The final lap (part 4)
(for introduction and part one go here, part two here, part three here.)
May 2009 - the expenses scandal
Moving on from the credit crunch, the event that has really defined the last year in politics (or at least, the last six months) is the expenses scandal. The previous parts of this round up really dealt with the change in the Conservatives and the problems that have beset Labour. In contrast the expenses scandal is something that has hit the political system as a whole.
The direct effect on the polls is slightly blurred because it came so close to the European elections and the effect of both events was probably to push support away from the big three towards minor parties. It is almost certainly there though. We saw polls put "others" as high as 30% (from ComRes in late May) and even if one dismisses that as an outlier, there were several showing them above 20%. While some of this will be due to the European election effect, when put in the context of last European elections the level of support for "other parties" peaked at 17% in the opinion polls. This is clearly more than the standard "European election boost" in support for minor parties.
To date the expenses scandal does not appear to have had a disproportionate effect on Labour or the Conservatives - they both suffered equally, and so far they both appear to be recovering equally. The Liberal Democrats have perhaps suffered less - they are already have some anti-politics kudos, and while some Lib Dem MPs were criticised during the expenses scandal, none really received much focus. There are no real Lib Dem expenses scandal poster boys, like Margaret Moran and her house in Southampton, Elliot Morley and the mortgage that didn't exist, Douglas Hogg and his moat or Peter Viggers and his Duck Island. That said, while they didn't really suffer, neither were the Lib Dems able to capitalise. Instead support went to the minor parties, most notably to UKIP and the Greens (while a supposed growth in BNP support got more coverage at the time, they did not actually benefit as much).
The longer term effect of the expenses scandal is hard to say. In terms of the effect on how expenses are organised in the Commons I'm sure it will be massive. Certainly it has led to a change of Speaker and a much larger turnover of MPs than usual at the next election as many are forced to stand down or suddenly discover important health or personal reasons that mean they really need to go. But the electoral effect? On a national level, we can already see it fading, down from the low twenties around the European elections to the mid-teens in more recent polls. With the European elections gone, the expenses scandal largely exhausted and the increasing focus upon the main contenders as the election grows ever closer, I expect them to continue falling as we approach the election, though I'd be surprisied if it isn't still the highest level of support for "others" at a general election. The short term effect of higher support for the Greens and BNP may help push them over the barrier in the two normally contested seats where victories for minor parties are just about feasible (Brighton Pavillon and Barking respectively), but other than that, its effect upon a general election result will be negligible.
What could give it an impact is if there is a disproportional effect upon one of the main parties - if the Greens put up a lot more candidates and get more publicity they will likely impact upon the Liberal Democrats, in white, working-class estates the BNP could gather support (largely hurting Labour, but also taking up people who might otherwise become working-class Tories), in the past UKIP have tended to disproportionately take support from the Conservatives, though the local and European elections also showed a clear movement to them from Labour. So far the gain in other support does not appear to have disproportionately damaged any of the three main parties - Labour and the Conservatives went down together and, as support for others recedes, Labour and the Conservatives have come back up together - however, the potential is there.
A more intriguing possibility is the effect on individual seats. Normally MPs enjoy some degree of incumbency vote - local people know the name, they've recieved the newsletter, a fair proportion of people have probably contacted them about something and been helped by them. No matter how apparently useless an MP is, my guess is that nearly all of them have in the past had some small degree of personal vote. Following the scandal however, and even after the large number of retirements, there are still a lot of MPs out there with less than spotless records on expenses, or at least, whose record could be made to look questionable by an opponent pointing out how much they claimed on a second home or spent on staff. It is yet possible we may see something of a negative incumbency vote. I would not expect huge great swings against incumbents, but there doesn't need to be in order for it to have an effect. My guess is that we're probably talking about a couple of thousand votes, but at any given election there are something in the region of 40 or so seats with majorities under 1000.
So that's my summary of how we got where we are now - the ups and downs of the past 4 years, of leadership changes, Brown bounces, the credit crunch and the expenses scandal. Tomorrow I'll look the potential for change in the final lap before the general election.
(And on normal polls - there should be a Populus poll later tonight!)
