‘It’s not the gaffes, though I’ve never seen so many of them, it’s the fact that the two main parties seem to be skirmishing on different fronts’
Tom Watson, Baron Watson of Wyre Forest, served as Deputy Leader of the Labour Party from 2015 to 2019 and Shadow Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport from 2016 to 2019.
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It is now more than 50 years since I worked in a general election for Harold Wilson in February 1974. I remember every general election with clarity; weird I know. This general election is one of the strangest.
It’s not the gaffes, though I’ve never seen so many of them, it’s the fact that the two main parties seem to be skirmishing on different fronts. Yet we’re in a two party system. It’s a binary choice election. What on earth is going on?
Labour
Labour is reaching out the former supporters it lost in 2019, 2017, 2015 and 2010. It’s focusing on reassurance within its change message.
For what it’s worth, the first three doors I knocked in this general election were in Spen Valley for Kim Leadbeater. Door one was a first time Tory voter in 2019, now back to labour. Door two was a lifelong Tory, now come to labour. Door Three was a Lifelong Tory voter, now a don’t know and weighing up Labour and the Reform Party. These three door knocks are in no way scientific but if you extrapolate them over the entire United Kingdom it shows the Tories are in deep trouble.
Conservative
If Keir wants this to be a change election, Rishi needs it to be a choice election.
Sunak used his remaining agency to call a surprise election. It was the right thing to do because for the last 18 months, every decision has felt more like referendum on 14 years of, well, let’s face it, chaos. At least with an election, Sunak has a chance to put his case and ask voters to contrast it to Keir’s.
Yet here is Rishi Sunak’s problem: The Conservatives are only speaking to their elemental core of support which is fractured and considering shifting to the Reform Party, staying at home, or moving to the Lib Dems and Labour.
National Service
Tory spin doctors maintained three days of discussion on Sunak’s national service announcement, despite it being ridiculed by nearly every retired general in the UK. It’s led to 16 year olds joining Labour and knocking on doors to stop it (yup, I saw the evidence of this with my own eyes, yesterday).
Why is he doing it? National Service appeals to an older generation with memories of loved ones sharing nostalgic stories of a bygone age, when the country displayed imperial prowess and people knew their place. In other words: the Conservative Core Vote.
Sunak is rallying the heartlands, trying to hold the Tory family together. It’s perfectly logical given the poor standing in the polls but it’s not without cost.
Focussing on wavering older-voting shire residents in the heartlands has left Labour free to appeal to the Red Wall, the Blue Wall and Scotland with little challenge.
So, two leaders, two parties, two campaigns and thus far, very little direct engagement.
What do voters think?
They say you campaign in poetry and govern in prose. Not this year, I’m afraid. Labour is campaigning in prose and rightly so. They’re negotiating a difficult contract with millions of potential new supporters who want to read the small print of the offer.
For voters, this is a cost of living election. They’re not interested in how soggy Sunak gets or the fact that he can’t play football.
The swing voters in the general election are economically squeezed and worried about the future. The party that will win is the one that doesn’t bullshit them about how hard it will be to get the country back on its feet but reassures them they have a workable plan.
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(Image credit: Guardian News/ Screenshot YouTube)
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