A little over a century ago, the Liberal party ceased to be the party of government for the last time (the Lib Dems have been a part of a coalition since, but never by themselves). The position once held by the Liberals had been usurped by the Labour party - a feature of the first-past-the-post system is that you inevitably have two "big" parties and one "neither of the above" party (plus any number of minor parties that basically just make up the numbers).
After the last General Election, there was a lot of chatter about that transition being a once-in-a-century event, with the Tories about to lose their spot as one of the big two to Reform. And that certainly seems to be the case. (And I should note that I take no joy in this. While I don't share the Tories' politics, and while they had been becoming increasingly insane, at least under Rishi Sunak they were at least somewhat bearable - Reform are just horrible. Of course, I'm far from convinced that today's Tories aren't just as horrible, in an awful bid to stay relevant.)
However what I didn't expect, and what the calamitous polling of Kier Starmer's Labour and the result of the election in Gorton and Denton suggests, is that we might actually be getting to a point where both of the big two are about to lose their spots - that the Tories may be supplanted by Reform and the Labour party supplanted by the Greens.
In reality, it's far too soon to declare that the writing's on the wall. But now that the Greens have shown that they can win, it's suddenly not inconceivable that people might start voting for them. And Labour have pretty thoroughly alienated their own left wing, largely on the logic that they have nowhere else to do... only now they do.
It certainly makes for an interesting thought...
No comments:
Post a Comment