Witney by-election suggests Tory support is soft and their majority vulnerable

In hindsight, the Coalition Agreement now almost looks like the first move in a patient five year Conservative strategy to move on the  Liberal Democrats and try to absorb their support. But the gains they made amongst liberals are beginning to look very soft.

By-elections are often tricky to decipher. For instance, sitting governments usually do poorly and lose ground - so that can not necessarily in itself be taken as an indicator of impending defeat at a general election.

However, there are a few things that the Witney by-election, triggered by the resignation of former Prime Minister David Cameron shows us about the state of British politics.

First of all, and of some importance, it is a reminder of just how thin the government majority really is. Cameron & Osborne, and now May, have governed like they have a majority of one hundred and thirty seats, not a narrow thirteen - showing little regard for how divisive their policies actually are.

It takes only a minor disagreement with just a few disgruntled MPs for the path toward Tory goals to be blocked - a clear indicator that, majority or no, the government should be far more respectful of political opinion far broader than the narrow and unrepresentative majority the party holds.

However the second observation is perhaps the most alarming for the Conservatives. Their advantage is not just thin, but also soft. Their majority was attained in 2015 by crushing their former coalition partners the Liberal Democrats, claiming credit for Liberal Democrat policies while specifically targeting their electoral campaign at their seats.

But governing as a majority, unfettered by the Lib Dems, seems to have, perhaps, stripped away the blinkers from those thought that the Conservative & Unionist Party had adopted a gentler, more decent and more liberal way - rather than being restrained by Liberal Democrats in endless policy battles.

And in Witney, it would seem that a significant number of liberals, on the fence between the Tories and the Lib Dems, went over to the Lib Dems - in fact, an entire third of Tory support went over to the Lib Dems, cutting the majority in the seat from twenty five thousand to just five thousand.

What could that mean for British politics more broadly?

David Cameron's former majority, in his recently resigned seat of Witney, has been reduced from 25,000 to just 5000 by his former Coalition partners the Liberal Democrats. Photograph: Prime Minister David Cameron - official photograph by Number 10 (License) (Cropped)

Since 2010, it has been abundantly clear that the easiest way to achieve a progressive government in the near future will be through a coalition. And the only way to make up those numbers would be for whoever is strongest against the Conservatives in a particular area to take the lead.

The strategic position of the Liberal Democrats and their support makes them invaluable to putting progressives over the top and into government. The party is the main opposition to the Conservatives in thirty six constituencies - with a particular concentration in the South West - and that number does not include Witney were the party was third along with at least four others were they also fell below second in 2015.

Local election gains, along with a steady rise in party membership, have been all that the Liberal Democrats have so far had to encourage them that a 'Lib Dem Fightback' is under way. The Witney result might be the strongest signal yet - though, even if an election is just around the corner, it is far too early to read much into whether the Liberal Democrats can recover, not least because turnout at by-elections is often far below a general election turnout.

But their result - even if other progressive parties didn't fair as well (Labour fell to third and the Greens took only four percent) - should give progressives some hope, as voters abandoning the Conservatives for the Liberals is one necessary condition for toppling the Tory majority.

That makes for one front in the coming contest, though with some further assembly still required. Work must now be done to ensure that when an election campaign begins in earnest, progressives have opened up a number of other fronts and are ready to take on the Tories.

If Labour is going to compete with the SNP in Scotland, it needs to address its own complicated and confusing politics

Labour have a lot of work to do in Scotland if they are to recover from the landslide defeat that cost Jim Murphy his job. Photograph: Jim Murphy and Eddie Izzard meeting retailers in East Renfrewshire by Scottish Labour (License) (Cropped)

In his speech to the Scottish Labour Party conference, Jeremy Corbyn made clear his intention of facing the SNP head on in Scottish Parliamentary Elections in May (BBC, 2015). Corbyn pulled no punches in the speech, which contained barely veiled criticism of SNP. He referred to Labour as the true democratic socialist party, in both "words and in deeds".

Along with new Scottish Labour leader Kezia Dugdale, the Labour leadership face an undoubtedly uphill task. Even accounting for the 'Corbyn Effect' and 'Corbynmania', the general election in May was only the culmination of years of alienation - during which time the popularity of the SNP soared.

If Corbyn wants to outright defeat the SNP, he has to get to grips with Labour's long term Problems. At the last election, Labour lost support in every direction: they lost their base on the Left and amongst the working class by making those supporters feel abandoned; and they lost amongst their targets on the Right because the Tories convinced voters that their abandonment of the Left was not genuine.

Their unclear, inconsistent, positions - that sought to string the Left along without having to pursue Left policies - only led to alienation.

Ahead of Corbyn and Dugdale is the task of making Labour credible again. But rather than how this is usually interpreted - vis a vis embracing mainstream neoliberalism - the renewed credibility requires consistency: clear beliefs, backed by clear motivations, that support clearly communicated stances and policies.

That means Labour has to be very careful of U-turns and wavering - the choice to delay tax credits cuts rather than to kill them outright (BBC, 2015{2}), or Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell's shifting position on George Osborne's fiscal responsibility charter (Perraudin & Wintour, 2015), both being prime examples.

Along with establishing their own position, they also seem determined - if the thinly veiled criticisms from Corbyn's speech tells us anything - to shake the impression people have of the SNP as a true party of the Left.

There certainly are, undoubtedly, some legitimate criticisms to be made with regards to SNP governance (Macwhirter, 2015). And it isn't a departure from reality to suggest that the SNP could be more comfortably described as a broad tent party of the Centre. But the SNP under Nicola Sturgeon is no flash in the pan protest vote, to be undone by the simple bursting of a bubble.

The SNP used disaffection on the Left with Blair and Brown's long rule of Labour to first establish themselves, through Alex Salmond's Scottish minority administration, as a credible party of government. As Labour's credibility sank, the SNP converted that position into a majority in Scotland in 2011 and then a virtual sweep of Scottish seats at Westminster in 2015 under Nicola Sturgeon.

The position of the SNP has been at least a decade in the making. It is a well organised, with visible support that wields distinctive branding and a clear sense of themselves as the opponents of conservatives. Theirs is a formidable position.

If they're to compete, Labour need consistency, clarity and clear communication. Without addressing the complicated and confusing politics with which they alienated supporters as New Labour, they stand little chance of being seen as a credible alternative to the SNP.

Election 2015: A bad night for progressives. What now for the Left?

The night began with the prospect of a parliament painfully divided between Left and Right. But the release of the exit polls at 10 O'clock turned that stress into a painful crushing blow to progressives. Even to the last moment, the polls had indicated a multi-party split. Yet when ballots were cast in the polling stations of England, there was a kind of sudden and astonishing shift towards the Conservatives.

In the short term, while the Conservatives form a new government without the need for the compromises of the last five years, the Left needs to find a new way forward. The most emphatic message of the night is that the Left does not have a convincing message for the people of the UK. That has played out with some dramatic losses.

Labour have lost swathes of supporters in Scotland and failed to be convincing in England. The Liberal Democrats where heavily criticised for their coalition with the Conservatives, and for a broken promise over tuition fees, and yet have lost seats by bleeding thousands of voters to the Conservatives and UKIP.

That contributes to a very complicated picture for the Left to try and understand.

Labour tacked to the Right on social issues, while sounding moderately Leftist on the economy and have barely survived outside their Northern heartland - and even lost part of it with voters swinging away from Labour to the SNP. They have lost their Scottish leader Jim Murphy, their campaign organiser Douglas Alexander and even their shadow chancellor Ed Balls.

The Lib Dems ran as a socially liberal and economically centre-right party, and have found themselves decimated. They have lost ministers and senior figures all over - Danny Alexander, Vince Cable, Ed Davies, Simon Hughes, Jo Swinson, Lynne Featherstone and many more are all gone.

This must all, surely, mean the leaderships of the Labour Party and Liberal Democrats, particularly, will have to change.

Some of the expectations that came with the prospect of a hung parliament, that many had thought was awaiting voters on the 8th May, was big political reform. Talk is still abound of constitutional change. But now, with the polls leaning to the right, it will likely be less about proportional representation and more focussed on Unionist concerns. Matters like English and Scottish votes and their role in a British Parliament and changes to the electoral boundaries will take precedence, but Federalism may still get a look in.

Teresa May of the Conservatives is already talking about life without a Lib Dem anchor - she told the BBC's election night programme that she blames the Lib Dems for holding back Conservative wishes to give the security agencies more intrusive powers of investigation.

With that announcement setting the tone, the first thing for the Left is to find a way to put together a meaningful and co-operative opposition. One that can restrain the very slim measure of control that the Conservatives will have over the Commons - and find candidates that can drum up passionate support to challenge the Conservatives at bye-elections.

The second aim, for the longer term, has to be figuring out what it is that the Left can offer to the people of the UK at a sorely divided time. Scotland is represented almost entirely by the SNP Nationalists, and England is under the control of the Conservative Unionists. Nationalism has become a very major factor once again. But above all, voters in Scotland found the SNP a more convincing representative of the Left values than Labour, and in England it seems that few were convinced that they as voters belonged with the Left at all.

Something has gone very wrong for the Left. The starting point in the recovery will be accepting what has happened. That will mean Paddy Ashdown eating his hat and Alastair Campbell eating his kilt. The next step will be to find the big new visions that are needed to rebuild a progressive alternative.

Election 2015: Your vote is your chance to speak out, even if you only do so tactically

With the UK's voting system being less than great when it comes to representation, it isn't surprising that there are many people out there who are seriously considering a tactical vote.

With a 'largest minority takes all' system, greatly in need of reform into something more representative, too many people are casting ballots without a hope of seeing themselves represented in their constituency. This is not a new issue - John Cleese had plenty to say about it thirty years ago. But its what we have for now.

As a result, many have cast, and many are again considering casting, their vote for the best of the worst - or at least, the most likely of the rest to stop the candidate they most despise from being the one who represents them. There are arguments for and against tactical voting which have validity - mostly divided between the idealism of voting for what you believe in, and the practicality of stopping what runs counter to your beliefs.

Various sources have published guides to where and how a tactical vote can count the most. Liberal blogger Stephen Tall gives a run down of where to vote tactically if you want to oppose UKIP. The Guardian and The Independent have both published guides to tactical voting in favour of any party, and voteswap.org is offering a  pledge system that allow you to vote tactically for Labour or the Greens in co-ordination with others around the UK.

It is to be hoped that this might be the last time a tactical vote is needed. The case for reform is growing irresistible. Sadly not everyone thinks the best move would be towards a more European style, more proportional system. Some would rather move towards another form of two-party system in the American style.

Regardless of how you intend to vote, even if you only spoil your ballot paper with a silly picture or a meaningful slogan, please do vote. Don't let the establishment think that your disgust, displeasure or disillusionment is to do with you being apathetic or uninterested. Make your voice heard, even if only to reject all of the options and demand better.

Election 2015: The European Union - is the UK's future in or out?

The pressure applied by UKIP and the rest of the Conservative Party's Right-wing has succeeded in putting the question of the UK's membership of the European Union on the table. If those parties succeed in gaining enough seats at the next election, then a referendum on the UK's place in the EU will be on its way. Then, if a majority vote to leave, the UK will sail off into the Atlantic. Sounds simple, doesn't it?

The simplicity is, however, restricted to the actual decision to leave - which itself can be done with an ease that a lot of world leaders find quite disturbing, especially as most of them think the UK and the EU are better together (Preston, 2015). The potential ramifications are much greater and more complex.

Reports suggest, in a best case scenario, that everyone in the EU will lose out economically if the UK leaves, but no one more than the UK itself (Grice, 2015). While there is apparently a quiet acknowledgement even amongst Eurosceptics that - at least initially - the UK will be less well off outside of the EU, there are those who see big business opportunities away from the European system (Preston, 2015).

Amongst Eurosceptics there is talk of the UK's Financial Services industry being 'freed' from the EU Financial Transaction Tax - which was pressured into existence in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis by the campaign for a Robin Hood Tax; 'freed' from the EU cap on bankers' bonuses; 'freed' to pursue new trade deals with 'emerging markets', like India, where some feel the EU failed to negotiate a good enough deal; and even to pursue the marketing of UK agriculture to the world (Preston, 2015).

The trouble is, those arguments all seem to depend upon a lot of 'if'. If the UK is able to negotiate a substantially different deal while still maintaining its trading links (Behr, 2014). If it is able to successfully renegotiate better deals for the UK than it could get when it was able to advertise free access through Britain to the whole of the European Market - at a time when the UK's trade relationships are already very lopsided against the UK (Peston, 2015).

On that particular point: the UK would also have to convince the potential investors that they would be getting a good deal from pouring their money into the products of one of the most expensive places in the world to live and work. With a high cost of living, wages have to keep up, which means businesses fork over large sums of money on labour costs. While the EU is a free market, it nonetheless encourages protections of workers rights and measures to raise the standard of living across all member states, and trading partners, up to the same level to try and avoid anyone being undercut.

Are the UK's workers going to receive those same assurances when they are competing in a global free market against the workers of India or China? It's more likely that they will face the same calls for measures aimed at increasing 'competitiveness' - levelled at countries with high debt like Italy - which, under talk of lowering prices and increasing flexibility, ultimately demands cuts to wages so reduce the cost of labour (Sinn, 2014).

None of this is, of course, to suggest that the EU is perfect. The European Union is subject to the same pressures from globalisation as anywhere else in the world. It needs serious reform, such as the need to make the management of the European economy, and particularly of the Euro, more democratic (Garton Ash, 2015).

But achieving these reforms means getting into the spirit of internationalism. As Nick Clegg said during the BBC's Question Time Election Leaders Special on Thursday (30th April), the main issues facing us today are continental, not just national. The solutions to problems like tax dodging corporations and human traffickers will be continental and international in scale, not confined to particular countries and nations.

There are ideals in the make-up of the European Union - mostly constricted to being merely undertones in these times when ideologically conservative economics is riding high - grounded in internationalism, solidarity, commonality and liberty. There is a sense that, with reform, the European Union could be a positive progressive force for the common good.

The European Parliament has campaigned for equal pay for men and women and for the rights of pregnant workers. It derailed the ACTA treaty, which lead to most European nations refusing to ratify it, and it has also forced the TTIP treaty negotiations to be open and transparent (Robinson, 2015).

The European Globalization Adjustment Fund provides compensation when jobs move abroad, and funding for new training and start-ups. The EU even pursued the capping of bankers bonuses (at an obviously stingy 100% of their salaries) in the face of opposition from the UK government (Robinson, 2015{2}).

The cost to the UK of being part of all this is a net contribution to the EU budget £6.5bn to £8.5bn per year, less than 0.5% of British GDP. That figure extracts from the gross contribution what is spent back in the UK itself, on supporting everything from agriculture and scientific research to grants for local councils. For this investment the Confederation of British Industry suggests net economic benefit of EU membership to the UK is £62-78bn/yr (Robinson, 2015{3}).

As for immigration there is evidence that it has limited impact on wages, even coinciding with a boost in wages in the long term (Preston, 2015). While the 5% lowest paid can be disproportionately affected, the solutions lies in tackling low pay with minimum and living wages, with better education and training, and by addressing the disparities in the quality of life and levels of pay to be found across Europe - once again, continent-wide solutions. In terms of numbers, at present 2.2m British citizens live elsewhere in the EU, balancing out the 2.4m EU citizens living the UK. Less than 5% of the EU migrants claim jobseekers and less than 10% claim other working age benefits (Robinson, 2015{3}).

Are these arguments likely to dissuade fervent Eurosceptics? Probably not. There is a certain sense of Nationalism to Euroscepticism that makes talk of negotiation and reform, rather than abandonment, likely to fall unheard.

That does necessarily not mean that some satisfactory compromise cannot be reached.

A number of leading European figures have for some time been talking about a two-speed Europe - the tone of which might be seen in David Cameron's 'veto' in 2011 (Curtis, 2011). While trying to negotiate policy for the single market, the EU faced opposition from Cameron who demanded protections, exemptions and concessions for the City of London's financial sector. However, instead of actually blocking the move - as would be required for it to actually be a veto - the UK merely removed itself from consideration on the issues being discussed and the rest of the EU went on with its discussions.

Romano Prodi, former Italian Prime Minister and former President of the European Commission, has argued that the move towards a two-speed Union is well under way as a practical response to the realities of the situation (Tost, 2012). Prodi stressed that Europe is taking steps towards a common financial policy without the UK - the next big step in integration - and that Cameron's policies have only moved Britain to the fringes where they will have less influence.

The reality will be a UK that tries to opt out of what it doesn't want - within limits which will still mean much the same situation if the UK wants to trade with Europe - but will remain, in principle, a member of the Union and UK citizens will keep some of the benefits of being EU citizens like free movement and access to European Courts.

Meanwhile, the rest of Europe will continue to grow closer, gradually building a continental federation and reforming it to become more democratic. There are alternatives that would see Britain more involved or holding the EU at arms length, but this approach, of a two-speed Union - seems the only one likely to strike a balance between pro-Europeans and Eurosceptics.

Election 2015: Political endorsements - Newspapers, Russell Brand and #Milifandom

As might be expected, the media has had a lot to say about the upcoming 2015 UK general election. Their major concern has been the matter of who will do a deal, and who they will do it with, when the predicted hung parliament arrives on the day after the 7th May. Most of that focus has been on Labour and SNP- with many making headlines of the deal offered by the SNP's leader Nicola Sturgeon during the opposition debate (Kleiderman, 2015), with less coverage of the fact that Ed Miliband made a clear and absolute refusal.

There have also been a few celebrity endorsements, mostly for Labour. Delia Smith, Steve Coogan, Paul O'Grady, Ronnie O'Sullivan, Martin Freeman and Jo Brand have given their backing to Ed Miliband's party (Turner & Holehouse, 2015). None of these endorsements have received quite as much attention as Russell Brand. Brand's comments in the years running up to the election, suggestive that people should not to vote in protest against the British political system, have been heavily criticised (Alexander, 2014). However, with only a few days to go until the election, Brand has now endorsed Green Party candidate Caroline Lucas (Walker, 2015) and today endorsed voting for Labour (New Statesman, 2015) - which feels like a slightly irresponsible shift in position to make, from 'won't vote' to 'vote for this', after the voting registration deadline has long passed.

The newspapers have also begun to declare themselves. The Financial Times and the Economist have both come out in favour of a continuing Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition (Ashmore, 2015). The Guardian has backed Labour, but with an acknowledgement of the value of voting Liberal Democrat or Green where those parties have a chance (The Guardian, 2015). As for The Sun, it has declared in favour of the Conservatives - and yet its sister paper in Scotland has backed the SNP (BBC, 2015).

Just as interesting, and maybe quite a lot less bland, has been the coverage on social media where the election, and particularly the economics debate, has been a top trending topic over the last month (Simmonds, 2015). UKIP have been the most talked about party, though not necessarily for good reasons - controversial as they are - but the Greens have received the most positive tweets ahead of the Conservatives, who have a slight edge over Labour in terms of positive feedback.

The most inspiring social media story was the launching of a social media campaign, #Milifandom, against, and in order to counter, the alleged distorted portrayal of Ed Miliband in the media (Jewell, 2015). Abby, 17 and apparent spokesperson for the fandom, has said that they wanted to "change opinions so people don’t just see the media’s usual distorted portrayal of him".

Responses to #Milifandom have included references to 'smitten' teenage girls, and photoshopped images of politicians as 'only ephemerally amusing', of fandom being just teenage girls falling 'desperately in love', and a product of their 'all-consuming hormonal hysteria' (Jewel, 2015; McElvoy & Parkinson, 2015; Ratcliffe, 2015) - which all leave a whiff of condescension in the air.

Apart from somewhat robbing these people of their agency by reducing their actions to 'smitten hormonal hysteria', a fairly big point seems to have been missed about fandom: tongue-in-cheek, excessive exaggeration and over-the-top sarcasm and irony are common and deliberate tools for making a point. And enthusiasm, something that has become almost a dirty word in a world undercut by irony, is also alive and well in fandoms.

A sense for the satirical? An interest in challenging establishment message and expectations? Passionate enthusiasm? These are all things politics does not have in plentiful supply. Here are people, mostly young and female, two other things poorly represented in political circles, who understand how their medium works and how to mobilise people using it - and they're using it to challenge a mass media editorial line in their own way. Patronising them is really not the way forward.

Of all the stories at this election, from newspaper and celebrity endorsements to post-election deals, the enthusiasm shown for politics by thousands young women is easily the most important. Passion and a critical eye, with a satirical tongue firmly in cheek, is a good sign for the future electoral politics in the UK. It gives us hope that, regardless of what deals and compromises are made that drive people away from politics in disaffection, there will always be people out there with the energy to speak up and participate.

Election 2015: Economics - Austerity, Austerity Lite or an Alternative

The big question facing voters on 7th May is how should the UK's fiscal policy and public debt be managed over the next five years. That is to say: how much tax should be raised, and from who? And, how much of the deficit and debt should be paid off, and when?

As of April, the deficit - the amount of government spending in excess of revenue from taxation - was at around £90bn. Over the last five years the deficit has been reduced from £154bn. However, because there is still a deficit, the overall debt has continued to climb - from around £1 trillion up to around £1.5 trillion (Ashworth-Hayes, 2015).

Those are, admittedly, pretty scary numbers. But what is the reality behind them?

What are the parties offering?

There are two main groups of parties taking opposing positions: the Conservatives and UKIP on one side (BBC, 2015), Labour and the SNP on the other (Phelps, 2015). While the Conservative side is focussing heavily on bringing down the deficit and the debt substantially through further cuts to public spending, the Labour side has focussed instead on much shallower cuts, ostensibly to protect the economy from the shock of further public sector cuts (Peston, 2015).

In order to achieve their deficit reduction, the Conservatives will have to make massive cuts to public services (Robinson, 2015). They will need to cut as much as a third from the budget of each of the unprotected areas of public spending, plus £12bn from non-pensions welfare spending - of which jobseekers allowance only makes up £3bn of £74bn, with housing benefit taking up £18bn (Elliott & Wintour, 2015).

All of these Conservative efforts are aimed squarely at tackling, and eliminating, sovereign debt. By contrast, Labour believe that the way to cut the deficit is to improve the economy - encouraging growth and so increasing government revenues (Robinson, 2015).

With two potentially viable means to achieve the same end, the judgement as to who is right would seem to depend on outside factors (Peston, 2015{2}).

"...your judgement about who is right depends on your assessment of how big you want the public sector to be, and how likely you think it is that there is another economic crisis around the corner - because the more imminent such a shock may be, the more haste is appropriate for debt reduction."

That brings us to the question: how much of a risk is sovereign debt?

Keynes and cyclically balanced budgets

To answer that question it is worth revisiting the work of John Maynard Keynes. Keynes was an Eton and Cambridge educated economist and member of the old Liberal Party. He had worked for the treasury, but his experiences during negotiations over German reparations at the end of the First World War led to his resignation.

He then wrote The Economic Consequences of the Peace, which roundly criticised, on economic grounds, the process by which the German people were being punished with reparations for the actions of the German State and warned of the dangers inherent to that course. The work established his credentials as an economist.

In later works - such as the The Means to Prosperity and The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money - Keynes' ideas went on to focus on the important economic role played by demand. Economics, of all stripes, is centred on the relationship between supply and demand. In a change from classical economic attitudes, Keynes saw demand as the one that drives the other - and so saw it as necessary for something to be done about making up for the slump in demand that occurred during contraction periods in the economic cycle.

The means to achieving that would be government debt and deficit spending. By borrowing and sending more on public services and public works, the government could keep people employed, thus keeping money in their pockets and so keep demand at a level that can support supply until the economy recovers. In a failure to do this, Keynes saw potentially catastrophic problems caused by the collapse of demand, as unemployment led to recession which led to more unemployment (The Independent Report, 2012).

However, the role that sovereign debt and deficit spending played was only intended by Keynes to be part of a more comprehensive fiscal strategy of cyclically balanced budgets - with surpluses created during the good times to allow for the deficit spending needed during the slumps.

Yet public debts have, over the past seven years, gone a long way beyond that. Sovereign debt has piled up thanks to governments taking private capitalist debts into their own hands to save the private business, and particularly banks, from catastrophe (Filger, 2010) - although the IMF estimates that only 40% of the total debt is the result of stimulus efforts and bail-outs, with 60% coming simply from lower tax revenues due to higher unemployment and lower profits (The Economist, 2013).

Further, the IMF has suggested that while public debt isn't helpful - compounding problems by questioning solvency, so driving up interest rates which makes borrowing and repayments more expensive, and undermining the freedom for governments to spend to stimulate the economy - austerity cuts aimed at tackling the debt have actually hindered growth (The Economist, 2013).

What may seem a fairly cavalier attitude towards public debt seem to be justified by analysis. Historically, it appears, sovereign default - where a country is unable to meet its debts and so is forced to restructure repayments - does not come with the risks generally associated with it. The effects on economic growth of default are a drop of around 2.5% in the short term, but are quickly overcome and recovering is relatively fast (Panizza & Borensztein, 2010).

The real dangers appear to be the political effects.

Back during Great War reparations negotiations, Keynes had argued that there was a limit to the capacity of a state to manage its debts. To pressure a state into pursuing repayments it could not afford could have dangerous ramifications (Miller & Skidelsky, 2012). Policies by creditor countries regarding debts would have to be handled in a way sensitive to both economic and political outcomes. The failure to do so would be expressed in the rise of extremism - as people turn to simplistic and drastic solutions in the face of the powerlessness of the centre.

So how does all of this answer our key questions: how much tax should be raised and from who? How much of the deficit and debt should be paid off, and when? How much of a risk is sovereign debt?

Conclusions with reservations

For Keynes, the moment for austerity cuts was during the good times, not during the bad. If debts became unmanageable, then it would eventually be better simply to cancel those debts and have everyone benefit from the renewed growth. However, debts and deficit spendings should be purposeful, with deliberate productive outcomes that will ultimately help balance out spending when the economy returns to expansion.

Taking all of these things into account, it should not be a huge surprise that Keynes would be unlikely to agree outright with either the Labour or Conservative side of the argument, but rather with the Liberal Democrats - the heirs of the old Liberal Party of which he was a member.

Of the mainstream parties, the Lib Dems are the most openly committed to what they call a middle course - to cyclically balanced budgets, tax rises rather than increasingly deep cuts to tackle the deficit more immediately than Labour and then keeping spending increases in line with revenue increases to spend more than the Conservatives (Crawford et al, 2014).

However, all of this analysis presumes the continued validity of the mainstream economic system - something about which questions have been raised in the last five years. Therein lies deeper questions of values that are much harder to answer: does the mainstream system still reflect what we expect from our lives? And, is anyone actually offering a real alternative system?

Anti-austerity parties, from the more mainstream Greens to more fringe groups like Socialist Labour, offer alternatives consisting of higher taxes and more public spending. But they not do not offer a comprehensively different system (Whale, 2015; BBC, 2015{2}).

There is the choice. Do we look now to the alternatives, that may not be ready or fully realised, or do we try to make the best of the present system, with as much fairness as possible, according to our best understanding of how it functions?

Yanis Varoufakis, Greek radical left economist and Finance Minister under the Syriza government, addressed that choice by stressing the need for progressives to be pragmatic during these times of crisis (Varoufakis, 2015). From his perspective the Revolutionary Marxists were wrong - crisis would not benefit the Left, but rather the Right. For Varoufakis, the priority is a 'modest agenda for stabilising a system that I criticise', in order to 'minimise the unnecessary human toll from this crisis'.

The rising cost of servicing debt, along with austerity applied during tough times, can damage the general wellbeing and lead to rising extremism. Progressives need to decide on which course they believe to be best able to protect the common good in the present, and will set us up for moving towards greater prosperity in the future.

Election 2015: Healthcare, public funding and the future of the NHS

One of the central issues for voters as they cast their ballot in the 2015 UK general election will be the future of the NHS. All the parties have made their pitch, each party setting out their position by juxtaposing it with the plans of their rivals. The trouble is, upon closer inspection, all of the parties are making very similar promises (Triggle, 2015).

The choice between very similar sounding options on 7th May is the product of the development of the NHS over decades. The NHS was established by the Atlee's Labour government in 1948 to be free at point of use and funded by taxation. Based on the report of the liberal William Beveridge, it represented the next step in the reform and modernisation of social welfare begun by the Liberal Party just after the turn of the century.

The free at the point of use principal was soon put to the test. With funding the service proving expensive, it was not long before charges were introduced - beginning with prescription charges. Over the years more costs have been gradually pushed away from the public purse - road accident charges to car insurers, and dental care charges, eye care charges, hospital car parking charges all to the service user.

Toward the end of her time as Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher introduced a new 'internal market' system, where the state would not directly provide the healthcare. Instead it would procure it, on behalf of the service user, from independent hospital trusts that would have to compete to provide the service (Laurance, 2013).

Those changes initiated a direction of travel arguably continued in the Labour Party's embracing of Private Financial Initiatives (PFIs) under Blair and Brown. The benefits of the system to which Labour clung were that it opened up a short term source of funding to get hospitals built (BBC, 2002). But in the long term it has led to a huge build up of debt for hospital trusts, while allowing the private companies to profit massively (Cooper, 2014).

As for the Lib Dems, there has long been a broad party consensus on finding ways to increase choice and to ensure oversight and to devolve power (Brack et al, 2007). That made the Health and Social Care Act 2012 a complicated matter, with strong campaigning opposition to elements of the reform from within the party led by the likes of Dr Evan Harris (Harris, 2012).

Yet even with these ways of extending the means of funding the NHS and trying to find increase in service 'efficiency', the NHS is still falling short and there are fears that it will affect services (Campbell, 2015). There is little belief that Andrew Lansley's reforms have helped to ease the pressures. NHS chief executive Simon Stevens has said that the institution needs an extra £8bn a year to meet an expected £30bn shortfall by 2020 (Baker et al, 2015).

In response, all of the main parties of offered more funding, each with their own priority (Wright & Moodley, 2015).

Labour's primary position has been to distance itself from, first, the coalition's policies, and then, second, from those of New Labour. This means promising to repeal the Health and Social Care Act 2012 and introducing a cap of private profits from NHS contracts (Wintour, 2015). With NHS funding a major issue, Labour have also promised an increase of £2bn by 2016, and a £2.5bn fund for recruiting more nurses, GPs and midwives.

The Conservatives have promised to ringfence healthcare spending to protect it from cuts and to increase the budget by £2bn each year of the next parliament. However, that increase in funding is tempered by Cameron's announcement that his party would also be extending NHS services to full 24 hour coverage (Channel 4, 2015). They also later announced - to criticism of making unfunded pledges - that they would match the £8bn increase called for by the NHS (BBC, 2015).

By contrast to the other two main parties, the Liberal Democrats were initially the only party to pledge to increase NHS funding each year through to 2020 to ensure it will be, in real terms (adjusting for inflation), £8bn more than today - the amount that the NHS has stated is needed. Their main priority will the treatment of mental health, which they would put on parity with physical health and for which they would provide more funding (Perraudin, 2015).

UKIP have once again shown their chameleon-like skill at identifying the most popular mainstream policy and jumping on board - being sure to propose funding the NHS through their usual obsessions (Mason, 2015). However the personal views on the NHS of their leader Nigel Farage have been criticised by Dr John Lamport of the National Health Action Party (Lamport, 2015). He criticised Farage's praise for the Dutch and French style insurance-based system as an expensive doorway to privatisation.

However, despite their differing priorities, the similarities between the main parties and the general direction of travel towards privatisation has, for many, been a long term concern (BBC, 2003). Senior health professionals have criticised the coalition (Boseley, 2015), and others have called for whoever forms the next government to provide the funding that the NHS needs (Baker et al, 2015). These calls come with fears amongst medical professionals that after the election, charges may be introduced for basic NHS services (Campbell, 2015{2}).

Smaller third parties have taken up the fight against this perceived drift into privatisation. The National Health Action Party (NHA) represents a broadly Left-wing vision of rolling back privatisation. The NHA supports 1p rise in tax to pay for an increase of funding of £4.5m a year, phasing out prescription charges and repealing the Health and Social Care Act 2012 (BBC, 2015{2}).

However, regardless of who wins the next election, the closeness of the main parties' policies makes it likely that there will be some sort of cross-party commission to figure out the future of the NHS (Triggle, 2015). That commission will have to face the same questions that the public will at this election: do we want lower taxes or well funded public services? Because trying to have both means stretching those services ever more thinly (Toynbee, 2015).

When considering that question it's worth noting that the UK has comprehensive healthcare for which it spends far less, as a share of GDP, than most other comparable countries (Campbell & Watt, 2014). The NHS also remains an overwhelming popularly supported service (NatCen, 2015). In order to keep that service functioning, we need to understand the choices on offer about its future and to ask ourselves: when the future of the NHS is being debated, what values do we want to be represented and to underwrite its future?

Election 2015: What the past can tell us about the SNP's role at Westminster

Talking to Andrew Marr on Sunday, David Cameron argued that a Labour government backed by the SNP would be calamitous (Wintour, 2015). He said:

"This would be the first time in our history that a group of nationalists from one part of our country would be involved in altering the direction of our country..." (Marr, 2015)

Historically that is not, however, strictly true.

If, as the polls suggest, Labour and the Conservatives are unable to break their deadlock and a hung parliament results, then we could be looking at a repeat of 1910. Swap a few of the parties around - Liberal Party and Labour Party, the Irish Parliamentary Party for the Scottish National Party - and you have a similar outcome on 7th May as occurred in 1910: the Left and Centre outnumbering the Right, and a Centre-Left minority government propped up by a party of regional nationalists (Collins, 2015).

In the years preceding 1910 there had been a withering struggle between the Liberals and Conservatives over reforming the power of the lords, to limit the power of the Tory landowners and to allow for the passage of the Liberal 'People's Budget' (Cavendish, 2009). That struggle resulted in the first election of 1910, where the Liberal majority was reduced to a Liberal minority. In an attempt to break the deadlock, a second election was held in December - but that only produced the same result.

The third largest party was the Irish Parliamentary Party (IPP) with 74 seats, a full 70% of the seats in Ireland - a sweep not unlike that expected from the SNP in 2015 (Kuenssberg, 2015). Since the early 1880s, the IPP had been allied to the Liberal Party in pursuit of Home Rule for Ireland (Baston, 2015). After decades of campaigning, their position of power in propping up a Liberal minority allowed them to finally achieve the passage of a Home Rule Bill.

The comparison to Irish Nationalism of the early 1900s should not be overstated, though. The struggle for Irish independence carried barely suppressed undertones of direct action and violence - reprisals for suppressions and centuries of denied reform (Baston, 2015).

Yet there remain some interesting comparisons. When the IPP secured itself the role of kingmaker in a hung parliament, it succeeded in putting Ireland right at the centre of discussions. Having been defeated in the 2014 referendum, Alex Salmond had acknowledged that the independence question would be off the table for a generation (McVeigh, 2014). But that doesn't mean that, if as expected the SNP become the third largest party in Parliament, there isn't a Scottish corner to be fought at Westminster - including the promised further devolution.

However, Ireland becoming the centre of political attention in 1910 was resented in England (Boland, 2015). That same sort of resentment is being seen again, with an anti-Scotland sentiment on the rise, fed by Right-wing propaganda (Milne, 2015). But that negativity has been countered to a degree, though, by the popularity of Nicola Sturgeon, who has received a positive reaction outside of Scotland.

The SNP's clear stance of supporting a Labour government, and opposing a Conservative one, will also have helped (The Guardian, 2015). Again, that is not unlike the IPP, who stood alongside the Liberals for decades in the campaign for Home Rule - although they had little alternative with the Conservatives utterly opposed to their aims.

While adopting a clear position - being clear as to what side the party will take in advance - has let voters know what to expect, the SNP's announcement of who they will side with in a hung parliament will restrict their bargaining power, just as it restricted that of the IPP. Yet the SNP has tried playing the two big parties off against each other before, and that did not achieve better results.

In 1979, James Callaghan's Labour minority government was defeated in a motion of no confidence - by just one vote - which ushered in the Thatcher-Conservative era. Callaghan's minority government, in return for SNP and Plaid Cymru support, had legislated for devolution of power to Scotland and Wales. Struggling to pass the act, the focus switched to a referendum. Devolution for Scotland was narrowly rejected by referendum, though not without controversy (Aitken, 2015). Having lost a referendum, the SNP took the Conservative side and moved to oust Labour. The SNP subsequently lost most of their seats at the general election.

One big difference between 2015 and either 1910 or 1979, it that reciprocity on the part of Labour to the overtures of the SNP has been at an all time low (Ship, 2015). Even if a Labour minority governs after the next election, the SNP's direct influence may well still be further restricted.

Yet the party's seats, and those of the other possible members of the discussed Progressive Alliance bloc that would sit in the next parliament (Mason, 2015), could still act as a significant anchor-weight, holding the government in the Centre-Left.

In doing so, the SNP seem to have learned the lessons of the past. They has striven to avoid accusations of splitting progressive voters by committing to being part of a broad progressive voice at Westminster. The problem is that Labour seem to have learnt the lessons as well, believing they cannot afford to appear weak and at the mercy of sectional interests if they want to keep the support of those voters they appeal to on the Centre-Right.

Having now staked out their territory, the SNP can no longer afford not to keep to their Left-leaning commitments. Any failure or perception of wavering will see the party facing the same fall from grace as suffered by the Lib Dems. Those factors should at least ensure a progressive, Left-leaning parliament if people in Scotland vote for the SNP.

One final interesting note: the strength of Ireland's voting block in the 1880s was strong enough to force a reorganisation of parliamentary workings. In order to stop the IPP voting block from using Parliament to force its issues onto the agenda, the establishment's answer was to give the the government more power over Parliamentary proceedings and reduce the power of backbenchers (Baston, 2015).

The rise of the SNP and impending minority administrations - by restricting the ability of central government to act with impunity while they hold a majority - could now return that power back to Parliament. Far from disassembling the country in the next Parliament, the SNP could just be in a position to do the whole country a favour.

Election 2015: Party manifesto commitments and the values behind the policies

The traditional view of electoral politics in the UK is of two parties, one of the Centre-Left and one of the Centre-Right, who struggle with one another for control over the establishment. The one that succeeds is expected to implement their manifesto, a vision of the policies for the coming years - diametrically opposed to those of the opposition.

Yet the reality is that there has been - for some time, and accentuated in this election campaign - a lot of pretty obvious similarities between, and almost imitation of each other by, the supposedly fundamentally oppositional traditional Left and Right parties, Labour and Conservative (Robinson, 2015; Peston, 2015).

In many ways, though, that is kind of the point of majoritarian electoral competition. If the parties are competing for votes, rather than purely representing them, then by necessity they must appeal to the broadest possible audience. That broad vision, for which both parties try to sell their manifesto as the best representative, is called the political consensus. In the UK, that consensus has leaned slightly to the Right-of-Centre over the last five years - in response to thirteen years of Centre-Left government (NatCen, 2015).

So when both of 2015's main parties offer to be tough on immigration, harsh on welfare, and efficient with the public finances - particularly in needing to find £30bn to balance the budget (Peston, 2014), and when they talk about working people and families, they are trying to appeal to what they believe to be the issues that reflect the hopes, fears, concerns and values of the broadest possible audience.

With the expansion of Britain's political system over the last five years, from a two-party system to a multi-party system, a new element has been added to what a political manifesto has to achieve. As the number of parties represented increases, the chances of a major party claiming the number of seats needed for a majority decreases. By making one-party majorities difficult to achieve, alliances become essential. The manifesto becomes a means of communicating with other parties as well as with voters, as the starting point for future negotiations (Rawnsley, 2015).

To fully comprehend the manifesto released by any of the parties in 2015, the reader now has to consider all of these factors.

The problem is that, for many, it is hard to distinguish between the message being sent out to voters by each of the different parties. The protected and increased funding for the NHS, the clampdowns on immigration and on working-age welfare, an increase in house building, and a commitment to balancing public expenses and revenue: the four largest parties - in terms of support in the popular polls across the UK - all fall clearly within these parameters.

But it would not be right to say, however, that there are no differences.

Conservatives and UKIP

Conservative and UKIP plans have both been criticised for offering all sorts of tax cuts, alongside additional spending, even as they commit to going further and deeper with austerity cuts than has already been seen.

The Conservatives have been singled out, in particular, for repeatedly failing to address what will be targeted for spending cuts (BBC, 2015). David Cameron himself has even gone so far as to say that voters should simply trust the Conservative record (Gage, 2015). Aside from cuts, the Conservative manifesto places a hard focus on convincing people that the party cares about working people - from extending Right-to-buy to housing association tenants, and offering some discounts; to taking minimum wage workers out of tax, raising the minimum wage and creating more apprenticeships. But all of these are offset by other policies. There is a commitment to cutting taxes on businesses, increasing the legal threshold required for strikes and taking welfare away from young people.

UKIP seems set upon tax cuts as well - acting as little more than the extreme-wing of the Conservative Party. Their plans include what Nigel Farage termed an £18bn tax give-away. Their manifesto also contains a greatest hits compilation of the other parties' most popular policies, their own obsessions like anti-immigration, and plans to cut funding to the EU, to international aid, to Scotland and Wales, even to axe infrastructural projects like HS2 - seeking to save some £29bn in the process. But all the talk of saving money from withdrawing and scrapping all seems very short term and short sighted (Elliot, 2015).

£29bn in cuts to address the deficit and fund the NHS, plus another £18bn to be found in tax cuts, constitutes a lot of money to be found without taking into account the fact that these cuts could result in damage to Britain's economic and financial interests. The money spent on the EU and International Aid in particular go to facilitating better conditions, here and abroad, for ourselves as well as others. Much of the EU spending notably returns to the UK, in the form of grants to support local councils and scientific research.

With Conservative plans to take less revenue - a reduction on inheritance tax, more spending on opening free schools, more funding for the NHS, a doubling of the free childcare allowance, taking minimum wage workers out of tax, building 200,000 homes, extending right-to-buy for tenants of social housing, keeping museums and galleries free to enter, freezing the BBC license fee, and, on top of all of it, finding around £30bn in order to eliminate the deficit - it is a glaring omission that we do not clearly know where the money will come from. While some Conservatives have offered the vague answer that a recovering economy would increase tax revenue and so offset any tax give-aways (Ridley, 2015), it would seem that a voter would be gambling on quite a lot with a vote for a Conservative government.

Labour

The traditional alternative to the Conservatives would seem to be offering a different kind of gamble. While Labour have consistently rejected the suggestion that they will cover spending commitments with borrowing, their slower and steadier approach to lowering the deficit and debt would certainly leave them room for a little greater flexibility (Peston, 2015{2}). The party appear to be aiming to use their focus on raising living standards, by doing things like raising the minimum wage to £8 an hour by the end of the next parliament and promote the living wage, to ultimately increase tax revenues - in a manner parallel to Conservative plans dependent upon economic growth - and offset any spending commitments.

This kind of attention to the fiscal details is all part of Labour's attempt to rebuild its credibility (Elliott, 2015{2}). After the economic crisis began on the party's watch, there seems to be an understanding that Labour needs to re-establish its credentials. Yet that determination to be seen as credible has meant the party has signed up for an economic orthodoxy run very much according to a conservative narrative (Eaton, 2015), and faces accusations from other parties, such as the SNP, of offering little more than austerity-lite (Wintour & Mason, 2015).

That means trying to find different ways of doing what Labour previously relied upon the state to do. Promises to reinstate the 50p tax rate and to end Non-Dom tax status signal a move away from New Labour, but the commitment to austerity refrains the party from moving to the traditional ground of taxing, borrowing and spending (Peston, 2015{3}). Instead, by increasing the minimum wage, proposing ways of tackling rising rent and energy costs, and capping private profits from NHS contracts - rather than simply replacing market solutions with public control - Labour seems to be suggesting that it has learnt its lesson when it comes to trying to micromanage everything from central government.

Liberal Democrats

For those that agree with the mainstream consensus, the safe option would seem to be the Liberal Democrats. The party has reduced its need for particularly deep cuts, as they try to balance the books, by promising to raise taxes on the wealthier, to restrict some of their benefits, and to introduce new levies like the Mansion Tax on their homes. Meanwhile they still leave themselves free to expand spending later in the Parliament, once the deficit is eliminated and the economy is growing - particularly on the NHS to which the Lib Dems were the first to commit to funding by a full £8bn more per year by the end of the next Parliament. Yet beneath the surface of the Lib Dem manifesto policies themselves, there is the appearance of an interesting division.

In some ways it would seem to be a revealing tale of two liberalisms. The manifesto was prepared by a group headed up by David Laws and constructed with the help of the party's usual process of democratic policy creation. The overall content of the manifesto itself represents the Centre-Left social liberalism of the party membership at large - protections of rights and liberties, combined with action to ensure an 'opportunity for everyone' - and contains many policies green in colour and libertarian in flavour (Wintour, 2015). Priority is given to investments in industrial regeneration - particularly digital and green energy based - and to the introduction of their 'Five Green Laws', along with indulging the party's love for rights and liberties - this time with protections for digital rights and for the rights of journalists (Elliot et al, 2015).

However the priorities from that manifesto, and the tightly controlled message constructed around it (The Guardian, 2015), are right out of Laws' Orange Book Market Liberalism, seen by many as the Lib Dems' Right-wing. The presentation of the Lib Dem manifesto - which sets it aside from the two traditional political powerhouses by having their coalition negotiation priorities on the front cover - focus heavily upon the narrative used to justify the coalition and represent the party's main policy successes therein. The fact that the majority of the front cover commitments have been copied by the Conservatives - and the absence of a mention of the UK's membership of the Europe Union - is notable.

Yet there is still plenty of common ground to which Ed Miliband can pitch - his main compromise will be meet the Lib Dem priorities already co-opted by the parties of the Right. The rest of the Lib Dem manifesto looks like it would integrate with that of Labour quite neatly. From a commitment to staying in Europe, to the introduction of a Mansion Tax and increasing taxes on the wealthier, there is much that a Lib-Lab accord could agree on without a fight. Labour action on letting agent fees and the Lib Dem policy of help-to-rent tenancy loans represent what might well be easily integrated, pretty comfortably, with a Labour system.

While the the priorities and message make it easy to see another term with the Tories, the manifesto at large appeals to a coalition with Labour. Sitting between the two, Clegg's team are working hard - favouring a controlled strategic message over openness and idealism (Green, 2015) - to present the Lib Dems as the more attractive prospective governing partner to all sides, when compared to the SNP or UKIP (Robinson, 2015{2}).

Greens

Yet not everyone is convinced by the conventional wisdom, however balanced and reasonable it may be presented. The Green Party represents the progressive alliance group of parties - including Plaid Cymru in Wales and the SNP in Scotland - in its opposition to the dominant pro-austerity, deficit-reduction narrative.

The Green Party's pitch to voters represents the Left-wing ground that some feel Labour has abandoned (Behr, 2015). Renationalisation of the railways, completely excising privatisation from the NHS, the introduction of a £10 living wage, a 60p top rate of tax, an expansion of the public sector, the abolition of tuition fees and the abandonment of the economics of austerity, growth and balanced budgets - these all represent an occupation of political ground Labour clearly feels it cannot win from.

The problem facing the Greens is that their pitch also means far more spending and far more borrowing to pay for a complete change of direction in terms of the size of the state. As the election gets closer and gaps get tighter, they will probably be squeezed out in favour of a safer option. That will mean a best case scenario of picking up only a very few seats, with which they can do little but pressure a minority government. That means deciding how to balance their idealism against the reality of what they can actually achieve (The Guardian; 2015{2}) - the very thing upon which the Lib Dems ran aground in 2010.

'Sooner or later, idealism and realism have to come to some sort of accommodation.'

For the Greens, according the MP and former leader Caroline Lucas, that means crafting a set of priorities that can at as an anchor to restrain Labour's move to the Right (Mason, 2015). Yet it is the commitment to some deeply idealistic policies found in the Green manifesto that will be the main attraction for many - chief examples amongst them being the Citizen's Income with its promise of an end to poverty and the abolition of tuition fees. But those are not the priorities of all supporters and members, many of whom put their vision of environmental sustainability first. Managing those tensions will be key to this manifesto, and how it is applied in the next parliament, not pulling the party apart.

The Underlying Values

Those ideals, lying beneath the often fairly similar priorities and policies, are an important part of manifesto. They can be woven in a co-ordinated into the fabric of the policies contained within it, or for parties like UKIP, remain hidden beneath a deflective surface of popular policies taken from other parties.

For example, behind the Conservative expansion of Right-to-buy - on its surface increasing the supply of houses to help ordinary people onto the property ladder - has been criticised as a Thatcherite sell-off of public property that does little to address the actual problem. It has been accused of instead furthering the lack of access to affordable shelter for the less well off, by depleting reserves of social housing (Jones, 2015). That policy chimes consistent with the Conservative emphasis upon reducing the size of the state, putting the burden of welfare upon the shoulders of the individuals themselves within the private market.

Both of the two main parties share similar approaches to both immigration and welfare - likely reacting to cover political ground opened up by the campaigns against immigrants, and those receiving working age benefits, led by UKIP and the Right-wing press (Greenslade, 2015). But their reasons for doing so are different.

Labour, caught between the arguments of Blue Labour - that the party needs to recapture working class voters by appealing to their conservatism - and their own attempts to divert attention away from immigration and on to low pay and falling living standards, seem reluctantly to have taken a cynical position as a qualified concession. The party have spoken of some controls on immigration as a campaign priority, but have kept their focus on low pay and living standards.

On welfare the matter seems even less clear. While the Tories talk of rewarding hard work with a plan seemingly based on relative comparison - cutting taxes for low paid workers and punishing those in need of welfare with more and heavier restrictions (Peston, 2015{4}) - Labour have moved to the Right to cover the Tories almost blow for blow in restricting benefits. Young people face particularly severe cuts in support. That move, along with the shift on immigration, is causing some confusion as to what the party is actually standing for (Perkins et al, 2015).

Multi-party politics

Amongst the positives of a shift to multi-party politics is that it allows for the possibility of parties as representatives - if the biggest parties could let go of their lust for power. Parties representing different ideals would represent their supporters in finding alliances and common grounds for co-operation that do not depend everyone being forced under one big tent.

The parties could focus upon representing a consistent set of values or priorities, like those found in the Lib Dem or Green manifesto, values like a free society or a sustainable society, and less on trying to appeal to all audiences. A centrist balance between idealistic visions is then achieved by a coalition after an election, where as broad a group of parties as possible agree to work on achieving their common or compatible ideas.

Right now, though, we are still bogged down in the practicality of majoritarian politics. The Tories and Labour find little room for an idealistic vision, and policies that reflect those values are watered down before they even reach the pages of the manifesto. Their concern is to gather as many voters as possible in order to claim control over the establishment and its power - the same old story.

While the Lib Dems remain the most well adapted to the realities of multi-party politics, with a manifesto that finds room for their ideals but sets them beneath the priorities for post-election negotiations - a mixture of ideals and practicalities - it is likely that only the Greens who have presented a vision of a society, in their manifesto, that truly represents an uncompromising pursuit of their values.

At this election, the absence of major concessions to practicality will likely count against them. But in the future we might possibly, hopefully, see it a little more often - if the traditional parties cannot reimpose their system on 7th May.

Election 2015: On the campaign trail there can be more at stake than the result of just one election

The first week of the 2015 UK general election campaign has been dominated by three things: questions over how parties intend to fund their promises (Gage, 2015), televised debates and the first outbreak of negative campaigning (BBC, 2015{1}). The trouble is that these staples of election campaigning, while rarely illuminating the issues, can have significant impact. Not from the events or debates themselves, but the small and decisive moments they create.

A televised debate became a significant point of difference between Nixon and Kennedy - but not because Kennedy was the more impressive speaker (Webley, 2010). Those that listened on the radio thought Nixon had won. Yet to viewers Nixon came across sweaty and tired and Kennedy fresh and charismatic (Gabbatt, 2012).

Barack Obama's successful campaign for the Presidency in 2008 was carried on the back of a particularly catchy slogan (Edgar, 2013). 'Yes We Can' became a rallying cry of hope and positivity, along with slogans like 'Change we can believe in', and simply 'Hope'. The dynamism and vitality of Obama's message was in stark contrast to his opponent, John McCain.

The UK general election of 1983 came off the back of a chaotic four years. Labour shift to the Left under the leadership of Michael Foot and the Chairmanship of Tony Benn - both committed left-wingers - led to a number of moderate Labour members leaving, to form the SDP. The newly formed SDP-Liberal Alliance polling as high as 50% as disaffection with Labour and the Conservatives ran high thanks to years of stagflation and recession.

Running against the Conservatives, under Margaret Thatcher, who had recovered in the polls due to the impact of the Falklands War, and the SDP-Liberal Alliance ended up taking 25% of the vote - for very disproportionately few seats - Labour produced a manifesto for the election which was christened 'the longest suicide note in history' by one of their own MPs (Clark, 2008).

The scale of the Labour defeat resulted in the manifesto and its left-leaning content - featuring abolition of the House of Lords, unilateral nuclear disarmament and nationalisation of certain industries - being made a scapegoat. The defeat of the Left in 1983 has been used to discredit the Left in the UK for the last three decades, and helped lead to the more right-leaning party that spawned Tony Blair's New Labour.

As Labour announce their manifesto, trying to tackle the lasting impact upon their reputation of the financial crash happening on their watch (Robinson, 2015) and the Conservatives try to convince everyone that they will provide adequate public funding for the NHS (BBC, 2015{2}), it is important to keep in mind these historic campaign moments. The fact is that, while the theatre of the electoral campaign can be little more than a distraction at its worst, it exists because of those small things that can turn more than just an election. They can set trends and shift debates for years to come.

Election 2015: SNP, Plaid Cymru and the Regional Parties

Following their landslide victory in the 2011 Scottish Parliamentary elections, under Alex Salmond, the SNP (Scottish National Party) looked strongly placed to lead their country towards independence. Yet in 2014, independence was rejected by referendum.

In the aftermath Alex Salmond resigned and his former deputy Nicola Sturgeon stood unopposed to succeed him (BBC, 2014). Yet even defeat and a change of leadership has not shaken the party's momentum. Polling suggests the party is set to sweep the Scottish parliamentary seats on 7th May.

All of this seems to suggest a complex relationship between the SNP and their supporters.

Despite the likelihood of the party becoming the third largest group in Parliament in May, their Westminster aims are not particularly grand. Their primary ambition appears to be shared with the Green Party: to keep pulling Labour leftwards (Greenwood, 2015).

Former leader Alex Salmond, who is himself running for a seat at Westminster, has given his support to the SNP backing a Labour minority government in the likely event of a hung parliament (The Guardian, 2014). There has even been talk of a progressive alliance being formed in the next parliament between the SNP, Plaid Cymru and the Green Party (Mason, 2015).

It is this that complicates the SNP's relationship with its supporters - the tension between the SNP's separatism and many of their supporter's Left-wing politics.

The SNP has become the latest home for progressives looking for a new alternative to the Labour Party (Wishart, 2015). Like the Greens, the SNP have benefited from the Liberal Democrats going into government, and in doing so being seen to have sacrificed their values.

The SNP has certainly tried to live up to the view of the party as Left-leaning. They have promised to oppose austerity, with a fiscal plan that sees efforts to reduce the deficit spread out over many more years than their rivals - meaning less to cut in the short term and more to spend (Settle, 2015). The party has also pushed a number of progressive policies over the years, including the opposition to tuition fees, trident and private financial initiatives in the NHS (Wright, 2012).

However, the SNP has also faced criticism over individual liberties issues - such as the Liberal Democrats opposing their attempts to create an integrated National ID database (Macwhirter, 2015). The party's own traditional leanings, historically towards the political Centre rather than the Left, have also shown through in places with a very friendly attitude towards business - seen in Alex Salmond's tendency towards low corporation taxes (Wright, 2012).

The Labour Party have, however, make it all too easy for the SNP to present themselves as different, a radical alternative, to the parties of the Westminster establishment parties. Labour were all to quick to side with the Conservative No-vote campaign against independence (Wishart, 2015).

At the 2015 Scottish leaders debate, Labour leader Jim Murphy did a good job of summarising the attitude that has turned many, both in Scotland and across the UK, away from the party (STV, 2015):

"Only Labour is big enough. Only Labour is strong enough."

That sense of entitlement from Labour has not convinced many. They persist in demanding that everyone unite against Tories, but insist that it only be in rank and file behind Labour.

Even with Labour largest impeding themselves, the SNP still struggle to establish themselves as a mainstream party due to their commitment to independence. Their separatism compromises the party's chances of having any major influence at Westminster, other than as an outside critic - strength at Westminster will all be about reinforcing their national influence in Scotland (Rawnsley, 2015).

Behind the tensions between those wanting independence and those wanting an alternative party of the Left, there is also a struggle between the newer Left-wing and the older Centrist party that is trying to juggle a coalition of different interests. And gives the party a New Labour feel to it.

The question is, without the issue of independence to unite them, is the SNP ultimately more progressive and more conservative? Unfortunately the party's contradictory policies - anti-austerity but pro-business, anti-Trident but infringing civil liberties - that make it a broad tent Centre party trying to keep everyone happy, also make it impossible to be sure of the party's ideological convictions.

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Prospects: 53 seats (for a gain of 47).*

Possible Coalition Partners: Labour (271 seats), Liberal Democrats (29), Plaid Cymru (3), Green Party (1).

Verdict: A broad tent Centre party, trying to keep and Left and Right happy in a delicate pro-Independence coalition. Leaning towards progressive for now, but not with any overwhelming conviction.

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Plaid Cymru

In Wales there is almost a complete contrast to the SNP's success. Plaid Cymru - Party of Wales - a party of much stronger Left-wing convictions, has struggled against a Labour Party much more assured of itself than its Scottish counterpart.

Both the cause of Welsh devolution and support for Plaid Cymru were launched onto the national stage in the 1950s and 60s by the controversy of the creation of Llyn Celyn reservoir to supply Liverpool by the drowning of the Welsh village of Capel Celyn.

Over the next three decades the party saw its support rise over the 10% mark until Labour held the Welsh devolution referendum in 1997. At the first Welsh Assembly election Plaid took 28% of the votes to become the official opposition to a Labour-Lib Dem coalition. Since then the party has remained firmly established in the Welsh Assembly, governing in coalition with Labour between 2007 and 2011.

Yet at Westminster the party has hovered at around 3 seats. Having the opportunity to takes its Left-wing regionalism to a national audience in the leaders debates under leader Leanne Wood will likely help the party immensely (BBC, 2015). However, the party is still only in fourth in Welsh opinion polls - behind even UKIP - on 11% and may be on course to lose one of its only 3 seats in the Commons on 7th May (The Guardian, 2015{2}).

Until the party finds a way to break Labour's stranglehold on the Welsh electorate - twenty of the forty seats in Wales are safe, with Labour holding seventeen of them (Williamson, 2015) - Plaid Cymru will likely remain an addendum.

And the rest of the regions

In Cornwall, Mebyon Kernow - Party of Cornwall or Sons of Cornwall - are the local equivalent to the SNP and Plaid Cymru. They support devolution for Cornwall, and share the Left-of-Centre approach of their equivalent parties in Scotland and Wales. So far they have only achieved representation on Cornwall Council.

As for Northern Ireland, that is an almost entirely separate political system within the larger UK system, largely divided between sectarian interests. Here is a link to some seat predictions for the seats in Northern Ireland.