The May 27 headline in the London Spectator couldn’t be more direct. “This is the worst Tory election campaign ever,” proclaims author Rod Liddle. He just might be right.
When Prime Minister Theresa May called for snap elections on May 8 for the House of Commons, her Conservative party enjoyed a 22 percent lead in most polls over the Labour party, her closest rival by far in the four-way contest. By May 26, that lead had been slashed to just 5 percent according to the London Times/YouGov poll, which, if correct, could leave the Tories with as little as a two-seat majority in the 650 member chamber after the June 8 elections. Hardly a mandate.
The prime minister had hoped that an overwhelming victory would mute opposition at home, strengthen the resolve of her supporters, and give her a leg up in dealing with the European Union over the terms of Brexit. But much has gone wrong and most of it is self-inflicted.
“It defies logic,” asserts Nancy Todd, president of the International Association of Political Consultants, “to hire, as your lead strategists to defend Brexit, the same consultants who ran the losing side of the 2016 EU referendum to defeat Brexit.” But May has done just that. Running the Tory campaign, among others are Lynton Crosby and Jim Messina, whose former employer, David Cameron, was forced to resign as prime minister after losing the 2016 Brexit vote.
Crosby, a transplanted Australia political consultant, has had a strong influence on the U.K. Conservative party since 2005. Messina served as President Obama’s 2012 campaign manager and worked in the White House, too. Like many American consultants, they understand the strength of online media and targeting voters via digital data. But strong evidence shows that their overdependence on social media is their Achilles’ heel. “It was a key misstep in Cameron’s EU referendum defeat, and it could be a major factor in next month’s elections if the Conservatives fail to pull out a major victory,” stated Bob Heckman, a senior consultant on six U.S. presidential campaigns.
Why? Because voter demographics in the United Kingdom closely resemble those in the United States. The older you are, the more likely you are to vote but the less likely you are to use social media or even the internet. In the 2015 general elections, only 43 percent of 18-24 year olds voted while 78 percent of voters over 65 cast a ballot. And because seniors are a much larger percent of the total population, they represent a much larger segment of the electorate. And where do they get their campaign information? The British Office of National Statistics says it’s not from the internet. In fact almost 6 in 10 adults don’t even own a smartphone.
Current events have not helped May, either. Many thought that the swift and strong response by the British government to the recent terrorist attacks in Manchester would benefit the Tories. The prime minister quickly counterattacked her chief rival, Labour party leader Jeremy Corbyn, who has attempted to place blame for the Manchester bombing on U.K. foreign policy. Corbyn is even more unpopular than May, but that does not seem to have translated into any boost for the Tories. Some blame the messenger. Theresa May is indeed no Thatcher. Her stiff oratorical style and lack of wit or personal warmth hamper the delivery of even the most universally accepted message.
Anecdotal evidence also suggests that voters may resent being summoned to the polls so soon again after the last election, to be used as pawns in the prime minister’s political wars.
And then there is the Tory party manifesto. In a recent BBC radio interview, George Osborne, the chancellor of the exchequer under Cameron, accused May of publishing a party platform that is “badly thought through” and lacking in detail. But from controversial cuts in social care to her overwhelmingly unpopular support of fox hunting, the public knows enough about the party’s manifesto to find it off-putting.
May’s recent decision to start all over and rewrite her party’s manifesto prompted the London Sunday Times to dub this “the strangest general election seen in decades.”
So the Tories’ problems looks like this: It’s not just the message; it’s the messenger and the message-delivery system as well.
Even if May manages to eke out a “victory,” as most still expect, it won’t be the mandate she was hoping for.
“I’ve always thought that calling the election was a mistake predicated on misplaced confidence,” concluded Rod Liddle in his article. Add up all the self-inflicted wounds, and it is clear that even if the Tories to win on June 8, the prime minister will be holding a weaker hand as she faces the arduous task of negotiating the terms of Britain’s exit from the EU.
Tom Edmonds is a veteran Republican political media consultant. He is a past president of the International Association of Political Consultants.
