an English parliament and to settle Scotland's rebellion, then the danger that Scotland will embrace independence is very real. There needs to be a proper federal structure to govern all the countries of Britain equally. This is a critical, dangerous and difficult issue – but it will not go away and prompt action is needed. The pro-Labour constituency bias needs to be eliminated.


The Tories will not be able to blame the Liberal Democrats any longer for the continuance of mass immigration, illegal immigration, and the damage caused by political correctness including the Human Rights Act. The continuance of these problems will be solely the Tories' fault.


If the Tories deal with these issues well, then by the time of the next election the governance of England in particular will have been transformed for the better – with the more Conservative English public opinion properly reflected in England.


Up until the election the initiative was with UKIP and they have flunked it. The initiative now lies with the Tories.


There are dramatic times ahead.