Rarely do I agree with a post on Liberal Conspiracy but as it happens I was talking to a lapsed Labour activist this morning who I have known for years and I said much the same thing as is said in this post at Lib Con.
Essentially, I don't think either of the main two parties should want to win the next General Election because it will be a crappy Parliament at the end of which whoever leads will have had to piss off vast swatches of the electorate to get the country's finances in order once more.
Interestingly though, there might just be a saving grace for the winner. If the Argentinians continue to rattle their sabre over the Falkland Islands and do something exceptionally stupid like try to invade again, Britain would have no choice but to respond and then whoever was in charge would probably see a massive electoral popularity bounce that might just help them out at a time when they could really do with it.
Of course, the likelihood of that happening is virtually zero, so we get back to the first point again. Whoever wins the next election is going to have to do govern over actions that will put lots of people out of work and generally make vast swathes of the electorate feel pretty crappy about the Government.
If Labour win, they'll likely have a term like Major from 1992 which will be Hell and then see themselves kicked out for a generation or worse implode. If the Tories win they'll have an equally Hellish time and, even if they succeed in getting things moving well again they might get punished for it.
No one really wants to run a one term Government but isn't it the 2015 election that will be the big game-changer?
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