Written by Kate Dommett and Luke Temple.
Digital technology is now central to political campaigns and in the 2017 General Election we think there were two developments that have important implications for UK politics. The first was the developing role of Facebook. The second concerns what we describe as ‘satellite campaigns’. Both of these complicate election regulation law, and raise questions about whether parties still have control over their campaigns.
Written by Mark Stuart.
While the Prime Minister licks her wounds in England, another female Tory leader north of the Border has emerged as the new star of the Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party. Last Thursday, Ruth Davidson presided over a dozen spectacular gains for the Scottish Tories.
Remarkably, after years in the wilderness, Davidson engineered her Party’s best performance since 1983, including the spectacular toppling of former SNP leader, Alex Salmond in Gordon and the scalp of Angus Robertson, the Leader of the SNP’s Westminster MPs in Moray.
Written by Steven Fielding.
“… for the first time since 1945 a political party with an openly socialist policy has received the support of 8½ million people. … the Labour manifesto commanded the loyalty of millions of voters and a democratic socialist bridgehead has been established from which further advances in public understanding and support can be made. …It is no wonder that the establishment still fears the Labour Party and its ideas so much. For they know that it is the only real challenge to their privileges.”
No, this is not a leaked draft of Jeremy Corbyn’s concession speech, one all the polls suggest he will need to deliver on June 9th. It is an excerpt from a Guardian article written by Tony Benn published within days of Labour’s cataclysmic 1983 defeat. That election – coincidentally held on June 9th – saw the Conservatives win a 144-seat majority and reduced Labour to 27.6 per cent of the vote, just 700,000 ahead of the Social Democratic Party-Liberal Alliance, and to a mere 209 MPs. It was Labour’s worst result since 1935.
Written by Helen Williams.
It’s been a bruising week for Mrs May’s Team. Mocked for her non-appearance at the BBC debates and visibly uncomfortable at press conferences, the Prime Minister should be very clear that what once appeared to be a guaranteed Conservative landslide in the 2017 General Election is now increasingly in danger of becoming a hung parliament.
After a disastrous public response to the social care proposals (deftly dubbed the ‘dementia tax’), Mrs May appeared to completely rebrand her campaign, attempting to shift the focus back to Brexit and immigration. Gone is the prominent slogan ‘Theresa May: strong, stable leadership in the national interest’ (with the words Conservative Party difficult to locate); now it’s ‘Theresa May and the Conservatives: a Brexit deal for a bright future’.
Written by Steven Fielding.
This has been the most tragic, weirdest and most unnecessary of election campaigns in British history. Some see the return of two party politics – with UKIP, the Liberal Democrats and SNP all looking likely to lose support – as a reassuring echo of elections past. But nothing else is familiar or comforting.
Written by Siim Trumm.
The electoral pendulum is in full swing in Wales. Only in the course of last few months have the polls gone from showing a narrow Labour lead to suggesting a historic Conservatives’ majority to indicating a Labour triumph. Whether a lot of Welsh voters will wake up on June the 9th feeling blue because the country is not blue enough or too blue seems to be anyone’s guess, but one thing is certain, this is gearing up to be one of the most unpredictable elections in Wales.
Written by Helen Williams.
As the Remain campaigners were perhaps too slow to recognise, the real battleground of the EU Referendum was immigration, not the economy (although the two are, of course, inextricably linked in practice). Immigration has remained the focus of Theresa May’s approach to Brexit, underpinning her oft-repeated stance that ‘no deal is better than a bad deal for the UK’ (Conservative manifesto (hereafter CM), p. 36) – a statement that cannot make sense if speaking from an economic perspective. Labour’s manifesto directly counters this: ‘In trade negotiations our priorities favour growth, jobs and prosperity. We make no apologies for putting these aims before bogus immigration targets’ (Labour manifesto (hereafter LM), p. 28). This is also a direct swipe at the Tories’ continued commitment to reduce annual net migration from the hundreds of thousands to the tens of thousands (CM, p. 54). Both parties’ statements on migration address Brexit, the economy, healthcare, students, and families. The position they take on each of these show remarkable differences. This blog specifically looks at the issue of family migration.
Written by Helen Williams.
Theresa May’s manifesto for the Conservative and Unionist Party in the 2017 general election has faced a critical, if generally favourable, reception. One of the more remarkable evaluations is that it is a ‘Red Tory’ manifesto. An alternative to ‘Blue Labour’, a Red Tory manifesto blends social conservatism with economic policies tailored to workers.
To what extent does this resonate with the contents of Mrs May’s manifesto?
Written by Steven Fielding.
When Theresa May called a snap election she did so for two reasons. The early summer is her last chance to hold a contest before the start of Brexit negotiations. And the Conservatives’ commanding lead over Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour party meant May was confident she could win a big Commons majority that would see her through the tricky Brexit process and beyond.
Labour could do nothing about the timing of Brexit negotiations but has only itself to blame for the weakened state in which it currently finds itself. The 2015 election was devastating for Labour: the polls had incorrectly predicted a hung Parliament. But the silver lining was that David Cameron’s unexpected Conservative government had a majority of just 12 seats and was about to hold a referendum on the EU about which it was seriously divided. If Labour members had elected a more adept leader to replace Ed Miliband, one with greater credibility in key voters’ eyes, the party had some hope of rebuilding itself during the new Parliament. For while Miliband’s leadership was flawed, his talk of the ‘squeezed middle’ and ‘One Nation’ resonated with the public.
Written by Steven Fielding.
As he made his journey from conventional politician to radical hero, Tony Benn became increasingly critical of how the Labour party did politics. Benn’s diary records Harold Wilson, who had just won a landslide victory in 1966, claiming that the public wanted him to be their “doctor who looked after the difficulties so that it could go on playing tennis”.
Benn saw this attitude as incompatible with a government that wanted to transform society. By the early 1980s he looked to another kind of leadership. He often cited the Chinese philosopher Lao Tzu, to whom is attributed the view that the best leader operates unnoticed and that when their work is done the people believe they did it by themselves.
