Thread by @robfordmancs

Interesting thread - a couple of thoughts it prompts. Firstly, if the "nothing matters" scenario is defined as "one party is dominant in the polls and nothing seems to shift this" then there are several long periods of this being the case in last 40 yrs or so

https://twitter.com/youngvulgarian/status/1455881469310771205

1983-1989: "Nothing matters, Cons have big poll lead and majority"
1993-1997: "Nothing matters, Lab has huge poll lead, Cons are doomed
1997-2006: "Nothing matters, Lab has big poll lead and majority"

That's 19 years in the last 38 - or 50% of the time

However, most of the last 15 years has been in the alternative "stuff might matter" scenario - either polling is tight, or Commons balance of power is tight, or both. So a whole political generation has come of age with that as the norm. Political dominance is unusual to them

Second thought is that the focus on poll and Commons leads as impregnable may be misleading because politics often seems a bit like a punctuated equilibrium system - long periods of apparent stability but with pressures building up below the surface

For example, when we look back on the New Labour era of dominance from the perspective of the last decade, it is easy to see the slow changes underway which led to the subsequent era of turbulence.

More recently, and over a shorter time horizon, polling in 2017-2018 was remarkably stable, but the pressures/polarisation which led to the pollercoaster of 2019 were clearly building up.

In both cases, those covering politics day to day might well conclude "nothing matters, nothing makes an impact". Yet this would be mistaken: lots of things were putting the status quo under pressure. It just took time for the accumulated tensions to find political expression.