If Theresa May gets this election campaign right she can make history

Who is really, definitely, unquestionably in charge of this year’s Conservative party election campaign? The reason that I ask that question – dismissed in public as “processology” by leaders and their aides who would always rather keep the focus on their tightly-controlled “public” events – is simple. The architecture of a campaign and the choices made by a leader about its command structure quite often have an impact on the course of an election, and sometimes on the outcome or the size of the majority.

David Cameron made a mess of his first general election and fell short, in 2010, partly because he declined to impose order and would not choose between squabbling aides below him. There was shoeless Steve Hilton, and Andy Coulson, and George Osborne, and George Bridges trying to bring order alongside Lynton Crosby, along with assorted others. The result was no coherent message other than a vague sense that the young leadership knew it was their turn, which is not a good look. One manifestation of this lack of focus was a campaign launch centred on the “big society” (good Burkean idea, terrible name) that resembled a failed art installation.

Whenever I hear George Osborne described as a magnificent strategist (and he is a very talented politician, which is not quite the same thing) my mind goes back to that 2010 campaign and the look on his face when asked by my colleague Simon Nixon what type of election it was. In essence, what’s it all about, George? The then shadow chancellor looked as though he had never been asked nor considered this fundamental question. It was, he said vaguely and not convincingly, a “change election.”

In 2015, to their credit Cameron and Osborne realised they needed a different approach. Lynton Crosby, the Australian election specialist, was hired and put in charge. There was iron discipline. A baseball bat was taken to Ed Miliband and Cameron delivered clear messages. Behind the scenes, the Tories ran an exemplary data operation and digital campaign which helped them work out that they were “in” through the door in the South West. They set about destroying their coalition partners the Lib Dems there and elsewhere. An overall majority – not predicted, other than by Crobsy and a few others on his team – was the result. In the annals of Tory ruthlessness in pursuit of power and the demolition of enemies it was a stellar episode, although it remains to be seen what the outcome of the police investigations into election spending limits in various constituencies will be.

This time? Since Theresa May sprung a snap election on Tuesday, she has used the Cameron-Crosby playbook, delivering a simple message of stability and reassurance. The attacks on Labour’s Jeremy Corbyn are cranking up and there is so much material. Nice guy, Jeremy, his friends like to say. Really? Don’t be daft. As a Labour friend points out: a few weeks after the IRA almost killed Margaret Thatcher at the Grand Hotel, Brighton, Corbyn invited Gerry Adams to the House of Commons. What a nice guy!

Crosby will be back on the books at CCHQ, when he returns this weekend from a trip to Australia. The word at Westminster is that he will have control of private polling, a crucial component of any campaign. He who sets the questions shapes the conclusions drawn from the answers and can set the course.

This time, though, will May hand over control to someone outside her triangle of trust? (it was Charles Moore, I think, who defined it in The Spectator as a triangle, not a circle.) Think of May and her husband as one unit, and then her joint chiefs of staff Fiona Hill and Nick Timothy as the other two points. A series of other aides have good relations with Hill and Timothy, but in the high maintenance control freak department they make Campbell and Mandelson from the New Labour era look like chilled out flower power people.

The veteran Tory campaigner Lord Gilbert, Stephen Gilbert, is also going to be central, it seems. He might oversee the campaign, working with Hill and Timothy, and Crosby.

What is unclear so far is how, exactly, it all fits together in a fast-moving situation. Neither Hill nor Timothy has the slightest bit of experience at running general elections. Running a general election well is a particular skill and extremely difficult.

Ah, said a Tory of long standing to me, you miss the point that Theresa May will be in charge of the campaign. That, from the Tory party’s point of view, had better not be true. The candidate being in charge is a terrible idea and it never works. The candidate is the leader of the sales force, out there on the road, deployed for set-pieces and consulted, sometimes, in an emergency or to settle squabbles as with Thatcher’s wobble in 1987. Although they can arbitrate in a crisis, trying to run party headquarters and the campaign from the road creates confusion about the chain of command.

What will May do? She surprised everyone by calling an election, although quite a few of us hacks wrote earlier this year that she would be mad not to go for it. Everyone – bar a handful of cabinet ministers – gave up when it looked as though she had closed the door on such suggestions. But no, May was just taking her time.

On the campaign command structure, it remains to be seen what the Tory leader will do. If her most loyal aides think they can run the campaign, or second guess the campaign professionals, it will get interesting.
You might say none of this matters because she will win but that, I think, fundamentally misses the scale of what is at stake here for May and her party. In essence, this is about how big the majority is and how a commanding lead in the popular vote translates into seats. If May returns to Westminster and, unlikely as this, with a majority only a little larger than now, it will be the “what was the point of that?” election. She will be deemed to have wasted the country’s time. In contrast, the glittering prize, in the event of a landslide victory, is an era-defining redrawing of the British electoral map, the smashing of the far left, and a clear mandate for the Prime Minister going into the difficult Brexit talks. Elevation to the political pantheon of historically significant leaders beckons.

In attempting to achieve this, she begins with certain obvious advantages. May is up against the worst Labour leader since the 1930s. Jeremy Corbyn is a far-left narcissist, a tinfoil-hatted twit advised by elite Stalinists whose self-indulgent destruction of Labour risks leaving one of the UK’s great parties in ruins.

Meanwhile, the Labour leader’s helpers continue to astound. A late entrant to the worst politician of our era competition – in which Emily Thornberry had enjoyed a commanding lead – is Dawn Butler, the Brent MP chosen to host the Labour launch on Thursday. In a subsequent interview with Eddie Mair on Radio 4, that has since gone viral, she set new standards for ineptitude. That the party of John Smith, Jim Callaghan, Barbara Castle and Tony Blair should be fronted by the clown show that is Corbyn & Co. amounts to a national tragedy.

So far, so easy for the Tories, who have a lead of 21 points on the Reaction poll of polls, which will be updated on our site whenever a new poll lands.
The vast uselessness of Team Corbyn does mean, however, that the Conservatives need to worry about turnout and voters thinking that the Tories are going to walk it by 100 seats. In an effort to counter this, already the Tories are trying to talk up the risk of a Corbyn victory, which does not sound remotely believable. All you have to do is look at him and listen for two minutes. Of the people suitable to be Prime Minister, Corbyn is not even in the top 50 million of the British population.

The turnout concerns and the possibility of voter fatigue after Brexit means that May will need to convince people in the seats the Tories can take that this is a decisive point in the national story. For pro-Brexit voters it is a much-needed opportunity to signal to those trying to block and reverse Brexit that they will not stand for it.

The signs so far are that May can do it and win big, because she has formed the most extraordinary connection with the voters. She is popular in the north of England and leads in every demographic in England. The voters like her demeanour and approach, a lot. She’s an unflashy, quiet, authentic figure who is not slick. She will get on with Brexit, which polls show around 70% of the voters want.

This leaves her in a position to win one of the great victories and make history, if, if, she and her team get the campaign right, hence my highlighting all that “processology” at the beginning. If she and the Tories secure swings as big as the polls suggest, May will sweep large parts of the north, destroy Labour further down the country, requiring a realignment or rebuilding from scratch afterwards, and push back the SNP somewhat in Scotland into the bargain. May is hoovering up the UKIP vote and slicing the Labour vote in an extraordinary fashion. A YouGov poll this week had the Conservatives on 48%. Post-Brexit and with May at the helm they’re moving from being a mid-30s party to a mid-40s and maybe even above party.

Pinch yourself. That’s the Tories, who as recently as the early 2000s, when Theresa “Nasty Party” May was party chairman, were said to be locked out of power in perpetuity. Would there ever again be a Tory majority? Landslides were a Labour thing. And here they are, a decade and a half later, with May on the verge of smashing the left, splitting the opposition and initiating a new era of Tory dominance.

That’s what it’s about, a historic shift and a license to power through Brexit. Don’t let anyone tell you the election is boring or meaningless.

Have a good weekend

Iain Martin,
Editor and publisher,
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