Labour scandals overshadow elections

“You can get rid of Tony Blair on Thursday” said a Liberal Democratic party election pamphlet. Another leaflet read that the local elections today are set to be a referendum on the Prime Minister’s leadership.

Other parties are also campaigning in the same vein, claiming that its time to show the people’s displeasure with the Labour party.

But it is not just the political parties that are saying that the government should be punished for its incompetence and scandals. Political commentators, the media and the ordinary member of the public are also speculating the same, that under Tony Blair’s leadership, the government is inundated with bad management, bad policy and bad judgment.

The Guardian columnist Polly Toynbee said that even Cabinet ministers are predicting the impending doom.

She quotes one minister as saying that their moral authority has collapsed and that the voters think “we abuse power and it's no good listing all we have delivered. It only makes them rage. They accuse us of arrogance and corruption and it leaves you silenced”.

And Daniel Finkelstein, writing for The Times, blames Mr Blair’s method of governing for all the problems he is facing now.

“Any government could be hit by a bunch of troubles all at once, but this one, by its own actions, by its own way of governing, has increased both the average number of such incidents and their seriousness,” he said yesterday.

A continuing list of scandals

Since the beginning of the year, the government has been rocked by one scandal after another. There was the issue of the Education Secretary not knowing the number of paedophiles still working in schools. Then the matter of the Culture Secretary’s offshore mortgages. Soon came news about Cherie Blair asking the party to pay for her hairstyle while her husband was caught in the midst of peerages for hire controversy.

And to make things even worse for Mr Blair, last week his Home Secretary admitted that thousands of convicted foreign criminals had not been deported after serving their sentences, resulting in some of them reoffending. The Health Secretary also lost her moral authority when nurses heckled and booed her over the NHS failure. And then the Deputy Prime Minister admitted to having an affair with his diary secretary.

The all round impression is that this accumulation of government ineptness will only result in a voter backlash over discontent with Mr Blair.

There are a total of 4,360 council seats (in 176 town, city, borough and other councils in England) to be elected today with the Conservatives defending 57 councils, Labour 47, the Lib Dems 12 and Independents one. Fifty-nine councils are under no overall control.

However the public sentiment is such that it is highly likely for the Labour to lose control of some of their traditional councils.

Uncertainty in Sheffield

One such Labour stronghold is Sheffield where the party only leads with a slim four-seat majority. The party is confident that voters here will not let national politics to determine the way they vote. However on the ground, it appears as though discontent Labour voters will cast protest votes to jolt the party leaders.

Based on the last elections, the Lib Dems in Sheffield are just two seats away from making it a hung council but they are confident that they can seize overall power this time around. Their new leader Sir Menzies Campbell is predicting a heavy defeat for the Labour as “they are failing nationally and locally.”

The Conservatives too are quietly confident of doing well – not just in Sheffield but in all of England. This will be a test for David Cameron’s leadership who believes he can draw young voters with his youth and charisma. He is also banking on environment issues to bring in the votes.

As usual there are also the smaller parties – Green Party, British National Party, UK Independent Party and Respect – and Independent candidates trying to make inroads in the councils.

However it is the voters’ antipathy towards the Labour and not the strength of the opposition parties that is likely to determine the outcome of the local elections.

Heartbeats will be fluttering at a high rate tonight in 10 Downing Street but only in the late morning tomorrow will Mr Blair know if he should start packing his things and let Gordon Brown move into the official residence.