With Parliament having risen on Wednesday 22nd July for a well-deserved summer break, it is an opportunity for us to take stock of the legislative programme and its progress this year. With the shock of the Glasgow East by-election still reverberating, it also means a chance to examine still closer the polls which by all accounts dampened his enthusiasm and begs the question: when will the next election be held? This week’s Knowledge Shop will focus on the legislative progress made this term, the polls and whether they can help to predict when the election may be held.

Legislation

It is easy to presume that with the intensely negative media coverage over this parliamentary session of the government’s performance that it has been unable to effectively carry out its agenda in a politically expedient fashion.

Yet, twenty-one bills received Royal Assent in this session of Parliament of which sixteen were government backed Bills which included, the Finance Bill, the European Union (Amendment) Bill and the Health and Social Care Bill.

While the legislative programme may well have been overshadowed by the passing of the Counter-Terrorism Bill from the Commons to the Lords as well as the Banking Bill, to term this legislative session unsuccessful would be unfair.

The Government has done well to rescue the Northern Rock debacle and, in the face of stiff economic turbulence, has managed to guide through the Parliamentary process a number of Bills of note.

While critics will point to the number of set piece Bills passing to Royal Assent being down on previous years (the previous low was twenty for the year 2004-05, the year of the last election), the Criminal Justice and Immigration Bill at least showed the government to be attempting to deal with the political plays made by the Conservative’s in their ‘broken society’ gambit of the last legislative session.

What’s 10p as a polling percentage?

Has the fact that this legislative session has been difficult to swallow for the general public contributed to the sense of gloom that surrounds the government at present?

The debacles of 42-day detention without trial and the 10p tax rate have certainly hindered an already difficult situation for the government.

The Counter-Terrorism Bill, as it is more formally known, is a prime example of a piece of legislation which the government passed which the majority of the public agreed with in principle. The efforts it went to, however, helped to firm the opinion that this year especially, the government has been unable and indeed unwilling to listen to a sizeable minority of opposition to its plans.

This was not the most costly piece of legislation however. The abolishment of the 10p tax band came into effect at the start of the new tax year, right in the build up to the local and Mayoral elections. Set against a darkening economic backdrop, this only served to undermine the message which Brown and Darling between them had been promulgating for weeks of “…listening to the electorate.”

How much of an impact this had on the election results which followed, we will never know, but it is interesting to note that the government were clearly concerned enough to announce a rebate shortly before the Crewe and Nantwich by-election – which was still lost. Perhaps the biggest failing of both these policies as practical legislation was not their ramifications, but that the aims were so broadly political in nature, that they suffered from the law of unintended consequences - making the government look like a bully over 42-days, and careless over the 10p rate of tax abolishment.

YouGov Polls

With the decision not to have an election last Autumn so intimately connected to the Tories resurgence in the polls after David Cameron and George Osborne’s performances at the Conservative Party conference, it is worthwhile tracking YouGov polling.

Before the Conservative Party conference last year, YouGov had Labour 11% ahead of the Tories. Off the back of a relatively successful summer for the Government, following the crisis management of the floods, the attempted terrorist attacks and foot-and-mouth, the Tories were very concerned, especially considering their own ugly and internal grammar school debacle. At the same time that Brown was assuming control. An election was imminent.

After the Tory conference, that double digit gap, had been shaved to just a 4% lead, before Brown wound down the hysteria surrounding the ‘election’.

YouGov has been involved in several disputes regarding its accuracy and viability as a polling group by competitors and politicians alike, yet intriguingly, it has not been substantively wrong in its indicators during its short history.

A good example of this would be the recent Mayoral election in which YouGov accurately, on the day of the poll, indicated that Boris Johnson would receive 43% of first preference votes (he actually received 43.2%) and only 12% of second preference votes (he actually received 12.86%).  When other more established polling groups like Ipsos-MORI were predicting a Livingstone victory by 4% - this feat is all the more impressive.

With this in mind, it is worthwhile considering that at present (polling done 10th – 11th July) the Conservatives are shown, in a poll conducted for the Sunday Times, to lead Labour by 22%. (You can read the YouGov poll in more detail here: here)

This does not make for good reading especially in light of recent by-election performances in Crewe and Nantwich and Glasgow East.

Using this as an indicator, when should Mr Brown call the election?

Perception to election

With Labour resolutely entrenched in record-breaking low polling scores nationally, and an election needed inside the next two years, it is at this stage becoming more apparent that Gordon Brown may need all the time he can lay his hands on to draw back the lead the Tories have etched out to put Labour into a competitive position. The reasonable bet would be to expect an election in 2010.

To rely too heavily upon polling is a political faux-pas. Elections are not won by polls alone which is why despite his preeminent position in them at present, David Cameron and the Conservatives can ill-afford to relax. Despite winning handsome returns in the local elections in May, having won three by-elections on the bounce as well as the Mayoralty, any premature chicken counting would be foolish.

The Economist recently ran a leader regarding Cameron’s dilemma. His repositioning exercise has successfully weathered Labour attacks, although for a while it appeared as though he would become another Tory ‘would-be prime minister’. Yet still the public are not convinced. In the same 11th – 12th July YouGov poll which showed the Tories to be 22% ahead of Labour, 34% of respondents disagreed with the statement “The Conservatives would handle Britain’s problems better than the current government”, while only 35% agreed.

While the government is, without doubt, in the midst of an extremely difficult time, Brown could still yet bounce back.

For Brown, style and a deftness of political touch, in the next legislative session will be crucial. For Cameron, substance in the coming months will be crucial. Political role-reversals are notoriously difficult to pull off, but if either is to succeed at the polls, and not just in the public’s consciousness, they will have to – or at least do it better, than his opponent.

Additional reporting by James Horrax