Why the British 2010 General Election was always going to result in a coalition government
The United Kingdom general election of May 2010 was unique in that no single party managed to gain enough votes to create a majority government. A hung parliament had been predicted by many journalists and political analysts and fears soon began to spread across the British media over the problems often associated with hung parliaments. At a time when a strong, functional government would prove to be essential in bringing Britain back to economic prosperity in the future, many Conservative politicians attempted to lure Labour and Liberal Democrat voters in order to increase their chances of forming a majority governing party and avoiding a coalition.
However, during the months before the election, the UK polls had consistently been pointing towards a hung parliament and only rarely did they indicate that the Conservative Party would secure enough votes to avoid having to work towards a coalition agreement. The legacy of the election was that no single party was able to tempt or persuade British voters that they were capable of fixing the numerous mistakes and solving the copious miscalculations that previous governments were responsible for.
The British public were unconvinced by the Labour Party’s promises of a new, strategic budget that would solve all of Britain’s current debt problems. They were unconvinced by the Torys’ constant regurgitation of Labour’s failed promises and their inability to transform their propositions into confirmations with regards to the severe economic deficit. They were also unsatisfied by the Liberal Democrats’ stance on immigration and expressed serious concerns over their plans for an amnesty for illegal immigrants. Despite their best efforts, neither Brown, nor Cameron, nor Clegg were able to attract enough voters in their respective parties because they simply didn’t have the answers that the British public so desperately wanted.
This was precisely the reason why none of the parties were able to gain more than 36% of the national vote when ballots were cast on May 6th. Nobody knew exactly how many people were working in the UK illegally, or how long it would take before the British economy would achieve 2% annual growth in GDP, or how many jobs would be lost in the public sector after the public spending cuts would begin. Knowing who to vote for in the 2010 election was at best a carefully prepared calculation, at worst mere guesswork.
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