For anyone seeking to capture the essence of the UK general election campaign so far, two moments stand out. The first took place in the back of a car as Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn drove away from the launch of his manifesto. Filming a video for social media, he set out to name as many policies as possible in one minute.
Barely pausing for breath he rattled through pledges on the National Health Service, housing, schools, Brexit, student tuition fees and his green agenda. On he went, like a contestant naming prizes on the BBC’s Generation Game until as seconds expired he brandished the manifesto, adding exuberantly: “And that’s just 60 seconds worth — there’s a 104 pages in here.”
The second moment came during the first televised leaders debate, with groans in the studio audience as prime minister Boris Johnson twisted a question to get yet another mention of his Conservative party commitment to “Get Brexit done”.
Here in a few seconds was the organising difference between the Tories and Labour in their battle to win over voters. Mr Corbyn’s team has showered people with pledges like confetti at a wedding. By contrast Mr Johnson, a man who savours his own often wayward phrasemaking, has been defined by ruthless message discipline.
The message is something his team of Vote Leave alumni — Dominic Cummings, his chief strategist and Lee Cain, Downing Street communications chief — was crafting even before Mr Johnson became Conservative leader in the summer. Alongside the Brexit pledge are three Tory commitments to invest in schools, hospitals and more police. Barely a week of his premiership has gone by without a couple of hospital visits.
Linking these pledges with the delivery of Brexit facilitates a clear and — importantly — upbeat message of change. The seeming simplicity of Mr Johnson’s Brexit stance has helped him dissipate the threat from Nigel Farage’s Brexit party and own the Leave vote. Mr Corbyn is now shifting tack to try to win back Labour Brexiters alienated by the party’s ambiguous policy position.
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There is, of course, far more going on below the waterline of what is probably the most consequential British election since the second world war.
But in terms of campaign strategy it is Mr Johnson who enters the final fortnight with greater satisfaction. On Wednesday the most anticipated opinion poll predicted a healthy parliamentary majority for the Tories — an outcome that instantly provoked Conservative warnings against complacency. Things can still go badly wrong. While Mr Johnson has little in the way of Leave voters left to mop up, Labour is beginning to squeeze the Liberal Democrats.
But if the Tory campaign, masterminded by Australian strategist Isaac Levido, does succeed, it will be because the party has learnt lessons from two previous contests: the Vote Leave triumph in the 2016 Brexit referendum — on which many of Mr Johnson’s key campaign lieutenants worked — and Theresa May’s disastrous 2017 election.
From the 2016 plebiscite, Mr Johnson’s team established the value of intuitive, well-tested messages — an approach adopted enthusiastically by Paul Stephenson, Vote Leave’s director of communications and now an unofficial adviser to the Conservative campaign. The same people who gave the UK “Take back control” are behind “Get Brexit done”.
Critics point out the disingenuousness of this motto — the UK may officially leave the EU, but in truth Brexit will be far from done. Yet not only does it chime with exhausted voters, it also repeats the trick of the contentious referendum pledge to give the £350m spent on EU membership each week to the NHS. The backlash from people pointing out that the net figure was significantly lower simply spread the message that a lot of money was going to Brussels. Every time Mr Johnson’s opponents in the election argue how future trade talks with the EU mean Brexit will not really be completed, they are using his key campaign slogan.
The 2017 election is referenced as a cautionary tale by the prime minister’s team. One insider said: “There were choices made by the campaign and we are not making the same ones.” This is most true of the secrecy. The snap election was sprung on unprepared colleagues and Mrs May’s close aides did not share key decisions with colleagues. Convinced they were on course for a landslide, Mrs May’s team used her manifesto to secure sanction for unpopular policies — notably reform of social care, which came as a nasty surprise even to cabinet colleagues. The backlash against it marked the start of her slide in the polls.
Mr Johnson’s manifesto was widely shared with ministers and shorn of major surprises. It was also intentionally upbeat: the very tough Brexit message was linked with positive statements about the end of austerity and the splendidly vacuous “unleash Britain’s potential”. As important, this election has been planned for months. One minister said: “In 2017 I was almost organising things myself. This time we have a campaign manager trained centrally.”
Unexpected problems have been handled ruthlessly by the Tories. Insensitive comments in a radio interview about the Grenfell Tower fire saw Jacob Rees-Mogg, one of the most identifiable cabinet members, purged from the airwaves. “Screw ups happen. The important thing is to not get emotional,” said one key Conservative figure.
And yet this is not really a safety first strategy. In the words of one Tory campaign chief: “This is a change election.” This ought to be a Conservative weakness. Mr Corbyn is proposing enormous social, environmental and economic change. And yet it is Mr Johnson who has so far more successfully framed the change argument, depicting the delivery of Brexit, an end to political paralysis at Westminster and the cessation of austerity as the real break with the status quo. The prime minister defines his own government as just 100 days old. The message is that he is the change.
Mr Johnson’s other key advantage is Mr Corbyn. One Labour frontbencher and ally admitted: “Jeremy is universally unliked, especially on the Leave side.” The Tories have been remorseless in placing the Labour leader at the heart of the choice.
For all this, Labour has landed some blows on the Conservatives. Mr Corbyn claims Mr Johnson would harm the NHS through a post-Brexit trade deal with the US, and Labour has a portmanteau of policies designed to appeal to voters who can be effectively targeted through social media. Labour also has far more footsoldiers than the Tories and has devoted a lot of time to ensuring younger people are registered to vote. It has two weeks to claw back enough ground to rob Mr Johnson of a House of Commons majority. The Conservatives notably fear a weakening of the Lib Dem vote could boost Labour.
Ahead in the polls, the Tories are downplaying suggestions of an easy win and talking up the risk of a hung parliament — a strategy foreshadowed on Wednesday in a blog post by Mr Cummings.
This has two purposes: firstly to prevent voters sliding away from the Conservatives as waverers conclude it is safe to back another party, and secondly to emphasise the point that the change that matters is an end to the political gridlock.
Both main parties see the potential impact of voters sensing a clear Tory win. One senior Conservative MP said: “If the polls showed it narrowing a bit, that would be helpful. Not too much of course, but just enough to worry people”.
