This Thursday's UK electoral events of the referendum on Alternative Voting , the English local council and the Scottish parliamentary elections couldn't have been worse timed for gaining media attention.
Thanks to the very late Easter and thereby coming at the end of 3 consecutive Bank Holiday infested short working weeks when most of the UK has always going to either be on holiday or otherwise switched off from the tedium of the winter's politics, the campaigns have struggled to gain traction anywhere. The nation is hardly in a frenzy. North of the border there may be a bit more interest in the Scottish parliament elections which could lead to a referendum on Scottish independence.
Any hope of holiday time interest was completely swept away by the lead up to the Royal Wedding and the great day itself. With that out of the way Ed and Nick must have been hoping for a media breakthrough on Monday May 2nd so that they could complete their "Yes" campaign in the AV debate at the gallop. So what happened? Seemingly oblivious of their needs , Mr Obama spent Sunday night watching his men rid the world of Osama. How inconsiderate. Couldn't he have waited a few days?
Now Ed's normally dark rimmed eyes look like getting blackened further with the likely loss of the AV vote and a failure to knock Alex Salmond and the Nationalists off their perch in traditionally Labour Scotland. OK, south of the border he will have the satisfaction of ousting a lot of Conservative and Liberal councillors in England but cyclically that would have happened anyway a year into a new government having to take unpopular measures. The unfortunate Nick is also likely to get a double pasting,- his from the loss of the AV vote and also the loss of large numbers of Liberal council seats.As the holding of the AV referendum was a key element to his agreement to join the coalition last May he will feel doubly sore.
So what now? An attack on Ed's leadership of the Labour Party is unlikely at the moment as nobody is in a hurry to grasp the top job while there are probably still four years to go until the next General Election (See caveat below). Winning the leadership contest just as the party was going into opposition always looked more like a hospital pass than the key to eventual tenancy of Number 10. A hostile bid is much more likely much closer to the four year mark. For Nick nearly a year in government has been a long and thankless time. He doesn't look happy. Twelve months ago Cleggmania was at its height. The electorate had liked what it had seen of him in the TV debates and the "I agree with Nick" from both the other candidates , Gordon Brown in the red corner and David Cameron in the blue ,had achieved national resonance. When the election turned out to be a stalemate with no overall majority for either major party Nick bravely did the only thing he could , both sensibly and constitutionally. Although many Lib Dems are much more at ease with Labour than the Conservatives the fact was that, if nothing else, the nation had rejected Labour and wanted a change. Clegg therefore had no real moral option than to go for a coalition with the Conservatives on the best terms he could get. He actually got a very good one and has disproportionaly influenced government policy ever since( a very good argument against AV). Unfortunately many of his party don't begin to understand the realities of being in government rather than remaining a loose alliance of various protest groups. This could be fatal for Nick if they start baying for blood after this week's likely twin debacles.It could also be fatal for the coalition and the Lib Dems themselves as in extremis we could see a sudden General Election about which the only near certainty would be that the battle would be a simple Labour v Conservative one and that the Liberals and their influence would be wiped out. With their demise would go any hope of electoral reform or Lib Dem power for a long time.
The AV campaign might have had legs if it had ever achieved a hearing but once the Royal Wedding was announced for 29th April it was going to struggle for media cuthrough in the vital runup period. The very late Easter did it no favours either. Then just when there should have been an apportunity for maximum media attention along came Obama v Osama .It was game over,- and not just for Osama. Sorry Nick,- and Ed. Get the raw steaks ready to put over the eyes. Oh,- and Dave? He will just shrug off the council results,celebrate the "No" win in the AV contest and raise a glass to whatever happens in Scotland.
