Mrs May’s only election problem: how to keep everyone awake

This is not the first dull election. 2001 was equally unexciting. Labour had spent four years using headlines and sound-bites to impose ruthless rhetorical discipline and ensure that Tony Blair’s narrative dominated the middle ground of British politics. They were equally ruthless when it came to trashing the Tories – and equally effective. In the electoral bloodstream, Toryism remained toxic. At the election, the Blairites’ efforts were easy to harvest. Poor William Hague had no means of countering this. All his initiatives turned into stunts. In the mid-Nineties, the then Labour MP Austin Mitchell said that Labour could sleep-walk its way to power. It did, and then to re-election.

Sixteen years later, it is the Tories’ turn to enjoy the pleasures of somnambulism. One of the potential victims is Mr Mitchell’s former constituency, Grimsby, which had been regarded as virtually locked up for Labour.

But there is a difference between then and now. In 2001, no great issues were at stake. Today, there is Brexit – and once again, Mrs May is lucky. What is Labour’s policy on Brexit? What is Liberal policy on Brexit? Now that the government has committed itself to Brexit, what further use is Ukip? So the PM has only one problem which would never arise in a normal election. How can she inject some tension, in order to keep everyone awake?

It would help if her manifesto-drafters could come up with some pleasant and risk-free surprises. Lynton Crosby always warns against trying to win intellectual arguments during election campaigns unless you have laid the groundwork well in advance: “You cannot fatten the pig on market day.” George Freeman and Ben Gummer have been identified as two of the principal drafters. If so, that is a wise choice. They both possess high intellectual ability, But in politics, that quality only works in an alloy with that rare earth, common sense. They have that as well.

Moreover, David Cameron’s policy unit was full of able people: probably the strongest such team ever. They will have produced a lot of groundwork. Some of those around Theresa May would have wanted to see the whole lot burned by the common hangman. It is to be hoped that wiser counsels prevailed and that the Cameroon material survives for the May team to draw on. If so, there ought to be enough material to arouse interest without frightening the horses.

Not enough interest for some. Charles Moore, Fraser Nelson and our own Iain Martin have already made pre-emptive complaints.They are alarmed by suggestions that Mrs May is susceptible to Left-wing opportunism, as on energy. Above all, they argue that she is failing to exploit her electoral dominance. She has a chance to reshape British political debate and is refusing to take it, They are right, but premature. The PM has only been in office for a few months. She had not expected to be propelled to No.10. The was no alternative: her first priorities had to be consolidation and Brexit.

Once she wins this election, it ought to be another matter. Brexit will still be the dominant issue, but she must ensure that it does not suck the oxygen out of politics and government. She needs an inspiring domestic agenda. This will help to lay groundwork and win political battles which should guarantee Tory government until at least 2030. In all this, Mrs May ought to start by countering Labour’s principal strategic weapon.

For years, thoughtful Labour Left-wingers have identified a challenge. How could they persuade the middle classes to look down rather than up: to see their interests as lying with Labour social programmes designed to help the poor and not with Tory tax cuts which would only help the rich? At this election, John McDonnell is trying again. An admirably unreconstructed Marxist, Mr McDonnell no doubt believes in the inevitability of immiserisation as capitalism drives more and more people into the maw of poverty. (Can we guarantee that a new form of “isation”, robotisation, will not resurrect the immiseration thesis?) In the short run, he is promising that no-one earning less than £80,000 a year would pay more tax under Labour. Everything can be paid for by soaking the rich.

Although this is wholly incredible, it ought to make Tories think. Francis Maude always says that as the enemies of the free market never disappear for good its supporters can never relax. As there will come a time when the principal opposition party has a credible leader, more pre-emption is necessary, to ensure that it will not be easy to seduce middle-class voters away from the Tories, and to find ways of making free markets popular.

This should not be impossible. There are some figures that would help. How many voters are aware that the richest one percent of tax payers contribute twenty-seven percent of all tax revenue? How many voters know that the state spends over £50,000 every year on a family of four? If these figures were widely known, the Tories electoral prospects would be even more roseate.

For decades, Tories have been insisting that far from being the enemy of public services, low taxation is their cash cow. Once the election is won, that point needs to be repeated, endlessly. Once the election is over, we can also hope that a Prime Minister with her own mandate will display more self-confidence and will be happier to share her own views with the public. They will of course be free market, free enterprise views… we trust.