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politicalbetting.com » Blog Archive » One of the architects of the worst general election campaign in history gives his thoughts on the campaign
Sir Lynton Crosby has spoken about the general election campaign which saw Mrs May squander David Cameron’s majority, The Guardian report that
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I am sceptical that the ground game in a GE makes that much difference, except on the margins, however it might feel to the people working hard doing it. Yes, where Labour campaigned hard, they did well, but seats like Canterbury and Kensington were won on big swings with relatively low levels of ground activity.
Firstly, we are shareholders, in our own right, in the EIB. Now, the Articles of Association state that you need to be an EU member to be a shareholder. But that doesn't mean that - on exit - we get stripped of our stake without compensation. In a "No Deal" Brexit, it would almost certainly end up in Court (it is a Luxembourg domiciled entity, so in a national court there), and we would win as we are shareholders in our own right.
Secondly, countries are legal entities in their own right. And when there is secession from a country, or it breaks up, then liabilities and assets are shared around. Take the USSR, the individual Republics took responsibility for pensions for their citizens (albeit Russia took on the, very small, foreign debts of the USSR).
Two years of transition based on continued single market + customs union membership followed by EFTA. That's what we have to go for, isn't it?
We have the figleaf of sovereignty in submitting to the EFTA court rather than the ECJ for Single Market issues, but we will accept ECJ regulation for Euratom, European Aviation Safety Agency and a few other organisations.
Which one would you want?
Edit. Both offers were equally improbable ...
Not that I am convinced that Crosby knows what he is doing.
I mean are we really going to crash out on WTO? No can't see it. So this is the least bad next alternative. Will people buy the EFTA Court vs ECJ? Who knows, @Charles has noted that it will be in the presentation (eg. Free Trade Association...) and well it might.
Will the euroloons be happy? They can bring the govt down if not, of course.
We essentially gave up at about 7:30. The only plus side was the 4/9 still available on a Labour hold which I piled on.
.@vincecable tells #pressgallery @LibDems have huge opportunity now that May has singlehandedly trashed 10 years of Cameron's modernisation
The one election where I saw no activity at all was the one in which I spoiled my ballot. If nobody gives a sh1t, why should I?
https://order-order.com/2017/07/11/osborne-defends-blackrocks-500-million-investment-standard-front-page/
Plus, even though Labour's pessimistic "high command" didn't designate some seats as official targets and tried to encourage people not to bother canvassing there, a lot of activists often just ignored them and campaigned where they wanted to anyway.
In 2014 we had the crunch period of the Scottish independence referendum throughout the summer, in 2015 we had the Labour leadership contest and Corbynmania, and then last year we had the Brexit fallout.
https://twitter.com/jameschappers/status/884767515603333121
I am simply suggesting that the relative importance of ground work is often over-stated, largely because it is hard work and when you work drop-dead hard for a month and get a result at the end of it, natural human nature is to conclude that one has led to the other.
In local elections, by-elections, and for the smaller parties needing to establish credibility, ground campaigns are absolutely key. For a General Election, where most people who are going to vote will do so anyway, and there there is a month long wall-to-wall national air war, not so much.
If we were looking for evidence of ground war effectiveness we would look for differences by geography (target campaigns v others) and through time (every day winning the ground war should tilt the balance progressively in your direction). The evidence for the former is patchy, beyond a percent or two, and for the latter very weak; the YouGov model with its 50,000 panel and lowest random MOE, suggests that once the Tory campaign had fallen apart in the third week of May (a dramatic shift, created by the air war) there was relatively little further Tory/Labour swing through to polling day; the opposite of what you would see if a ground war was slowly winning through.
I do remember commenting on here about just how many homes had Labour posters in their windows or on boards outside. They were everywhere. I did not think it meant anything at the time, but in retrospect it was a very clear indicator that something was happening.
Also we are operating on the assumption that the Single Market is actually available to us. The EU would probably agree, but it is not a given, and would depend on our attitude to the EU generally. They don't want a problem child.
I think it was the rallies and the social media that did it for Corbyn, not door knocking. But as GE2017 proved, that will only get you so far - and it wasn't enough to get him to number 10.
Johnson is, in the immortal words of Samuel Pepys "a talking, bragging Bufflehead...I observe him to be as very a coxcomb as I could have thought had been".
But the Conservative Party is now most certainly a trashed brand.
But of course Labour have four or five times as many members plus some union membership.
* not an accurate term as Blair left the Commons a decade ago, and is ignored by Centrist Labour.
Might I suggest Kwasi Kwarteng?
There has also been large tent etc in the market square on both Saturday's I've been in town since the election signing up voters etc. It is quite impressive and I am genuinely surprised. I misread it completely.
Yes, but what do they mean by that?
I simply don't think that at that age (18-23) there are that many Cons would-be activists. Apart from the hunting lot and, to come full circle, hence the Cons early pledge for a free vote on hunting, to get them out (and they came). But it was not enough.
Wonder which 'Commission bigwig' thought that qualification important ??
However, a a 5% year-on-year increase in hosting fees would see costs rise up to an unsustainable £26million by 2027.
...
The BRDC will now open fresh talks with new owners Liberty Media in the hope that a more cost-effective deal can be negotiated for future races."
http://www.planetf1.com/news/brdc-activate-silverstone-break-clause/
IMO the first big test for the new owners of F1.
Do you know the result of the Brexit war already?
I agree, but there are those on here who would hate the idea of PM Boris.
Personally I think it's Boris very Marmiticity that would make him good for PM.
Even the cows in the fields were not supporting the Tories in Leics.
We are also excitedly looking forward to a visit from JC over the next few weeks. I know he is in Machynlleth at the end of the month, so hopefully he will make a detour down here.
A PB lefty will be along shortly to report you to the authorities.
It was particularly galling to see gleeful tweets of local Tory MP and activists campaigning in Bishop Auckland, Blyth, Stockton, etc. (All lost). Everywhere other than their own constituency.
No wonder there were no posters. Why should anyone bother? The MP didn't appear in his own seat till the Tuesday before the vote.
Ilford North was the Labour target seat in the GE, to which activists were sent from all over, and is surely a candidate for having fought the most active 2017 campaign of all. Labour's vote rose by about 14%. Yet next door Chingford & Woodford, demographically very similar, chalked up a Labour vote rise of 15%, when the level of campaigning was hugely less (most activists working in Ilford N) - the true extent of the Tory/Labour swing came as a complete surprise when ballot boxes were actually opened. Nearby "safe" Labour seats (even against the predicted Tory tsunami) of Ilford South, Leyton & Wanstead and Walthamstow all chalked up vote rises of 11-12% despite campaigns less active than Ilford North and in areas where there were fewer non-Labour votes to gain in the first place.
The huge level of activity of Streeting's GE campaign was very obvious to voters in the seat, but didn't appear actually to produce a result out of line with neighbouring seats; indeed Chingford gained more votes by doing next to nothing in comparison.
King Cole, look forward to hearing news.
It's a significant test for the new owners, who have been making all the right noises on the importance of classic (mostly European) tracks.
http://www.shoutingatco.ws/2012/02/02/interview-the-deal-or-no-deal-contestant/
All from "a source" - so could be rubbish, but if true then Boris might not know what the hell is going on.
Looks like Boris is officially on maneuvers now...
He's an oaf. The sentiment is fine, indeed, correct, but the Foreign Secretary is acting like candidate Boris. He's playing to the gallery when he should be doing his job.
"The lads were what one would expect, straight from the plough, but the girls were an eye-opener. They were brutish and uncouth, filthy in appearance and in habits. Things may have changed since then – I hope they have. Perhaps the girls in very isolated districts such as that had less opportunity than their brothers for getting into the market and making contact with civilisation; I can only record the fact that these girls straight off the farms were the lowest types that I have ever seen in England, and incredibly foul-mouthed."
An enthusiasm gap is my latest explanation (if this gets shot down I have other...) for unexpectedly good Labour performance.
Increased campaigning by Labour is therefore to an extent a symptom rather than a cause.
Mr. Jessop, Yorkshire folk are the pinnacle of civilisation. We're the ones who made Constantine the Great.
My aunts were ‘straight off the farm’ but Hertfordshire. They were all very well spoken until, in the case of the three I saw near their death, they somewhat reverted. My uncles on the other hand sounded as though they came from rural Hertfordshire throughout their lives.
The govt is going to carry on twaddling away in fantasy mode about the various Brexit types and arguing about the divorce bill and EU citizens until it runs out of time and we WTO out.
Then they can moan about the Europeans setting unreasonable timetables and holding things up ("Not our fault Gov'nor"), the EU / UK citizens' standing will still need sorting, no divorce money will have been paid and we will be out.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slide_Rule:_Autobiography_of_an_Engineer
I think that younger people were simply better motivated to both get on the register and to vote. Big swings in university cities can signal nothing else. Plus the new registration system was better bedded in following GE2015 and the EU referendum in 2016 and there was a further wake up call on registration in the form of the local/mayoral elections a month earlier.
The disenchantment with May among older voters especially after the dementia tax, the terrible Tory campaign, the failure to take Labour on regarding the economy all played their role and bubbling under the surface was the assumption that the Tories with a landslide would go for hard brexit.
Corbyn will get a similar youth vote next time -no doubt still piling up votes in existing seats -but it is unlikely that the Tories will have the same leader, or that any of the other above mentioned conditions will be repeated.
Either way it seems to have worked, unless he is converting the previously converted?
In the Labour stronghold of East Ham, political activity was pretty minimal. Labour had street tables and people walking up and down the various High Streets but none of the other parties bothered.
I remain unconvinced about canvassing - some people swear by it, others swear at it. At a local level, it is important but in a GE more indicative.
Not since 1970 (arguably) had there been since a polarisation between the two major parties so trying to compare the 2017 result with 2005 or 2010 is fatuous. The presence of a 20% or so third party vote made it much easier to win much more with much less. Compare Blair's vote share in 2001 with May in 2017 and you'll see what I mean.
I don't know what or indeed if any of this has significance for 2022 or beyond. If you had tried to explain to someone in 2014 everything that would happen from then till 2017 they would be phoning for the men with the strait jackets.
I do think it's going to be tough to be in Government in the next two or three years and it's possible the "mid term" will come happy, be savage and last a long time. As an example, what do people think of Conservative prospects in London next year ?
David Davis is giving evidence to a House of Lords select committee later today, so no doubt someone will ask him about Boris' comments.