Welcome to the age of four-party politics

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[/audioplayer]Two things will make the next general election campaign quite unlike any previous election in this country. The first is that we now have four-party politics right across Britain. In Scotland and Wales, the nationalist parties have been a political force for a generation. But the big change is in England, where Ukip is emerging as a fourth force. Second, the campaign will be haunted by the spectre of another hung parliament. The question of what happens if no party wins an overall majority will be asked time and time again by an impatient media.

Between them, the Tories and Labour commanded the support of 96.8 per cent of the electorate at the 1951 general election, the zenith of the two-party hegemony. From 1945 until 1974, these two parties always garnered at least four fifths of the vote at any general election. But that percentage has declined markedly in the last 40 years. In 2010, the Tories and Labour received less than two  thirds of the votes cast.

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This decline led to neither the Tories nor Labour being able to win a majority. The Tory-Liberal Democrat coalition that followed, though, created the space for the emergence of Ukip as a fourth party. It has become the new ‘none of the above’ party and a repository for Tories alienated by the compromises of coalition. The polls suggest that about 8 per cent of voters now intend to back Ukip come what may.

Four-party politics makes campaigns more complex than before. For instance, Labour strategists are quite happy to see the prominence of immigration as an issue rise, despite its being a weak spot for their party. Why? Because their research shows that when concern about immigration is high, the Tories lose more votes to Ukip.