Financial Times - UK election countdown: Fear but not loathing
the media pirateJune 2, 2017. Miranda Green.
6 days to go: Always keep a hold on nurse — for fear of something worse.
• Prime minister Theresa May, in an interview with the Financial Times , has vowed to consult business at every step of Brexit negotiations — including on devising a new migration strategy. She was trying to defuse tension between corporate leaders and Number 10.
• The Conservative candidate in South Thanet, Craig Mackinlay, was charged with overspending in the 2015 contest. He beat Nigel Farage, then leader of the UK Independence party, by 2,812 votes.
• The punishing schedule (for viewers) of television debates continues on Friday with an adapted BBC Question Time featuring May and Corbyn at 8.30pm. It’s the last television set piece. How will we cope when all this ends?
The takeaway: Fear of finding something worse
The Conservative campaign may have faltered, and the “strong and stable” message been undermined by the unforeseen disaster of the party’s “take your medicine” manifesto and the social care U-turn. But the governing party has not torn up the campaigning techniques rule book.
The tried and tested practice of the Conservatives tends towards promoting fear of the alternative. Suspicions have grown that direct personal attacks on Jeremy Corbyn not only fail to convince many voters, but also rebound on the Tory party, still not free of the “nasty party” associations of which Mrs May warned of back in 2002. So in place of loathing expect a final few days of fear. You have heard it before (not least in 2015 where it worked to devastating effect in marginal seats): better the Conservative incumbents than the promised “coalition of chaos” under Jeremy Corbyn and assorted minority parties.
No matter that Corbyn and Co say they would eschew deals with other parties. When the polls have narrowed and there is a crescendo of chatter about a possible freak Labour win, expect more front pages like Friday morning’s in the Times, warning: “We will use SNP to give us power,” says Labour. SNP leader Nicola Sturgeon made it worse with her oh-so-helpful suggestion that she would be open to forming “a progressive alternative to the Tories” in the event of a hung parliament.
Analysts and psephologists like to say they are only two types of contest: a change or a no-change election. The Labour campaign has been betting that (even though 2015 turned out to be a moment when people rejected the offer of change over the status quo) the mood has changed. The Conservatives need to make deviation from Tory government sound frightening.
Polls that narrow can end up affecting the message in the final days — think of the vast effort put into the latter stages of the 2014 Scottish independence referendum after the Yes campaign pulled slightly ahead. The last push is best summed up by Hilaire Belloc’s cautionary tale of a child eaten by a lion: “Always keep a hold on nurse, for fear of finding something worse.”
Who won the air war?
Labour. In the lull before Friday night’s BBC Question Time debates, Team Corbyn was riding a wave of interest in the nature, extent and true meaning on its progress in the polls. Legendary US pollster Nate Silver wrote that Momentum (“the big Mo”) is largely an illusion. But discussing it is an improvement on bungled radio interviews.
Good day Nigel Farage. The victor of the EU referendum, not standing this time, has tried and failed to become an MP seven times over the years. Today he said he was pleased his most recent vanquisher had been charged with offences under the Representation of the People Act.
Bad day. The minor parties. New findings from Ipsos Mori confirmed that this is a two-horse race between the red and blue teams, to a degree without precedent in recent decades. The combined projected vote share of Labour and the Conservatives is 85 per cent — against the historical trend away from voted consolidated around the two main parties. “Like the most successful squeeze operation in history,” tweeted psephologist Philip Cowley.
Must read comment
Tim Harford’s devastating verdict on the two main parties’ manifestos:
Labour magical thinking about corporation taxes gives it more money to play with, at least on paper. There is little evidence that this will be well spent. The party does not propose to reverse many of the welfare cuts that the Conservatives have pencilled in. Instead, it plans to spend money on students, who tend to come from more prosperous households and will go on to be better off than non-graduates. Labour will also throw cash at pensioners regardless of need. It is curious that a party that frets so much about taxing the rich is so careless about reaching the poor.
Both sides have a garnish for their inedible policy sandwiches. Labour offers nationalisation; the Conservatives grammar schools — and, inevitably, sink schools to go alongside them. Nostalgic hardliners will be delighted, but few people who have looked at the evidence find either policy appealing.
Matthew Engel reporting from four vulnerable Labour seats:
There was one set of responses that far outweighed the support for any political party. I was staggered by the complete disengagement from the political process, especially in polyglot Wolverhampton and above all among the young. The same phrase kept recurring: “I don’t do politics”, although everyone who has ever bought flowers after forgetting their mum’s birthday in effect does politics: a skill usually acquired round about voting age. It feels there is a crisis broader than Brexit, than the arguments over immigration, than the danger of a Scottish breakaway. There is a crisis of disengagement from democracy.
Numbers of the day: 50 to 35
Matt Singh, our FT Election Analyst, has been looking at new survey findings from Ipsos Mori on leadership and who would make the best prime minister.
He writes:
“The latest data points will make very uncomfortable reading for the Conservatives. Ipsos Mori’s poll for the Evening Standard showed the Tories’ advantage reduced to 5 points over Labour, having been 23 points just five weeks ago.
The detail of the Mori poll shows that Theresa May is now only 4 points ahead of Jeremy Corbyn on gross satisfaction ratings — historically a strong predictor of election results — which are very much in line with the top-line voting intention. The prime minister’s net satisfaction rating (satisfied less dissatisfied) has turned negative for the first time. On the head-to-head question of who would make the best prime minister, the incumbent has a larger lead of 50 per cent to 35.
It is worth remembering, though, that most of the tightening polls are comparisons with a week or two ago. The daily updates to the YouGov model have shown popular vote leads for the Conservatives of 3 to 4 points all week.
That suggests that while a big move has occurred, there isn’t much sign of it continuing this week. Has the Labour surge run out of steam? Watch this space . . .”
One last thought
Mr Corbyn is on the front page of the NME and Kerrang! Not content with the core grime vote (Stormzy has been on board for some time), the Labour leader is making a bold pitch for switchers in the rest of the music fraternity — even the metal fans want to be part of it. You would have thought they would prefer Mrs May’s Iron Lady tribute act.
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