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2014 Political Prize Essay

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Politics Prize Essay The outcome of the 2015 General Election was highly unprecedented, hugely contradicting all of the opinion polls taken prior to the election, and the main cause still cannot be agreed on. Many predicted a hung parliament, so the Conservative majority result was unexpected. There were many contributing factors, such as Ed Miliband's low personal approval rating, Lynton Crosby's political strategies, and the Liberal Democrat defeat due to their broken promises on tuition fees. However although these all contributed, by far the most significant aid for the Conservative majority was the UK 'First past the post' voting system. The UK has used this system since voting began, and a referendum was held in May 2011 On whether …show more content…

Shortly before the election, when it was clear that the Conservatives would not win a majority, David Cameron asked German prime minister Angela Merkel what it was like to be the leader of the larger party in a coalition government. She replied with “The little party always gets smashed!”. The Lib Dems seem to have proved her correct. The decision to enter a Tory coalition was a massive mistake, but worse still were their broken promises. Their policy to end tuition fees gained them massive popularity, so many felt betrayed when they were restricted from doing this by the Tories. The impact was made worse by the fact that tuition fees actually went up in the five years that they were in government. Nick Clegg made a video addressing the public, saying "There's no easy way to say this: we made a pledge, we didn't stick to it - and for that I am sorry,". This handling of the situation also may have worsened it, as they apologised without any mention of future fulfilment of this policy, which could have slightly salvaged their reputation. The Lib Dems might still be popular today if they had chosen not to enter a coalition, knowing that the Tories wanted to raise tuition fees. This way the promise wouldn't have been broken in the first place. The Lib Dem defeat did not influence the other parties much, but it is still a very significant change in the

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