04 May 2017
All Quiet
The silent campaign.
by J.R.Thomas
Somebody should have told Mrs May. Trying to doorstep Scottish voters is only going to end in embarrassment. In this case it was minor embarrassment – of six households whose garden paths Theresa padded up, one (lady) householder shouted from a distance “No thank you!”. And the other five were all out, or in that traditional Scottish way, were pretending to be. Mrs May stuck a few leaflets in their letter boxes, pretended to make jolly conversation with Ruth Davidson, the Scottish Tory leader and rising party star, and departed.
At least she did not suffer the terrible fate of Gordon Brown in 2010, forgetful that he had a live mike pinned to his lapel, referring to a lady only too enthusiastic to be door-stepped as “that bigoted woman”. And given that this enthusiasm on Mrs May’s part for meeting voters is at least in part a reflection of her desire not to appear in the leaders debates on the television, she might well strike a chord with that part of the electorate who also do not want to appear on the goggle box.
This is a strangely quiet election so far. In part this must be because everybody thinks they already know the winner and the only question is by what margin. It also helps keep things on a low key that three of the opposition party leaders are, for various reasons, not making a big noise yet, (the exception is Ms Sturgeon who never stops making a noise). To further complicate things, it would be fair to say, none of the three have the total and enthusiastic support of their parties. The only really sensible remark so far has come from Mr Nuttall of UKIP, who can no doubt see what is happening to the UKIP vote, urging voters over the weekend not to let the Conservatives get too big a majority so that there can be no Brexit backsliding. But it is not a terribly compelling argument for voting for his party, even for Leavers of the most convinced persuasion.
Your correspondent decided to investigate this phony war period by making a comparison between a central London seat, reasonable safe Conservative territory and strongly “Remain” at this time last year, and a very rural seat, Tory at the moment, but Labour in the fairly recent past and with a big “Leave” showing in the Referendum. To start with the comparison looked very exciting; in London not a sign that an election was taking place, no posters, stickers, billboards. But in rural England massive electoral fever had broken out. So much so, that a rural straw poll was carried out on voting intentions as revealed by window posters and bill boards. This indicated a majority for the Liberal Democrats, with around sixty per cent of the voters tending to the orange, and second place in close contestation by UKIP. If the poster count is reliable Labour will not get a single vote; and the Tories perhaps one – no stickers or placards wedged in hedges, but one householder had put up, or at least permitted to be placed in his neat front garden (or maybe it is the candidate’s own house), a very substantial structure displaying a poster for the Tory candidate, showing him in neat tie, trimmed moustache, and tweed jacket to set off splendidly rural red cheeks.
Except it was then realised that there was a serious error in the polling system used. Those displays of orange and of purple, and that single blue, were all for the County Council elections this very day, if you rush to read us on the Thursday of publication. When it comes to the General Election, there is no more sign of excitement than in our mystery London borough.
There is of course always a danger that the electorate will get fed up with trudging off to the polls when elections are held this close together. Last week we highlighted some dangers to Mrs May from tactical voting, and here is another, that the voters will not bother to go and vote, either because they have had enough of it or because they feel they don’t need to as a Conservative victory is certain. This could be to all the parties disadvantage of course, Labour assuming the Tories have it (and not being that keen on Mr Corbyn, or, tactically, calculating that a massive Labour defeat will see him deposed post-election); and Conservatives assuming there is no need to turn out, especially if they are Remainers, and the Liberals just feeling their votes are wasted, even for that nice Mr…erm, whatever his name is.
That could though also be of benefit to the minor parties who may be of more idealistic hue and will always hope for a surprise victory. It has to be said that early detailed local polls show a complete collapse in the UKIP vote, though by idealistic we are more thinking of the Greens and LibDems and Scotsnats, all of course profound Remainers. It does suggest that marginal seats may be much more fought over than usual, as individual candidates see a chance of winning a seat (or try to avoid losing one). Certainly electors in Twickenham may have a torrid time avoiding the candidates as Sir Vince Cable tries to regain the seat he surprisingly lost in 2015. He seems to have been a victim of demographics there as what used to be a significant population of first time buyers (and thus more leftish inclined voters) has been pushed further west and Twickenham has moved its income and age profiles upwards; so he may not succeed.
But generally so far it seems to be going the May way; she must rather feel she is punching air at the moment, although no doubt now grateful to have on her side an unexpected secret weapon which should her underpin her appeal. We doubt it was M. Jean-Claude Juncker’s intention to reinforce Theresa’s popularity quite so dramatically, but his rather wonderful briefing against her following the allegedly bad tempered Downing Street dinner can only have reinforced Tory affection for their leader and brought her warm support from wavering Labour and UKIP electors. And as for ringing Mother Merkel and dragging her away from breakfast to get her to condemn Mrs M to further make his point, Conservative Central Office must already be lobbying for the man to be given an honorary knighthood on 9th June. Here is a bit of advice to Mr Corbyn: get on the wrong side of M. Juncker, it could be your only hope.
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