The 2015 General Election

In my Crawley Observer column on New Year's Eve, I wrote about the 2015 General Election and the risk of Ed Miliband being propped up as Prime Minister by Alex Salmond. Since I wrote this, the likelihood of this terrible scenario has increased.

 

"2014 was an eventful year and I have no doubt that 2015 will be equally so. One certain prediction for 2015 is that there will be plenty of political uncertainty. The general election is only four months away and amid the uncertainty, there are some things regarding its outcome that we can be certain about.

Most people are expecting a huge Parliament, but no credible political pundit is predicting anything other than a Conservative or Labour Prime Minister after the general election. Assuming they are both still in place as party leaders in May, that means either David Cameron or Ed Miliband as Prime Minister.

What is very uncertain in a hung Parliament is who will have the numbers to form a government. My nightmare scenario is that the Alex Salmond SNP tail could be wagging the Ed Miliband Labour dog. The south of England is never a priority for the northern-based Labour Party, but if a Labour government is propped up by the Scottish nationalist SNP, then we can be certain that their policies will be bad for Crawley.

Other potential coalition partners for Labour are the Northern Irish nationalist SDLP who usually sit with Labour in the Commons, and the Welsh nationalist Plaid Cymru. A heavy price that costs us dear here in southern England could be extracted by nationalists outside of England, in order to make Ed Miliband Prime Minister.           

What is certain here in Crawley, is that it will be Conservative or Labour who wins and that the Crawley outcome will have a direct impact on whether the next Prime Minister is Conservative or Labour. We can also be certain that just like in 2014, UKIP will not be anywhere near winning a single Council seat in Crawley, yet alone have any chance of the Parliamentary seat.

Amid all the uncertainty for 2015, I can accurately predict that it is still a two-horse race both locally and nationally. I’m sure everyone will be pleased once the election is over and hopefully for 2015-2020, we can have stability like the Conservative and LibDem Coalition has delivered since 2010."