In years of polling voters, I have never found the public mood in Britain so disgruntled and disillusioned
THE DAYS of Labours three-figure majority may be coming to an end at least if the voters of Milton Keynes North East are any indication.
Last week BBC Twos Newsnight brought me over from America to examine the mood of the voters. I studied at Oxford during the 1987 election and was a political commentator during the 1997 and 2001 elections, and never have I seen voters so disgruntled as now. In the past, only a small segment of the population has complained about having to choose the lesser of three evils. This time they all seem to be, and they are not happy about it.
Newsnight gave me a camera crew and a mission: find the voters in a marginal constituency that best represents what might happen on May 5. I chose Milton Keynes North East because it returned a Conservative during the Thatcher years, but embraced Tony Blair in 1997 and 2001. It is also one of the few seats where the Liberal Democrats control the local council and can seriously contest the constituency.
The 30 people who gathered to talk politics for three hours were undecided voters who represented a fair cross-section of the electorate. In the 2001 election, nine had voted Labour, eight had backed the Conservatives, eight the Liberal Democrats, and one voted for the United Kingdom Independence Party. Four did not vote three of them said they would have voted Labour in 2001.
Although they came from diverse political backgrounds, our 30 undecideds agreed on much more than you would expect. All the party leaders spin. All say what they think voters want to hear. No one is addressing the issues that concern them.
The big loser of the evening, was Mr Blair. He was called liar, dishonest, promise breaker, and patronising and that was by his 2001 Labour supporters. The feeling of everyone was the same: incredibly high hopes when he came to office in 1997 and shattered expectations today.
The problem for Mr Blair, and why Labour could have its majority sliced in half, is that the more he struggles to lower public expectations, the more he sinks in peoples estimation. The swing voters overwhelmingly picked him as both the most likely party leader to cheat at golf (hell do anything to win), and also the leader that they would most trust to watch their daughter for a weekend his soft, gentle talk is patronising to us, but a nine-year-old would like it.
The more Mr Blair tells voters he is listening, the more convinced they are that he is not. The more he claims he is not courting popularity, the more they assume he is just spinning. Mr Blair, if you read these words . . . stop.
And it gets worse, much worse. Our 30 swing voters were given people meters small, handheld dials that they turned up or down to register their second-by-second reaction to speeches, news clips or party political broadcasts. Up is good. Down is bad.
We showed them the first few moments of the recent White House press conference where President Bush and Mr Blair stood side-by-side and talked about a clear way forward in Iraq. The dials plummeted. Never in 17 years of moderating people-meter sessions have I seen an audience react so negatively even before the first word had been spoken. Every dial fell.
I can see it now: Lib Dem posters plastered throughout traditional Labour constituencies of a smiling Tony Blair looking wistfully at a smirking George W. Bush over a simple four-word slogan: Need we say more? Trust me, it would work.
The only solace Labour can take is in Mr Blairs overwhelming advantage over the other party leaders in their relative ability to handle a terrorist attack or an international crisis, and the confidence they have in Gordon Brown should he ever become Prime Minister. If Labour is smart, Mr Brown will be the public face of the campaign.
The big winners of the evening were the Liberal Democrats, no thanks to Charles Kennedy. The most common phrase used by the swing voters to describe their attitude to him was dont know. Heading towards his second general election as leader, Mr Kennedy still has not defined himself. When asked which of the three leaders they would most want to have a pint with at the pub, more chose him than the other two combined. They have a lot of questions. Mr Kennedy needs to be armed with no-spin answers. A party political broadcast using an unscripted, unedited, live Q&A is what they want to see from him.
These voters also want to hear more about the Lib Dem budget from its spokesman, Vincent Cable, a man with no discernible charisma who nonetheless charmed the participants. A combination of more spending where people want it and cuts in areas where they do not, and a plainspeaking, positive approach produced a noticeable swing away from Labour towards the Lib Dems. Their budget approach is politically perfect. Now they have to figure out how to tell voters about it.
They also have to figure out how to explain why a vote for the Lib Dems is not wasted. The answer: use the Lib Dems to send a message to Mr Blair. If the Lib Dems were to formulate a strategy similar to the Conservative lend us your vote in the 1999 European elections, asking voters to use the ballot box to express their frustration with Mr Blairs handling of the NHS, immigration and the economy, they could maximise the protest vote. A vote against Labour is as good as a vote for the Lib Dems and it is better than staying home.
The Conservatives also scored points, but again not because of their leader. Michael Howard did not elicit the positive personal evaluations one would expect from a potential Prime Minister, even from those who voted Tory in 2001. He did, however, obtain the most favourable dial score of the evening when addressing the topic of travellers which, according to swing voters, is an important aspect of the immigration crisis.
Nothing riles the undecideds of Milton Keynes North East more than immigration. They are waiting, wanting, hoping that some leader somewhere will stand up and say enough is enough. Mr Howard came closest, and when he said: Its about standing up for the right values . . . its about making sure people abide by the law, the dials went through the roof. If the Conservatives have the courage to tackle the immigration issue head-on, and the skill to avoid crossing the fine line into race-baiting, they can recapture many working-class Labour seats.
What no one raised in the three-hour discussion was the sacking of Howard Flight. Judging by these 30 swing voters, if the Conservatives address immigration and stop damaging themselves with silly internal squabbles that voters do not care about, and if the Liberal Democrats focus on the budget and keep their message simple, Labour will have a very tough night on May 5.
Well, Aintree really. Grand National this weekend!