The Circle of Life

The Tories will win the next General Election in the UK. It probably won't take place till next May, yet I'm as confident with my prediction as Derren Brown and his lottery balls. Furthermore I fear they they will walk into office without really having to outline a solid alternative to another term of New Labour. There will of course be policies, but as we have seen from the first few years of David Cameron's leadership of the Conservative Party he favours general statements and aspirations.

This isn't Cameron's fault per se, he wants to be in government and knows how the system works. Strong opposition parties don't 'win' elections by and large, weak governments lose them. New Labour has (in popular opinion) become frail, weak and flaccid. Too used to the good life of power, they are blunt and directionless. After more than a decade in office they bear the inevitable wrinkles of error, scandal and simple misfortune that no party in office for such a time can entirely avoid, even with the best will. So, to continue the analogy one step further, come next year the electorate will bid the partner they have tired of a farewell and embrace a newer model.

The real problem is the failure of Britain's two-party political system. The Liberal Democrats try, but the system just does not create the space for 2 separate opposition parties. As a result, once a government starts to unravel and get sucked into the cycle of crisis after crisis on the downward spiral the opposition only has to wait around for them to be kicked out. Sooner or later it will happen, because regardless of an opposition's virtues or otherwise the voter wanting rid of unpopular legislators has only one option - to vote for the 'other lot'.

This government-by-default is essentially negative and undermines democracy because there is less scrutiny of the opposition / next government's policies. If there was another strong and equally plausible party in opposition then both would have to campaign vigorously to win the hearts of the electorate. This would bring with it the need to properly flesh out their policies, and debate the other's proposals.

Parties shouldn't be elected because voters no longer want the incumbent government, they should be elected because the public feel that they offer the best policies and ideas to improve their futures.

I'll just have to keep on voting Lib Dem.