In the British political system, the ruling party can decide election timing, offering strategic advantages. However, Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s unexpected call for a July election, against expected advice for November, has backfired. The Conservative campaign is marked by blunders and disorganization, while Labour remains professional and prepared. Sunak’s decision, driven by fear rather than strategy, seems destined to lead to a significant Tory defeat and a disciplined Labour victory.
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By Adrian Wooldridge
Perhaps the most significant advantage that a ruling party has under the current British political system is the ability to decide the timing of the general election. ___STEADY_PAYWALL___ This confers three benefits: You can leap on favorable economic news, make sure your troops are ready for combat and catch the enemy unprepared. Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has not only squandered this advantage with his decision to call the election in July rather than in November, as most people expected; he has also caught his own party rather than Labour with its trousers round its ankles.
So far, all the unforced errors in the campaign have been made by the Conservatives rather than Labour, from Sunak’s rain-soaked election announcement to his photo opportunity at the Titanic museum in Belfast. A sitting Tory MP, Lucy Allan, has announced that she is backing a Reform candidate in her constituency of Telford. As of this writing, 78 MPs have announced they are standing down in the election, more than the postwar record of 72 in 1997, including Michael Gove, a 56-year-old who, in better circumstances, might have played a key role in reviving the party after July 5.
By contrast, Labour has been unfailingly professional. Keir Starmer has a new hair cut and a new pair of glasses. Rachel Reeves is glossy with self-confidence. Angela Rayner is pluckier than ever, no doubt relieved that the tax authorities have dropped their investigation into her domestic affairs. The most visible non-Tory gaffe has been provided by the leader of the Liberal Democrats, Ed Davey, who fell off a paddleboard into a lake five times in 15 minutes. (Advice to Davey, and indeed all candidates, for the coming weeks: Avoid water, animals, messy food and pancake flipping.)
The once formidable Tory election machine looks woefully unprepared for battle. Some 200 MPs are staring at the end of their political careers, including many big names, perhaps even Chancellor of the Exchequer Jeremy Hunt, spreading despondency and panic in the ranks. They are also beginning to discover, as they send out their CVs to head-hunting firms, that having spent the past 14 years taking Britain out of the world’s biggest market and plotting a succession of coups against the party leadership aren’t generally regarded as pluses.
The Tories don’t have candidates in place for 160 seats (the figure for Labour is just 35). This means that there is an unseemly scramble to get candidates by the deadline of June 7, a scramble that may well result in a few wrong ‘uns slipping through and will certainly try the patience of already demoralized local associations. A recent cartoon in the Daily Telegraph, the party’s unofficial house organ, pictures a coast guard addressing a boat of refugees through a load speaker: Would any of you like to be Tory candidates?
MPs in marginal seats who thought they had five months to put their lives in order and apply for jobs are furious with the prime minister because he has brought forward their date with the dole office. Others are incensed that he has made a mess of their holiday plans. Steve Baker, a minister who once described himself as a hard man of the Brexit movement, has decided to campaign from his vacation in Greece. Boris Johnson, still an electoral asset with some categories of voters, has said that he will be out of the country on a mixture of holidays and speaking engagements for the next six weeks.
Tory policy announcements seem to be off the cuff rather than carefully prepared — a list of populist complaints (abolish Micky Mouse degrees! Put the young in uniform!) rather than a coherent plan for government. Hunt’s declaration that a future Conservative government would keep income tax thresholds frozen until 2028, leading to an effective tax rise on earnings, undermined the Party’s attempt to define itself as the low tax party in the fight.
I have defended Sunak’s idea of national service. But the optics have nevertheless been unfortunate. The veterans minister, Johnny Mercer, had denounced national service as nonsense in the House of Commons only a few days before. It also contrasted with the party’s second great announcement, that pensions will be quadruple-locked, reinforcing Labour’s attack line that the Tories are catering to the prejudices of the elderly rather than addressing pressing problems. A YouGov poll on May 29 had Labour with 59% among voters under 50 and the Conservatives with just 8%.
The Conservatives are also sticking with their long-planned strategy of running a presidential campaign despite the latest polls showing that Sunak is in fact less popular than the Tory Party as a whole, which is quite something. Labour has been much more successful at defining Sunak as an out-of-touch rich boy than the Tories have been at defining Starmer in negative terms partly because they can’t decide what negative terms to use. Is he a principle-less opportunist who will do anything for power? Or a “red-blooded socialist wolf in sheep’s clothing”? Their latest ploy is to channel Donald Trump and vilify him as “sleepy Keir,” in a reference to “sleepy Joe,” despite Starmer being an energetic 61-year-old and the Tory base consisting of people closer to Biden in age.
Sunak’s surprise announcement of the election led to a flurry of speculation. Did he have a cunning plan? Did he have some good news tucked away somewhere? Had the party prepared some devastating weapons in private? Surely this sleek product of Winchester, Oxford and Stanford Business School had something big hidden up his well-tailored sleeve?
As the election has unfolded, we are now able to answer most of these questions. Sunak announced the election against the advice of many of his senior strategists. It was his decision and his alone. He probably made it out of fear that things were only going to get worse (the fiscal situation allows no headroom) rather than because the timing was suddenly right (the 2.3% inflation news was a little worse than expected). The pattern of confusion and improvisation is likely to continue or even get worse, as Starmer’s self-confidence grows and Sunak’s frenetic energy looks more like desperation.
The great lesson from recent elections is that campaigns matter: John Major pulled off a remarkable turn-around in 1992 and Jeremy Corbyn almost did the same in 2017. But the chances of a miracle for Sunak are fading fast. The election is headed exactly where everybody predicted: to a great Tory reckoning and the most disciplined and self-confident Labour government since 1997.
Read also:
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- 🔒 Tory turmoil: Rishi Sunak limps on as the Conservatives’ best leader – Martin Ivens
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