Self-defeating prophecies
Mythology is full of stories of self-fulfilling prophesies, but real history has more examples of self-defeating ones - for example, when potential disasters which before the event were serious risks have been averted because people took a warning seriously and did something about it.
The 2015 General election showed a particularly impressive crop of self-defeating prophesies. In no particular order:
1) Vote UKIP, get Labour
No, it didn't happen, but if potential Tory voters had voted UKIP, it might have, and in my opinion if the Conservatives had not been busily warning "Go to bed with Nigel and wake up with Miliband" it probably would have.
The extreme irony is that the Conservatives saw the danger, shouted loudly enough about it to convince a lot of Tory/UKIP waverers to vote Conservative, while the Labour leadership were convinced until the 2014 European election that it was erstwhile Conservatives rather than their own supporters who were turning UKIP. Labour eventually realised their danger but too little too late, and in the North of England there were probably more ex-Labour than ex-Tory UKIP voters.
If UKIP had been slightly more credible we might have had the opposite situation - that former Labour voters turning purple could have elected more Tory MPs. If they had managed a decent ground campaign and got a grip on their nutters, UKIP could have been taking Labour seats in significant numbers.
The Conservatives were afraid that UKIP could cost them the election, and because they convinced their supporters that this was possible it didn't happen. The Labour high command was also convinced that UKIP would indeed help win them the election, and because that made them complacent it had the opposite effect.
2) Vote SNP to lock the Conservatives out of government.
Actually the SNP cemented David Cameron into number ten. The biggest single factor we found on the doorstep, though not the only one, boosting Tory support in the last days of the campaign was the fear of what a minority Labour government dependent on SNP support might be like. This was not so much an anti-Scottish reaction - although the anti-English feeling whipped up by some elements of the SNP during the Independence campaign definitely made English voters understandably wary of the Nationalists - but a vote against what appeared likely to be a weak a d very-left wing government.
Can you think of some more?
The 2015 General election showed a particularly impressive crop of self-defeating prophesies. In no particular order:
1) Vote UKIP, get Labour
No, it didn't happen, but if potential Tory voters had voted UKIP, it might have, and in my opinion if the Conservatives had not been busily warning "Go to bed with Nigel and wake up with Miliband" it probably would have.
The extreme irony is that the Conservatives saw the danger, shouted loudly enough about it to convince a lot of Tory/UKIP waverers to vote Conservative, while the Labour leadership were convinced until the 2014 European election that it was erstwhile Conservatives rather than their own supporters who were turning UKIP. Labour eventually realised their danger but too little too late, and in the North of England there were probably more ex-Labour than ex-Tory UKIP voters.
If UKIP had been slightly more credible we might have had the opposite situation - that former Labour voters turning purple could have elected more Tory MPs. If they had managed a decent ground campaign and got a grip on their nutters, UKIP could have been taking Labour seats in significant numbers.
The Conservatives were afraid that UKIP could cost them the election, and because they convinced their supporters that this was possible it didn't happen. The Labour high command was also convinced that UKIP would indeed help win them the election, and because that made them complacent it had the opposite effect.
2) Vote SNP to lock the Conservatives out of government.
Actually the SNP cemented David Cameron into number ten. The biggest single factor we found on the doorstep, though not the only one, boosting Tory support in the last days of the campaign was the fear of what a minority Labour government dependent on SNP support might be like. This was not so much an anti-Scottish reaction - although the anti-English feeling whipped up by some elements of the SNP during the Independence campaign definitely made English voters understandably wary of the Nationalists - but a vote against what appeared likely to be a weak a d very-left wing government.
Can you think of some more?
Comments
not an opinion I share, it was not that that stopped people voting UKIP, the reason people did not vote UKIP was, well it was UKIP. Been saying for a long time how they were dead, and well there we go, my crystal ball does it again.
If UKIP had been stronger and been more credible, then there would most likely have been a hung parliament with 4 main parties, Tory, Labour, SNP and UKIP. but that was not the case. Yes you are right that the milliband effect would have lost labour votes to UKIP, but as was it was never going to happen.
The SNP effect certainly helped you, more than I thought you had realised. That was definitively the Kicker card, the 4 kings of the hand was the referendum.