The Toxic Miliband Factor That Will Swing The Entire Election... My Predictions For 2015

So my lofty prediction for the 2015 election? The Tories are going to be the clear winners, probably by at least 30 seats, may well be more, could possibly be a lot more. Best bet is that they'll be going into another coalition with the Lib Dems.

Forget all the polls, forget all the promises, there is one killer factor that is going to skew the result of the entire General Election: the utter, utter toxicity of the Labour leader Ed Miliband.

Even diehard Labour supporters can't stand the man. They don't really know why Miliband gives them the creeps, but they just loathe him.

The Toxic Miliband factor will not just be the pivot-point for the General Election, but also completely explains the seemingly unstoppable surge of the Scots Nats north of the border.

And I'm saying that despite all the predictions of the polls.

But then this is what I know: I know the polls are wrong.

Lord Ashcroft and the media outlets may be spending millions and millions on poll after poll across the whole of the UK. Well I am cockily going to put my head on the block and say that these polls are utter bollocks.

The polls say - over and over again - that the Tories are neck and neck with the Labour party.

They say that the Tories might just nudge it, but even if they go into coalition with the Lib Dems, they still won't have a majority.

That's what the polls say. And I'll now explain why these polls are not even close to representing the election results that we will see on May 8.

First though: who the hell am I? Who the hell am I to be so sneery about all these very costly polls?

And what I've worked out is that a lot of the time, voters are actually lying to pollsters. Who would have believed it? Cannot compute!

It's weird but it's true: even though voters are assured complete anonymity, they will still lie to pollsters about their voting intentions.

This is particularly so in the strangely febrile 2015 General Election, where there seem to be so many under-currents swirling beneath the waters.

And what I've noticed is that even stalwart Labour supporters absolutely detest Ed Miliband. They cannot abide him. They find him so vomit-making that, whenever he comes on screen, they have to turn off the TV.

I've been interested to find out why these Labour diehards loathe Miliband. There are a number of reasons, and shafting his older brother certainly didn't help, but they all boil down to the same thing: people think he's fake. They think he's inauthentic.

I would have to agree.

What I see with Ed is a shy, diffident geek who has been coached and coached up to his ruddy eyeballs. He has spent weeks, months, years being polished and scrubbed and worked over by team after team of PRs and image-makers, and the result is just repellent.

No need to go into the details - to spell out why it's not working for him. But you only have to see him on the box for about five seconds and you can seek that he's fake.

If only they'd just left him be. Shy geeks can be charming - so long as they're authentic.

It's Miliband's lack of authenticity that is turning off even the staunchest Labour voters. BY THE MILLION.

Never mind the bacon sandwich, or his stupid Mockney accent with Russell Brand, or his

calm, soothing voice of reason which is supposed to sound statesmanlike but which is in fact utterly maddening.

That's all an irrelevance. When Miliband is in public, every single thing that he does is viewed through this prism of fakeness. It is impossible to warm to him. (And equally difficult to warm to his wing-man, Ed Balls.)

Miliband - and Miliband alone - is going to have a huge and devastating effect on the general election result. I believe that Miliband is the primary cause of the Scots Nats' predicted whitewash in Scotland. Traditional Labour voters just can't bring themselves to vote this extraordinarily weird human being into Number Ten. (Though Nicola Sturgeon's campaign has been greatly helped by the pretty low calibre of leadership across the entirety of Westminster.)

However...

Just because diehard Labour fans won't be voting for Labour on Thursday, that doesn't remotely mean that they'll be telling that to the pollsters. No Sirreee! When they're asked about their voting intentions, they'll say what they've always said: they'll be voting Labour.

But when it comes to it, when the ballot paper is in front of them, and when they're actually confronted with the prospect of voting for this charmless chump to be Prime Minister, then I reckon they'll be voting for anything but Labour.

In Scotland, of course, that means they'll be voting for the only viable alternative, the Scots Nats.

In England and Wales, it's more difficult to call. My guess is they'll either go to the Tories or the Lib Dems.

So that's the Miliband factor - the most toxic politician that I have ever witnessed in British politics. (Frankly, I think Miliband can also in large part be blamed for the relatively close call of the Scottish referendum).

There's one last thing that's skewing the current polls: a lot of people won't ever, ever admit to voting Tory.

But they will vote Tory.

If you look at the predicted polls for the last five general elections, going all the way back to John Major's "against all odds" win in 1992, the Tories have consistently performed better than predicted in the polls.

I reckon they'll be doing it again.

So my lofty prediction for the 2015 election? The Tories are going to be the clear winners, probably by at least 30 seats, may well be more, could possibly be a lot more. Best bet is that they'll be going into another coalition with the Lib Dems.

Another five years for David Cameron. Another five years - perhaps - as Deputy PM for Nick Clegg (if he can hold onto his seat). Another five years of biding his time for Boris Johnson. Political oblivion for Ed Miliband.

As for the Labour party, they've got to ask themselves one very awkward question: How on earth do they contrive to saddle themselves with such unelectable leaders? Michael Foot, Neil Kinnock and then Gordon Brown - they all of them were a huge personal turn-off for voters.

And now they've ended up with the worst political leader in living memory. The truly terrifying thing is that, for the past two years, every single member of the Labour leadership has known that Miliband's a dud. (as will be attested in all of the political diaries and biographies when they are published in a few years' time. Trust me on that.)

If nothing else comes of the Miliband debacle, the Labour party may at long last get round to changing its Byzantine leadership rules. If you're being led by a turkey, and you know you're being led by a turkey, then you've got to give it the chop - and that's before a General Election rather than after it.

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