Paul Kirkley: General Election is a case of electile dysfunction

Let’s take the five most recent polls. For St Neots and Mid Cambs, the polling company Electoral Calculus has the Conservatives on 26 per cent, Labour on 32 per cent and the Lib Dems on 27 per cent, while modelling by the Financial Times has the Conservatives ahead on 29.2 per cent, with Labour on 28.6 per cent and Lib Dems on 24.1 per cent

Bet365’s odds, meanwhile, have the Conservatives on 31 per cent, Labour on a whopping 56 per cent and the Lib Dems on just 11 per cent. But the New Statesman model flips that picture, with the Conservatives on 31 per cent, Labour on 20 per cent and the Lib Dems ahead on 36 per cent. The Lib Dems are also ahead of Labour in the latest YouGov poll – by less than one percentage point (26.8 per cent to 25.9 per cent).

It’s a similarly confusing picture in Ely and East Cambs, where Electoral Calculus has Labour edging it over the Lib Dems (28 per cent to 27 per cent), but both the FT and YouGov have the Lib Dems ahead (the latter by 4 per cent).

The only thing we can say with any confidence about these constituencies, then, is that a split opposition vote is highly likely to let the Tories through on a free pass – even though an overwhelming majority of residents clearly don’t want them.

This was exactly what happened in Cambridgeshire’s recent police and crime commissioner election, where – under the sneaky new first past the post system imposed by the government – the Conservatives’ Darryl Preston was elected with 61,688 votes, against a combined Labour/Lib Dem total of more than 100,000. Hashtag will of the people, etc.

The result of all this on a personal level is that, quite frankly, I haven’t got a Scooby where to put my cross next month.

So might I politely suggest that Labour and the Lib Dems get together – in whatever the modern equivalent of a smoke-filled room is (a cherry menthol vape-filled room, perhaps?) – and thrash out some sort of deal. Because at the moment, the only people they’re in danger of landing any blows against are each other.

In South Cambridgeshire, the picture looks a little clearer, with the Lib Dems’ candidate Pippa Heylings currently outgunning all-comers. And the party’s confidence there was demonstrated when Ed Davey chose the constituency from which to launch the Lib Dems’ national campaign.

By Davey’s standards, it was a disappointingly low-key appearance, where he basically stood in front of a bus. Since then, though, he’s spent the campaign paddleboarding on Windermere (where he took one for the team by tumbling – possibly not entirely accidentally – into the sewage-filled lake), cycling down a steep hill in Wales, sloshing down a waterslide in Somerset, and generally living his best life.

It’s almost like the Lib Dem leader was so annoyed at Rishi Sunak’s surprise General Election ruining everyone’s holiday plans that he’s decided to combine the two. So we can only speculate where the campaign will take him next: an announcement on personal tax allowances at Center Parcs, perhaps? A speech on electoral reform at Chessington World of Adventures? A green energy initiative unveiled at Diggerland?

And if he decides to pay a return visit to South Cambs, don’t be surprised if next time he’s not riding the battlebus, but attempting to jump over it on a motorcycle.

You know who I feel sorry for in all this? The Cambridge University student protesters. What with everyone distracted by all this feverish election activity, I had to Google whether their pro-Palestinian demo was still a thing.

Anyway, it is, apparently. In fact more than 300 students protested outside the university’s Student Services building on Friday night. To which I’d say… good on them? I think?

Look, you know me by now. I’m the very model of your Centrist Dad, always trying to steer a cautious path through the middle of every polarising debate that gets thrown our way. Of which there are many these days.

And as I’ve said before in this column, anyone claiming moral certainty in the Israel-Palestine conflict is clearly not much of a reader, to put it politely. The way I see it, the terrorists of Hamas and Benjamin Netanyahu’s ultranationalist warmongers are just two sides of the same bad penny. They’ve both turned an historic injustice against their people into the worst kind of radical fanaticism, with terrible human consequences.

At the same time, it’s a simple statement of fact that, in 2024, the people who are suffering the most are the innocent civilians of Gaza. Yes, we can’t forget the unimaginable horror faced by the Israeli hostages. But they are victims of terrorism, and on the whole we don’t invest in, make friends with or supply arms to terrorists. But we do to Israel. So – as long as their protests don’t cross the line into anti-Semitism – I broadly take the students’ point.

Sure, I’ve no doubt some of them are naïve and – dare I say – not fully appraised of the geopolitical nuances of the situation. To gain entry to the camp on King’s Parade, for example, would-be protesters had to agree to a series of ‘community guidelines’, including a zero-tolerance policy on misogyny and transphobia. So I think it’s safe to say no-one from Hamas would make the cut.

It’s also interesting to note that, while some companies cited by the protesters are targets for ‘divestment and exclusion’, others – including Google, Amazon, Airbnb and Booking.com – are to be subject only to ‘pressure’. I’m not saying that’s because these are all companies whose products the students don’t want to stop using. But I’m not not saying it.

But hey, come on. They’re students. They’re allowed to be naïve, and idealistic, and even a tad hypocritical. Weren’t we? And at least they’re standing up for something. (What was it Malcolm X said? “A man who stands for nothing will fall for anything.”) Aren’t newspaper columnists always harrumphing about Millennials and gen-zedders living in their own online bubbles? If nothing else, a bit of good old-fashioned protest should at least get them off their screens for a bit.

Protesting isn’t quite the same as it was in my day, though. That much is clear from the Cambridge Encampment for Palestine schedule – a daily running order of events advertised on funky posters that look distinctly more Glastonbury than Greenham Common.

Highlights of a typical day include everything from a teach-in on ‘connections between the 1960s anti-imperialist movement and today’s struggle’ to – and I quote – ‘Palsoc x Bagsoc Bake Sale For Map + Henna Stall’. Then, at 8pm, things are rounded off with a movie screening (though I’m guessing it’s not the latest Mission: Impossible).

Again, I can only admire the industry of these kids. When I was a student, the most you could hope for at a sit-in was that someone might bring along a crate of beer and some crisps. So who knows? Maybe this is the generation that will grow up and sort out all our mess, after all.

Read more from Paul every month in the Cambridge Independent.