Blog On The Motorway

'Imagine this is Cameron's head. I'm jabbing him in the eye right now.'

This election seems on the outside to have been the most interesting, explosive and open of my lifetime. It has energised the left and left traditional Lib Dem supporters on cloud nine. But why do I feel that come May 7th the party will be over and all that talk of change will end at the exact same time as Cameron moves into number 10?

Change is in the air. Having seen America go through an era defining with Barack Obama, a lot of people I know were paying attention to the upcoming election with a more engaged mind than I remember at any election before. But nothing could prepare me for what happened after the first TV debate. Even as a Lib Dem supporter I knew very little about Nick Clegg going into it, presuming him to be the party’s misguided attempt to go down the Cameron route, rather than trust in the experience and wisdom that the likes of Ashdown and Kennedy had brought, and that Vince Cable could easily bring.

But then came the second question of the first debate, and Nick Clegg stood up and sounded genuinely engaged and, crucially, like a leader on the expenses scandal. In the week and a half that has followed the first debate, the Lib Dems have become a focal point for a lot of the disillusioned left who saw them as a potential break from the mess that is (post New) Labour. And online, the online liberal community has found a unifying voice, on issues such as rationalism, science funding, nuclear proliferation and more. Nick Clegg has genuinely energised people in the same way that it looked like people were energised by Blair back in 1997 (and I speak here as an outsider to that whole movement, who couldn’t get over the fact that Tony Blair looked like the antichrist).

And now we liberal left voters know that we’re getting to ‘them’ because here comes the right wing press, trying every desperate tactic they can to bring down this new emergent force that potentially could have the clout to forever change the establishment. They sling mud as fast as they can, in the hope that they can change the narritive. But they don’t see that all they are doing is energising the base hard right wing of the Conservative party to get out and vote, which they were going to do anyway. For the moment the momentum has been stolen from Cameron, and to a lot of undecided voters he no longer looks like the voice of change, but the voice of the same party that they hated all these years.

Or at least that was what I thought, but when you look at the polls the truth is that Cameron is still ahead, and in the marginal seats which will decide this election the vast majority are simply a two horse race that the Lib Dems will have no influence over. Fast forward to May 6th and the simple truth is that the Lib Dems can hope to strengthen their position, but no more than that. The Conservatives are going to win. And so the best we can hope for is a hung parliament.

But what will that look like? Well, for the most part it will look much the same as a Conservative government. Clegg can’t support Brown if he comes in last, and the pipedream of Clegg himself doing well enough on the day to force Labour to accept him as leader is not reflected by the electoral math. No matter how bad Labour do in terms of vote share, they will still have more MP’s than the Lib Dems.

And so the Lib Dems will have to go into a coalition with the Conservatives. If they don’t, they will be hated for propping up Brown, of for failing to come to an agreement and causing another election, and all of the ground they have made nationally will be lost. The Conservatives will know this and will not be so happy to give away power to the Lib Dems. So the Lib Dems will be forced to choose which of their priorities to hold to. My guess will be that it will be electoral reform, which the Tories will hate as they have the most to lose. But then I wouldn’t be surprised to see that put on the backburner. Perhaps the Lib Dems will be able to temper the more insane of the Conservative tendencies, but it will still be Dave running the show.

Now I am not trying to put a huge dampener on all that has gone on so far. It’s been marvellous seeing people taking such a pronounced interest, and the way that the internet has really come into its own. We now have more power to decide for ourselves what is important, and the means to put those questions to our representitives. And there will be real change as a result of this election. Electoral reform is looking more and more like a certainty now, and the changes that will come will change our system forever. But anyone looking in the short term for that Obama moment when we rise up as one and embrace Liberalism, it’s just not going to happen, and we could all do well to make sure our hopes don’t outstrip political reality.

On the other hand, if I am wrong about this and I sit watching BBC news on May 6th getting drunker, watching the swingometer go more and more yellow, and the faces of the Tory hopefuls becoming ashen, I will be glad to be wrong, and will eat my hat accordingly. And not just a beanie, but the silly Russian style one with the earflaps.