Colin Mellors: The heavyweight contest is on, but we're waiting for a knockout blow

WITH the first round over, and three still to go, there has been little so far to excite in the long-awaited championship contest betweenGordon Brown and David Cameron.

Both fighters remain on their feet and few blows have landed, while Nick Clegg, invariably accompanied into the ring by his

trusted "second", York-born Vince Cable, continues to resist attempts to discover which of the other two he really prefers to fight alongside.

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Mr Brown received an early warning for a low blow suggesting that business had been misled by his opponent's stance on National Insurance contributions and will have been disappointed that he only glanced Mr Cameron with his jab at the latter's uncosted spending plans.

Most judges have given the first round to the blue corner, although by a slim margin.

However, it would appear that this opening flurry has had little, if any, impact on the watching public. Overall, opinion polls remain, as they have since January, largely static.

It still has the feel of a contest that Labour will struggle to avoid losing, yet one that Conservatives will find difficult to persuade voters they actually deserve to win. Significantly, although they cannot vote directly for a hung Parliament, at least one poll suggests that this would be more popular among electors than any other outcome.

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Messrs Brown, Cameron and Clegg have now launched their manifestos focusing on renewal, empowerment, and fairness respectively. All will be hoping that they contain sufficient that is novel to win over uncertain voters, but at the same time they recognise that there is little room for lavish offers, costed or otherwise, at this election.

It is an election where substance needs to prevail over style, and where trust and economic competence are the core messages for all three main parties.

According to the 15 opinion polls since last Thursday, Conservatives remain ahead, most with margins between six and 10 points, but still leaving them short of an overall majority. One, by Populus, puts the lead down to just three points which would leave Labour as largest single party, 40 seats ahead of the Conservatives. It is unclear

if this is a rogue finding or indicative that opinion has started to move.

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Taken as a whole, however, the polls suggest that the Conservative lead is currently around seven points, equivalent to a swing of five per cent since 2005 and slightly down on their position a week ago. Applied uniformly, this would mean they were 20 seats ahead of Labour but 32 seats short of an overall majority.

In Yorkshire, on these figures, Conservatives would be looking to pick up seven additional seats (up to and including Dewsbury in our chart).

However, the headline figures in the opinion polls tell only part of the story and some of the more intriguing findings are in the detail. One analysis, by PoliticsHome/YouGov, suggests marked regional

variations exist, with the switch from Labour to Conservative in the West Midlands reaching nine per cent but dropping to only 0.5 per cent in the South West.

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The Yorkshire and the Humber swing is put at 6.5 per cent, above the national average but slightly lower than in the other two northern regions.

Even so, it would make a further three or four current Labour seats vulnerable in our region.

However, the polling on which the analysis is based took place between April 4-11, during which time YouGov's own headline Conservative lead fell from 10 to six points, so that there may be some time lag in the data.

Pollsters are particularly interested in what is happening in the marginal constituencies – the votes that will really decide who wins overall and, according to Ipsos MORI, 60 per cent of electors in these crucial seats will be influenced by how well the leaders fare in the three televised debates that start tonight.

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With up to two-fifths of the electorate still to make up their minds, and over half saying they will tune in to watch, tonight's debate might just ignite what has so far been a fairly restrained campaign.

Polls indicate very clearly that voters still feel that they have not been given the complete picture by any of the parties about future tax plans nor convincing answers about how the public spending deficit is to be reduced. Winning their trust on these issues will provide the keys to Downing Street.

It is 50 years since a similar televised debate in the US helped put Kennedy in the White House and the medium has secured or destroyed the fortunes of many subsequent presidential hopefuls.

Over the coming days, the polls will reveal whether televised debates might have the same impact here so that, come May 6, one leader can be declared outright winner rather than leaving three dazed fighters

still in the ring wondering what to do next.

Professor Colin Mellors is a political scientist at the University of York.