Charlie Kennedy takes and keeps the pledge

WI Kennedy managed to deal with his alcohol problem.

I assume that without the chaos that happened in OTL Lib Dems would be 2-4 points betting in polls and elections between 05 and 09.

There would not have been the same dynamic in debates in 2010. If there were debates people would have started with higher expectations.

I see Lib Dems being a bit to the left of what they had become in Clegg.

I could see the popular vote in 2010 going Tory 36, Labour 26 Lib Dem 27. The bigger lead the torieswould have over Labour might have given them an overall majority.

Labour would have had a more MPs than Lib Dems but coming third would do huge damage.
 
WI Kennedy managed to deal with his alcohol problem.

I assume that without the chaos that happened in OTL Lib Dems would be 2-4 points betting in polls and elections between 05 and 09.

There would not have been the same dynamic in debates in 2010. If there were debates people would have started with higher expectations.

I see Lib Dems being a bit to the left of what they had become in Clegg.

I could see the popular vote in 2010 going Tory 36, Labour 26 Lib Dem 27. The bigger lead the torieswould have over Labour might have given them an overall majority.

Labour would have had a more MPs than Lib Dems but coming third would do huge damage.
Firstly, Kennedy has gone on record as saying he voted against going into coalition with the Tories, so there will be no Cameron/Kennedy double act had there been a hung Parliament.

I doubt the popular vote would have gone like that, the reason the Labour vote held up iotl was fear of the Tories. That would not change here, although the Lib Dems may well have been a few seats better off. Kennedy is after all, imho a better politician(if he remains sober)than Clegg will ever be.

In addition to this, the majority of the Lib Dem target seats were in Tory areas, so perversely, despite Labour finishing third in the vote in this timeline, they may end up with more seats than anyone else. Feeding it into electoral calculus gives the Tories 304 seats, three worse than in the General Election of otl, although I will grant you, this is not a universal swing.

It shows the madness that is FPTP. One interesting thing is that it would give the combined Lib-Lab vote of 318 seats approx, i.e. just short of a majority.
 
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