Election Reflections
My invariable practice with all night events is to hit the sack early, knowing I will wake up regularly but in truth – once the exit poll is announced at 10.03pm – we know the result.
It was interesting to see the differences between the last campaign and this, from the micro-level of my constituency Brighton Kemp Town.
In the previous campaign Theresa May’s personality dominated and Jeremy Corbyn rammed home his anti-austerity message.
In this campaign the Tory Candidate councillor from Rottingdean promised to improve the A259, no mention of Boris Johnson.
Nor did incumbent Lloyd Russell-Moyle (Labour) – who won the seat from Conservative Simon Kirby and stressed his anti no deal voting record – mention Jeremy Corbyn.
Extraordinarily, as I have never witnessed this before in any General Election, every party promised to spend.
The reaction to Labour’s disaster was equally extraordinary.
One activist said it was nothing to do with personalities and everything to do with platforms and policies. The sour Margaret Beckett said very little but her clear impression from the doorsteps was confusion.
Until Labour wises up and understands the north in particular does not want a hard left candidate and are Brexit they will be in opposition. When it came to the privacy of the ballot box I suspect many Tory remainers feared Labour more than Brexit.
The Lib Dem campaign – culminating in the loss of Jo Swinson’s seat – was equally disastrous. At the start they were the party of Remain, they had the new independents ejected from their parties but totally failed to build on this. They emerged as they always are as contented to be a third party with 12-14% of the poll.
Watching an excellent documentary on the Roosevelts, the lesson learned – which Boris Johnson appreciated – is the electorate love an ebullient politician, which Theodore and Franklin Roosevelt both were.
He may be a chameleon and a charlatan with a somewhat rackety personal life, but Boris Johnson comes over as cheerful whilst Jeremy Corbyn was grim.
This is the probably the single biggest explanation for the Tory majority.
