The End of Politics: triangulation, realignment and the battle for the centre ground

The End of Politics: triangulation, realignment and the battle for the centre ground Alexander Lee and Timothy Stanley Politico's 2006

Reviewed by Maria Neophytou

For the UK's three main political parties, the 2005 general election was an election without winners. Labour may have achieved its much vaunted historic third term, but it witnessed an unprecedented decline in its core vote-in the inner cities, among the working class, ethnic minorities and the young, voters traditionally inclined to vote Labour turned away in droves.The Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats for their part failed to capitalise on manifest dissatisfaction with Labour, unable to off era convincing alternative vision and attract sufficient voters to unseatthe government. Voterturnout reached an all time low and all three parties experienced a haemorrhaging of support to the minor parties.The statistics told a clear story: in 1992,500,000 people voted for minor parties and independent candidates; by 2005 this figure had risen to 1.5 million people. The End of Politics explores these 'subtle but seismic changes', positing that the strategy of'triangulation' may be spelling 'the end of polities'.

Triangulation is defined as 'the political tactic of shifting party policy in to a broadly perceived centre ground in order to increase electability and outmanoeuvre the opposition'. In vying for the centre ground, politics becomes less a battle of competing values and more like a game of chess.This allows the Liberal Democrats to leap to the left of Labour on some issues and Labour to the right of the Conservatives on others, as parties dance around each other chasing an ever-increasing pool...