Theresa May's Political Spectrum Impact on the UK General Election 2017

By: Nadeem_Walayat

For at least the past 30 years, Leaders and parties that most closely appeal to the centre ground tend to win UK general elections. Which is why Labour repeatedly lost election after election during the 1980's and most of the 1990's because whilst Margaret Thatcher was to the right of the political spectrum, Labour was far further to the left and it would take a long hard battle fought by first Neil Kinnock and then John Smith who paved the way for Tony Blair to firmly occupy the centre ground for the next 13 years, even delivering Tony Blair several landslide election victories that Theresa May hopes to replicate.

Left or Right of Tory Centre

David Cameron was clearly to the left of the Tory centre, which explains why he got on so well with Nick Clegg, because they really did have a lot in common and if circumstances had been a little different David Cameron could well have found himself to be a Liberal Democrat. Whilst John Major's weak premiership mostly occupied the centre ground and definetly to the left of Margaret Thatcher, and he may well have done bother had been less grey. Still he did shock all with his surprise election win in 1992, that the pollsters got very badly wrong.

So where does Theresa May stand on the political spectrum?

Firstly, BrExit means nationalism and protectionism which is what the Tory manifesto alludes to and Theresa May repeats when she says that she would be willing to walk away from a bad EU deal i.e. No deal. Therefore Theresa May will be the most nationalist and protectionist Prime Minister for a good 50 years! Which nudges her to the right of Margaret Thatcher on this respect which appeals to the likes of the Tory right and UKIP.

Whilst on the other hand the Tory Manifesto is clearly more aimed at redistributing wealth from the wealthy i.e. forcing wealthy pensioners receiving care in their own homes for their their properties to no longer be exempt, and at the same time raising the threshold of protected assets from £23k to £100k which benefits the poorer pensioners, all of which suggests that Theresa May is left of Tory centre on social policies, even though she has backtracked a little since publication of the manifesto by stating that there would be a yet to be determined cap on how much each pensioner assets / homes would fund their social care.

So apart from BrExit, the 84 page manifesto appears it could be have been written by Tony Blair, David Cameron, or even Ed Milliband as the BrExit vote killed off austerity a year ago, and so there were lots of promises to spend more but without any tax rises to pay for them, hence a lot more borrowing, so basically the same centrist policies as Blair. Which is probably why Theresa May appeals to so many Labour brexiteers. And she is protectionist / nationalist rather than globalist, as have been every Prime Minster since the 1970's, which explains why she appeals so strongly to most UKIP voters.

Theresa May's words, actions and policies are hovering up many Labour and most UKIP voters whilst maintaining the Tory heartland, for they have nowhere else to go, hence why she is heading for strong election victory, regardless of what the gyrating all over the place opinion polls suggest as illustrated by YoGovs most recent poll warning of a Hung Parliament.

So whilst Theresa May is a little right of centre than David Cameron, which on face value would have suggested that she would do worse than David Cameron had in 2015. However the whole political spectrum has swing slightly further to the right since May 2015, which is why BrExit happened in the wake of year after year of out of control EU migration that both Labour and the Tory party ignored for more than a decade and which sowed the seeds for the BrExit outcome that will carry Theresa May far beyond the threshold set by David Cameron.

And then we have Jeremy Corbyn who has swung the Labour party far to the left of the centre ground that Tony Blair so successfully occupied. He may not be as far left as Michael Foot of 1983, but Labour has definitely gone back to the 1980's which further confirms that Theresa May should be heading for a very strong election victory.

And here are the seats per party forecasts based on the local election results and the opinion pollsters

UK Local Election Results Forecast for General Election 2017

Opinion Polls Based UK General Election Seats Per Party Forecast 2017

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By Nadeem Walayat

http://www.marketoracle.co.uk

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Nadeem Walayat has over 25 years experience of trading derivatives, portfolio management and analysing the financial markets, including one of few who both anticipated and Beat the 1987 Crash. Nadeem's forward looking analysis focuses on UK inflation, economy, interest rates and housing market. He is the author of five ebook's in the The Inflation Mega-Trend and Stocks Stealth Bull Market series that can be downloaded for Free.

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