FROM OUR CORRESPONDENT
LONDON – I am shock polls those that stand out on the front pages of English newspapers this morning. According to a survey, in the elections which will take place in two weeks Labor would win 516 seats out of a total of 630 up for grabs (tie to 80% of Parliament), while the Conservatives would be reduced to a stump of just 53 seats.
Would be the biggest defeat in modern history for Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s party and the largest government majority for a hundred years now. What’s worse, the same Prime Minister would not be re-elected to Parliament: and it would be the first time this has happened in British history. Together with him, three-quarters of the current government would be swept away from Westminster: an outcome which, among other things, would greatly narrow the field of candidates to succeed Sunak.
Also other polls agree in giving Labor a super-majority, with forecasts that always place them above 400 seats: these are the perverse effects of the British single-member system, because in terms of voting percentages, Labor is at 44 and the Conservatives are at 23.
But the trend is uniform: as we get closer to the voting date (July 4th), the gap between the two parties is widening instead of narrowing.
The defeat of the conservatives has remote causes and proximate causes. There is voter dissatisfaction with 14 years of government which have seen a worsening of living standards, but also the disillusionment with a party that has burned its image of competencebetween Boris Johnson’s scandals and Liz Truss’ financial disaster.
Added to all this are the Sunak’s gaffe in this election campaign, from the abandonment of the Normandy landing ceremonies to the out-of-place comments on his own alleged deprivations.
Finally the Nigel Farage’s entry into the field took away votes from the right (even if he could fail for the eighth time in his attempt to get elected to Parliament).
However, Labour’s super-majority is starting to cause concern: the new government would have such a wide margin of maneuver that it could reshape the British state and institutions in its image, also because in London there is no written Constitution and the prime minister, especially with those numbers, can do what he wants. The new leader, Keir Starmer, is known for his caution: but will he be able to resist the temptation to win big?
