Election omens
Reasons for Ed Miliband to feel confident in 2015:
— Only three parliaments since 1945 have run to their full five-year term. The subsequent general elections, in 1964, 1997 and 2010, all resulted in a change of government. But John Major did hold on in 1992, having gone to the country four years and ten months after the last election.
— In four elections since 1945, the three main parties have been led by MPs who represent constituencies in each of the three countries which make Great Britain: 1970, 1979, 1983 and 1987. The Conservatives won them all. This year’s election, assuming no change of party leadership between now and May, will be only the second one since 1945 when all three main party leaders had constituencies in England. The other was 1997, the year of the Conservatives’ heaviest defeat.
Some reasons for David Cameron to feel confident:
— Since 1945, only one PM who served the whole length of a parliament failed to win a second term: Edward Heath in 1974.
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