15 Nov 2019

General Election 2019: week three

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Water has featured more strongly in the election this week than the parties would have expected. Initially it was part of the war of words emerging from the Conservatives’ costing of Labour spending pledges last weekend – they claimed that Mr Corbyn was committed to an extra £1 trillion of spending in a five-year Parliament, including circa £200 billion allocated to nationalisation of assets such as the water industry. Labour (and Full Fact) were quick to dispute the suggestions, but you can expect more on this when all the manifestos are published in the next couple of weeks.

Water also provided the backdrop to footage of the party leaders as they toured the flooded areas of Yorkshire in recent days. These were highly unusual ‘photo ops’, as they were not part of carefully planned and scripted election ‘grids’, but rather a response to serious events outside the politicians’ control. Of course, these were highly political visits nonetheless, with opposition parties making the charge that the government was too slow to appreciate what was going on, and the government seeking to make plain that all the appropriate steps had been taken at the right time.

Regardless of your judgement about the rights and wrongs of the party leaders’ responses, nobody can deny that the flood visits became election events – and underlined that the most carefully planned campaigns can be knocked off course very quickly. If Mr Johnson felt uncomfortable in Yorkshire, Mr Corbyn had a difficult time in Scotland (where he appeared to offer two different timescales for a second independence referendum in the space of a few hours), and Ms Swinson had to explain why it was right for the Liberal Democrats to stand down in favour of other ‘Remain’ parties in some seats, but not others. As for Mr Farage, I will return to him later. Suffice to say, the parties’ election gurus will be hoping they can now return to safer ground and stick to what they choose as their ‘core messages’.

The route a party leader takes on that safer ground is usually very revealing. The two ‘main party’ leaders will seek to cover the entire country multiple times during the election period. But they will visit target regions as often as possible (hence Mr Johnson’s efforts in the Midlands and the North this week, and Mr Corbyn’s two days in Scotland trying to re-establish his party in the face of a strong SNP starting position). For Ms Swinson, her focus will also be ‘national’, but she will, unashamedly, be even more focused on individual target seats – some may get more than one visit depending on the developments in the overall election.

In passing, you will already have heard the cliché of the ‘campaign trail’ many times. It applies both to leaders and to individual candidates and conjures up the idea of a linear, or gently meandering, progression along some reasonably-well defined route, towards the marker point of the polling booth on election day. The truth for most candidates, if not the leaders (they hope), is more like the flight path of a demented bee. They are condemned to crisscross a narrow (constituency) patch, time after time, lured by the hope of collecting valuable pollen (or votes) along the way. And all the while being buffeted by predators and enduring an unpleasant atmosphere. Arriving at the hive (or count) can offer respite, but sadly, for most, the brutal reckoning of a failed mission. It is quite something that so many volunteer.

Which brings me back to Mr Farage. He has chosen not to consign himself to the fate of the demented bee, so will not be a candidate in this election. Instead he will stick to the national campaign, but in only half the country’s seats. In what he described as a ‘unilateral Leave alliance’ he has restricted Brexit Party candidates to seats not currently represented by the Conservatives. Superficially this is good for Mr Johnson, as it reduces the risk of losing some of his own seats. But the asymmetry of the gesture makes it less so. By splitting the Leave vote in other constituencies, and so making it harder for Conservatives to win seats from Labour and others, everyone is left guessing, yet again, about Mr Farage’s game plan and his likely impact.

So, another week gone and we are still getting into the election stride (or should that be flight path?). Mr Johnson will look to his (still) strong poll ratings and be pleased to have dodged some unexpected challenges. But he will know he has to be ready, like everyone else, for whatever next week delivers.

Michael Moore
Director General, BVCA


Poll Watch

Each week I will bring you the latest polling figures from Britain Elects and other intelligence from the campaign trail. Only 27 more sleeps to go.

Britain Elects Poll of Polls

As usual, we turn to the Britain Elects Poll of Polls, which, as of 5pm last night, is showing an increase for Labour, with everyone else showing varying degrees of a fall in support (barring the Lib Dems who remain the same as last week).


Boris’s back benchers

If Boris is returned to No 10 there are a number of ex-No 10 staffers that will be on the government benches for the first time and probably propelled into ministerial status in double-quick time. These include Andrew Griffith, Boris's short lived No 10 business adviser, chosen for the safe seat of Arundel and South Downs; James Wild, Boris's former deputy chief of staff in the safe seat of North West Norfolk; and his ex-political secretary Danny Kruger, in the safe Conservative seat of Devizes.

Ten key constituency battle grounds

With all the talk of Nigel Farage ‘standing down’ his Brexit party candidates in 317 Conservative-held seats, I thought I'd look at the most marginal parliamentary seats. Of the 650 Parliamentary constituencies, 97 were won by a margin of 5% or less of votes cast – a sharp increase on the 56 won by this narrow margin in the 2015 Election, and slightly more than the 91 seats in the 2010 Election.

The number of very safe seats also increased markedly in 2017. Seats won by a margin of over 50% increased from 21 in 2015 to 35 in 2017, while the number of seats won by a margin of between 45% and 50% increased from 18 to 29.

In the 2017 General Election 31 seats were won with majorities of less than 1% of votes cast (compared with 13 in 2015 and 23 in 2010). Within those 31, a remarkably high proportion - 12 - are in Scotland, comprising eight SNP holds, three Labour gains from the SNP, and one Conservative gain from the SNP. The most marginal seat in the UK is North East Fife, where the SNP beat the Liberal Democrats by just two votes. The most marginal seat in England – Kensington in London – was the last result to be declared on the day after the election. It was won by Labour by a margin of 20 votes (0.05%). There are a total of 11 seats that were won by fewer than 100 votes in this election, compared with three in 2015 and six in 2010.

There are 10 key seats that are worth keeping an eye on the night of 12 December, ones which could determine the result of this election. Let’s remind ourselves that this is the third election in five years so voter fatigue may play a big part:

North East Fife – SNP/Liberal Democrat marginal
Held by SNP
Majority: 2
SNP likely to hold

Kensington – Labour/Conservative/Lib Dem marginal
Held by Labour
Majority: 20
Conservative target seat

Richmond Park – Conservative/Lib Dem marginal
Held by Conservative
Majority: 45
Lib Dem target seat

Crewe and Nantwich – Labour/Conservative marginal
Held by Labour
Majority: 48
Conservative target seat

Canterbury – Labour/Conservative marginal
Held by Labour
Majority: 185
Conservative target seat

Hastings and Rye – Conservative/Labour marginal
Held by Conservative
Majority: 346
Labour target seat

Brecon and Radnorshire – Lib Dem/Conservative marginal
Held by Liberal Democrats
Majority: 1,425

Cheltenham – Conservative /Lib Dem marginal
Held by Conservative
Majority: 2,569
Lib Dem target seat

Workington – Labour/Tory marginal
Held by Labour
Majority: 3,925
Conservative target seat

Bolsover – Labour heartland held by Dennis Skinner since 1970
Held by Labour
Majority: 5,288
Brexit Party target seat

More TV Battles

BBC will host a live head-to-head debate between Boris Johnson and Jeremy Corbyn on 6 December. A seven-way podium debate will also take place between ‘senior figures’ from the UK's major political parties on 29 November. These are in addition to Sky and ITV’s hustings as I outlined last week.

Commentators' Corner

Each week I pick a blogger/commentator who has something interesting to say about the campaign and the election. This week I’ve chosen the Joseph Rowntree Foundation. Its research shows that low-income voters will be crucial at this election with turnout expected to be higher than before and more likely to be swing voters than other groups. They wish to see a party that meets their values and their living standards and are less tribally loyal to a single party.

Also of interest is Matthew Goodwin, professor of politics and international relations at Kent University and a senior fellow of Chatham House, who has argued against a likely student voter backlash at this election. His work can be found at his blog here, and on Twitter.

He argues that Generation Z, noteworthy for spending more of their time than millennials on volunteering and boycotting products for ethical or environmental reasons, may be the first generation to conclude that traditional politics does not hold the answer to their main concerns, of which climate change is paramount. He concludes that they lean heavily towards Labour, but many of their heroes, such as Greta Thunberg, stand apart from party politics.

If there is anyone you would like to suggest, then please share with me. Or, if you have any views or insights on the election trail, then don’t be shy, send them my way. After all, we’ve got 3 weeks of this so let’s make it as informative and entertaining as possible.

Lisa Hayley-Jones
Director of Political & Business Relations


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