No 98: My Shock Election Prediction: A landslide for the Liberal Democrats

The smart money predicts that this time next week the UK will wake up to a Labour minority government which will have to work in coalition with, probably, the Scottish National Party. This is not a universal opinion. Others believe the Conservatives will romp home as voters who defected to the UK Independence Party (UKIP) will at the last minute revert to their more traditional voting patterns. No one is predicting a Liberal Democrat landslide. Until now, that is.

Every Thursday night I help out at a local Scout group. It is two knackering hours spent with 30 boisterous 11 – 15 year olds. They are a cheeky, lively, impertinent group of wildly energetic boys and girls. From the moment they arrive you have to be completely on your toes. Most of the time you are giving advice on behaviour.  Leading the group is like riding a wild horse: you have no idea how it is going to respond. You have to be on your game every second.

Helping at Scouts is rapidly becoming the highlight of my week, probably because life at work is unbelievably hard (or possibly because I am on the verge of an empty-nest that probably scares me more than I dare admit).

Last night we ran an election campaign. The awareness of the youngsters was fairly dire. While most could name Cameron and Miliband, few could link them to a Party. With the exception of ‘UKIP want us out of Europe’, no one could link a policy to a Party. We started with a 10 minute video on the election process and then four youngsters were chosen to be the politicians. Each was given a list of the basic, unembellished factual policy statements from the 4 main parties (Conservative, Labour, Liberals and UKIP). They sat behind a table and a lively, vibrant debate was held.

There were some lovely moments: like when the UKIP candidate realised that he vehemently disagreed with their policy of halting tax breaks for renewable energy (‘This is a ridiculous policy’ is never a good way to introduce your idea to the electorate), or when they compared their tax breaks offerings (‘But you have just copied what I said and then added £500?!’). There was no shortage of passion or opinions. Topics covered were health, education, tax and immigration – 5 minutes of peppy spirited debate on each. After the debate a formal, secret, voting process was held, replicating the true election process as closely as we could.

The result: a landslide for Liberal Democrats (taking just over 50% of the vote), with UKIP taking about 30% and Labour and the Conservatives the new minority parties. Somewhat bizarrely the Scottish National Party won a vote despite not even standing.

The Youth have spoken. I am finally beginning to get excited about next weeks’ election.