2010: Year in Review
| DOI | 10.1111/j.2041-9066.2010.00035.x |
| Date | 01 December 2010 |
| Author | Ivor Crewe |
| Published date | 01 December 2010 |
| Subject Matter | Feature |
the indefensible pro-Labour bias
of the electoral system protected it
from a parallel meltdown in parlia-
mentary seats.
Multiple causes were at play: of-
fice fatigue after 13 years, Gordon
Brown’s hapless ineptitude as prime
minister and campaigner, almost
universal opposition in the press.
But the decisive factor was the wide-
spread belief that Brown, both as
chancellor and prime minister, had
neither foreseen the global financial
crisis (‘no more boom or bust’) nor
prepared for its possibility (where
was ‘prudence for a purpose’?). New
Labour’s reputation as competent
2010: Year in Review
‘I
am afraid to tell you’, wrote
Liam Byrne, Labour’s outgo-
ing Treasury Secretary to his
coalition successor, ‘that there is
no money left’. This brief note just
about sums up an extraordinary
year of change and surprise in Brit-
ish politics.
Liam Byrne’s note was an honest
if humiliating epitaph for the ex-
hausted Brown government, one as
bankrupt of political leadership and
policies as of money. At the May
general election voters put it out of
its misery: fewer than one in five of
the electorate voted Labour, its worst
performance since 1918, and only
Ivor Crewe looks back at a year marked by an indecisive election result, national indebtedness
and the UK’s first coalition government in 70 years. As 2010 draws to a close, whether Cameron
and Clegg’s great political gamble succeeds in the long run remains to be seen.
economic managers, the priceless
electoral trump it snatched from the
Conservatives in the mid-1990s, had
been blown away.
Nobody voted for the coalition,
but it reflected better than any other
outcome what the majority wanted.
People emphatically rejected the La-
bour government without enthusi-
astically embracing the Conservative
opposition. The puzzle of the elec-
tion was why the Conservative vote
increased by less than 4 per cent to
a modest 36 per cent, when it could
pin the recession on the govern-
ment, had tacked to centre ground,
softened its image under a young
Voters rejected
the Labour
government
without
embracing the
Conservative
opposition
Press Association Images
79December 2010
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