Rishi Sunak delivers a speech to launch the Conservatives’ manifesto in Silverstone, England, on June 11, 2024 (Credit: Benjamin Cremel, Pool Photo via AP/Alamy)
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We are more than halfway through the campaign and Labor still has a big lead over the Conservatives. “Things are going so bad, Isaac Levido’s beard has turned white,” says a Tory candidate about their campaign manager.
The distraction of reform
The first poll showing reforms overtaking the Tories came out this week. With the votes for reform inefficiently distributed, it may only have symbolic power, but many believe it is also a useless distraction shaping the Conservative campaign. They wonder: where is the Lib Dem strategy? The lack of that is something that even Labor HQ has noticed and is puzzled by.
‘I definitely think they have a Lib Dem problem. It’s a big Lib Dem problem. Because of the focus on reforms, you broadly give the Liberal Democrats free rein in many places,” says More in Common UK director Luke Tryl. PoliticsHome.
In Chichester, Education Secretary Gillian Keegan’s patch, Tryl reports that voters are “teetering in what should be a solid Tory seat” and have “not heard a Lib Dem rebuttal message”. The only hesitation they mentioned about voting Lib Dem was the broken promise of tuition fees. In Greg Clark’s Tunbridge Wells, Tryl adds, “people said they seem more normal than the Tories these days and aren’t obsessed with weird things”.
“It’s really difficult to have a Lib Dem strategy because they stand for something different in every part of the country – even in different parts of the constituency,” says a new Tory candidate who is currently neck-deep is neck and neck with the Lib Dems.
The other distraction
Some Tories are distracted by another election: the battle for the future leadership. Candidates who win seats again with majorities of more than 20,000 are receiving calls from hopeful leaders asking for their support – even as their own chances of returning as MPs are in doubt.
‘If I were back in Parliament I’d be sitting in the tearoom gossiping with everyone, but – in the nicest way possible – they could all fuck off. I will continue with my own campaign,” said a candidate who has received calls from two optimistic contenders.
You’ve got mail
Postal votes are already coming in, so – aware that “election day” is a misnomer – the Conservatives decided to step up their core voting strategy this week. They opted for the ’emergency glass breaking’ option: warning of a Labor ‘supermajority’ if their traditional supporters don’t turn up.
Instead of just spreading this message locally – as Labor candidates skeptical of Jeremy Corbyn’s election chances did in 2017 – Tory ministers have also taken it to the airwaves. This is not without risk: former Downing Street communications director Lee Cain says using it as a national message only pushes votes on your own side.
We also see hyper-local mail campaigns. Conservative candidates send materials only to voters by mail and target them with ads in local newspapers. Some are betting on electoral dividends from the funding allocated to their constituencies in recent years, while the national ‘triple lock plus’ policy aimed at pensioners is also expected to appeal.
Labor has long focused on registering supporters for postal voting. PoliticsHome hears that the party has a new instrument with which, if a voter picks up a telephone number at the door, that voter will receive an automatic text message calling on him or her to register for a postal vote. Activists have also distributed handy cards with QR codes for registration.
In the battleground states, voters receive personal letters by post. In non-battleground constituencies, they usually opt for ‘knock and drop’ in areas where turnover is low and voters tend to be older: knock on the door and if there is no answer, simply leave the ballot in fall into the mailbox.
Labour’s Gaza problem
“Conservative voters are switching to Labor – that’s just happening everywhere. There is a bit of fragmentation of the Labor vote, but nothing serious,” says a Labor candidate touring the country PoliticsHome.
While the party’s stance on Gaza may not seriously affect their voting record, it will have an impact on volunteer turnout – particularly in seats such as Dewsbury and Batley in Yorkshire, sources say. “Outside London it is a problem in some places. The last election where there were so few volunteers was in 2010,” the candidate added.
In London, activists say the key issues ahead are Gaza and Labour’s plan to impose VAT on private school fees – “but almost everyone is happy to overlook that,” notes one researcher.
The anti-political elections
Candidates on both sides suspect low turnout on the day. But feedback along the lines of “you’re all the same” always comes knocking on your doorstep – is this election really different?
“It’s not just an anti-political sentiment, in the sense of ‘I don’t trust the buggers,’ it’s much more, ‘I also don’t feel they can handle the challenges we face.’ There is a feeling of hopelessness: whoever wins, it will be the same,” says Tryl.
For the Tories, he says, this is “existential” because of the devastating impact it could have on their voting record. For Labour, low public trust in politics is expected to be more likely to be a long-term problem, except in select seats such as Bristol West in Thangam Debbonaire, where this could effectively mean a loss for them.
“They will get what appears to be a broad but superficial majority and there is a risk that if things don’t go well – that’s possible, but if things don’t go well – they will lose votes to the Greens in government. on the one hand and reforms on the other,” Tryl explains.
Remember Sue Gray’s ‘shit list’? Labor is well aware of the enormous challenges ahead. And yet, while Labor figures are pleased with the manifesto’s coherence and the message discipline that precedes it, there are concerns that the party has restricted itself on tax (Ed Balls called it a ‘straitjacket’) – and that the delivery in the government will not be possible. will be crucial if Keir Starmer wants a second term.
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