Wipeout!

Today’s pick of the papers is a feature in the Observer reporting on a poll conducted by PoliticsHome.com predicting that the number of Labour MPs could be cut by half at the next election

Andrew Rawnsley reports:

‘Eight members of the cabinet joining the dole queue. The number of Labour MPs reduced to a shattered rump of just 160. David Cameron strolling into power with a crushing landslide. That is the apocalyptic scenario facing Labour as the party gathers for its conference in Manchester.

Cameron is projected to walk into Number 10 with a steamroller majority of 146. In the new House of Commons, the Conservatives would have 398 seats, the sort of dominance they used to enjoy when Margaret Thatcher was in her pomp. There would only be a rump Labour party left to oppose him. The number of Labour MPs would be slashed by more than half to 160, a band smaller than after the ‘suicide note’ election of 1983 when Labour was led by Michael Foot. The Liberal Democrats would lose slightly less than a third of their representation in the Commons and end up with 44 seats.

After the most humiliating rout, Labour is pushed back to its hardcore redoubts in South Yorkshire, the north-east, the Welsh valleys and deprived inner-city seats. All the gains of the Blair years are wiped out and worse. In southern England outside London, Labour is left clinging to one seat: Bristol South is a lonely island of red in an ocean of blue. It is as if New Labour had never happened. Just as during its bleakest years in the Eighties, Labour is driven out of Middle England.

There would be a cull of the cabinet. Senior ministers, like other Labour MPs, have tried to console themselves with the thought that they might somehow defy the national swing against their party. This poll, by sampling opinion in their own seats, destroys that consolation. A third of the cabinet would be handed P45s by the electorate. Big-name casualties include the Justice Secretary Jack Straw in Blackburn and the Home Secretary Jacqui Smith in her West Midlands seat of Redditch. Gone too is the Chief Whip, Geoff Hoon. Blairite casualties of the slaughter are James Purnell, the Work and Pensions Secretary, and John Hutton, the Business Secretary. Defence Secretary Des Browne, Universities Secretary John Denham and Transport Secretary Ruth Kelly would all be looking for new jobs.’

See the full report at PoliticsHome.com here