What a strange election this has been – at the national level it’s been decidedly dull, but locally, anything but.
I’ve now covered four elections in Sussex and sometimes it’s been a bit of a struggle to find anything interesting to say, other than, ‘I wonder if the Tories are going to lose any seats in the county (Brighton and Hove apart – as usual).
This time round, judging from the constituency-level polls I’ve been looking at, up to ten seats could change hands (emphasis on the word ‘could’). Starting in the East of the county, both Hastings and Bexhill are predicted to go to Labour, whilst Lewes and Eastbourne could well be in the Lib Dem ‘gain’ column, perhaps joined by Chichester and (perhaps surprisingly) Mid-Sussex. Along the coast it could be a clean sweep for Labour, with the party predicted to win Bognor and Littlehampton and the two Worthing seats. Crawley will probably also be in the Labour gain column.
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What a night that would be for we Sussex political nerds who. election after election, have had to try to get excited about one or two seats changing hands.
Uncharacteristically, Brighton and Hove will probably be an island of electoral stability, with Peter Kyle in Hove easily winning for Labour, as will Chris Ward in Kemptown (despite the disappointment among local members at having their sitting MP, Lloyd Russell-Moyle, defenestrated at the last moment) and the Greens, even without Caroline Lucas, should still hold on to Brighton Pavilion, despite a strong push from Labour.
Now to the other bit – the less than exciting national campaign.
In terms of the overall story – virtually nothing has happened. Labour went into the campaign with an average 20 point lead and, last time I checked, they still had that lead – despite all the pundits (me included) saying that the gap always narrows once the campaign gets underway.
Nor has little happened in terms of the party leaders. Keir Starmer has been ultra cautious (less polite columnists might describe it as boring), Lib Dem leader, Ed Davey, has been having fun jumping in and out of rivers, playing with rubber ducks etc. and Nigel Farage has been causing trouble for the Tories, as he clearly loves to do. And then there’s poor old Rishi, well he’s just been angry – and there’s been plenty for him to have been angry about.
First, he must have been angry about his campaign launch – who can forget that image of Sunak in a dripping wet suit standing outside Downing Street trying to excite a less than excited nation. And his day got worse as he asked Welsh brewery workers if they looking forward to the Euros (apparently unaware that Wales had not qualified), then being filmed underneath a sign saying ‘Exit’ and ending his day, fittingly some might say, at the Titanic exhibition.
But worse was to come.
He must have been very angry with himself for deciding to leave the D-Day celebrations early. They say a picture is worth a thousand words, but the one of his Foreign Secretary (David Cameron) standing alongside world leaders in the absence of our own PM, must have been worth many more times that.
And then he told us he was angry with those of his colleagues (mostly from inside Downing Street) who are accused of betting on the date of the election.
But most of all he must be angry – incandescent even – with himself, because without any good reason he called an election six months before he needed to. Ok there was a brief flurry of relatively good economic news but to call an election when you are 20 points behind in the polls, with no sign of the polls improving was, to be kind, the act of a brave man or someone who just doesn’t understand politics.
The latest polls suggest that, in terms of seats, the Tories are going to suffer an historic defeat, some suggesting they might even get less than 100. But perhaps more humiliating than their derisory seat total, could be (again stressing ‘could’) if Reform UK wins more votes than the Tories (although, because of our bizarre electoral system, they’ll only gain a handful of seats). But there could be worse to come. It is conceivable – just – that the Liberal Democrats might win more seats than the Tories who would then become the official opposition.
Now, what a result that would be. All of sudden, the election becomes rather interesting.
Ivor Gaber is Professor of Political Journalism at the University of Sussex and a former political correspondent based at Westminster
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