Good morning. Do campaigns matter? All the ink spilled, speeches made, leaflets posted, the battle buses and private jets, the shouty debates and TikTok feeds, the rallies and canvassers, the manifesto launches and school visits – do they win over voters?
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One Tory insider mused to me this week that the result was decided months ago, that their impending failure could be explained by Boris Johnson and Liz Truss. Partygate and the mini-Budget explain a lot. But CCHQ has done everything it could in the past six weeks to guarantee the party’s defeat.
This campaign will be remembered for the self-inflicted mishaps that became part of Rishi Sunak’s daily routine, from abandoning D-Day commemorations to his close allies gambling on the election date. One cabinet minister I spoke to a few weeks ago played down the chaos, remembering that the 1997 campaign, when one Tory MP was photographed with a 17-year-old Soho nightclub waitress and another had to resign over the cash-for-questions scandal, had a similar feel. Time was up. And that’s how campaigns are at the end.
This one will also be remembered for what was not debated. Unlike 1997, the economy is not growing. And yet, economics was absent from this campaign. Polling analysis and Tory gaffes have consumed attention. Conservative attempts to discuss policies – such as national service – at the start were met with derision. Party strategists quickly reverted to fearmongering. The Tories decided to scare voters with a Labour “supermajority”, the corollary of which was that they were conceding defeat halfway through the campaign.
Labour was little better. At a press conference on Monday, the shadow minister Jonathan Ashworth stood beside a large photo montage of Liz Truss cackling. He instructed voters to “stop the Liz Truss takeover” of the Conservative Party – a strange intervention in the upcoming Tory leadership contest. He left the assembled hacks confused as to why they had traipsed across London for Tory Kremlinology from the Labour cabinet.
Gaps in Labour’s programme were explained away with appeals to economic growth. From the moment Sunak announced the election in the rain on 22 May, Labour’s message was that the past 14 years were so bad that the country needed change, whatever that may be. The Liberal Democrats performed stunts to get attention, but then spent little time on their policies once they got it. And yet, the Lib Dems could beat the Tories into second place, and become the official opposition (here’s what that would mean). Reform resorted to mass rallies, with Nigel Farage poised to enter parliament for the first time ever.
This election period was a continuation of the past few years. According to YouGov, the effect of the Conservative campaign was to force even more people to vote tactically against the Tories – a fitting end.
Freddie’s picks
Here are the 12 constituencies you should watch tonight, according to Ben and Finn.
Rachel has done an interview with Tory grandee Paul Goodman, who says the divide in the party is between the serious and unserious.
Harry goes inside one of today’s most compelling fights – the Greens’ campaign to win Bristol Central.
Sohrab Ahmari interviews Elbridge Colby, the American strategist who is tipped to be Trump’s national security adviser, on the balance of power in Asia.
“The Unthinkable”: how Rishi Sunak accidentally won the 2024 general election. A short story from Will.
“The compelling criticism of Starmer is not that he is an under-worker but that he is an over-worker: dogged, narrow, unimaginative” – James Marriott in the Times.
Mailshot
NYT: Biden tells allies he knows he only has days to salvage candidacy
Reuters: Hurricane Beryl hits Jamaica
William Davies: Fourteen years later
Nina Allan: A unique novel on siblinghood and memory
Jaya Saxena: Three million bananas
Tara Isabella Burton: Simple steps to combat smartphone addiction
Tanya Gold: Chefs make us eat their inner lives
Ben’s take
We end the 2024 general election campaign with the chart I started it with – how strong is Labour’s lead really?
It’s not 20 points if you look at the economy and leadership alone. But it’s not as small as Starmer’s personal lead over Sunak when you consider the by-elections and local elections. The probability is this: we are on course for a dramatic change in electoral representation – which is well and truly due.
As I look at all the metrics that tell me how healthy Labour’s lead is really, I am reminded: wow, who could have expected this?
Well, we all could. And I suppose we all did. Nothing has changed in the past year and a bit. All the policies that were considered to be game-changers for Conservative prospects have failed to change public opinion. The polls have not narrowed.
And so the polls, thought of as dramatic a year and a bit ago, are going to be real.
I will be live-blogging today and tonight on the New Statesman website. All the gossip, cut-through, lines to take and results I want you paying most attention to will be there. British politics is about to go through a significant rupture. It’s only right that you have the opportunity to see it in full.
And with that…
Happy election day. Let me know what’s going on in your area by hitting reply.
I’ll be back in your inboxes early tomorrow morning.
All best,
Freddie — @freddiejh8
Could Farage lose for the 8th time? 🤞🤞🤞🤞🤞
Just been to vote Labour again [Clwyd East] You ask what it is like in our area. To be honest you wouldn't know there was an election on. No posters. No hustings. No candidates mixing with shoppers in Mold market. The local newspaper has ignored the campaign, with the focus more on whether Wrexham will sign new players. We have had the usual bumf through the door, but no one came knocking. No telephone calls. No loudspeakers. Eerie. There must be an election on because we've just been and voted, but you wouldn't know round here. Mike Stevens