Ready, Steady, Go
At the mercy of the weather and struggling to make himself heard as he explained his reasoning, the manner of Sunak’s election announcement may yet turn out to be highly fitting for the campaign ahead. Because, for the next six weeks, the task for the parties will be as much about the fight for airtime and trying to define what the election is about as it will be about direct appeals for the votes of the electorate.
The party strategists know that if they can successfully define the key questions at the front of voters’ minds – do they want change or stability? who do they trust to tackle the big issues? – then they hold a vital advantage. Every party wants to fight on their strongest ground, to ensure the question voters are asking is the one they themselves pose the best answer to. Witness Boris Johnson’s discipline at turning 2019 into a referendum on who was best placed to ‘get Brexit done’ – a question which, happily for him, the voters thought him their answer to. Or 1997, a case study of a ‘change’ election, which saw Tony Blair sweep to power as the alternative to a Major government Labour looked to define as tired, out of ideas and unable to deliver the change the country needed.
So as the parties roll out their plans, campaign grids and events, it’s worth paying close attention to their first pronouncements, for they provide an insight into what the parties want to talk about and, by extension, where they think their route to victory lies.
Sunak’s pitch: Clear plan. Bold action. Secure future.
Straight out of the gate, Rishi Sunak looked to portray this as a choice between a Conservative government who have a plan to offer security in an “unstable world” with a Labour Party who offer only uncertainty. Pointing to improved inflation figures and referencing the furlough scheme which remains one of his strongest cards with voters, he clearly marked his economic argument: things have turned the corner with us – don’t risk it by giving the other lot a shot.
For him the question is whether the voters, after 14 years, are in a mood to even give him a hearing let alone whether they’ll be convinced by a message that the economy has turned a corner when many are personally feeling the opposite. The Conservatives are also acutely aware of the twin threats of Reform and core voter apathy eating into their vote, which helps to explain early advertising warning that “a vote for Reform is a vote to put Keir Starmer into power”. The threat of ‘coalition of chaos’ with Labour leading an unstable, rag tag collection of their, SNP and Lib Dems MPs into power is likely to be returned to repeatedly the weeks progress.
Labour’s promise of change
Within moments of the election announcement, Labour issued a campaign video setting out their stall. With Starmer centre stage, it was just a couple of minutes in length, but the message could easily have been boiled down to its single-word title: change.
Labour too offers us clear dividing lines: a vote for them is a vote to end the Tory chaos; five more years of economic failure versus a promise of a better Britain. Labour’s campaign is not complacent but it is confident; they believe they are in step with a public desire for something new and they hope to capitalise on this with promises of a plan that’s “ready to go” and better times ahead. For them, the test will be how this message holds up and resonates through the rigours of a campaign where Starmer’s claim to have changed his party, along with Rachel Reeves hard work to try to reassure the voters worried about that eternal electoral question – Labour’s economic competence – are sure to be tested.
By understanding the what and the why of the campaigns we can gain an understanding of where the parties, at least, think this election will be won and lost. Of course, they won’t have it all their own way. Every campaign has its bumps in the road and unexpected moments which will test even the most disciplined, but in large part it will be the campaign team which can best navigate this while maintaining focus that will gain an advantage.
As the starting gun is fired, Labour is clearly ahead – the polls tell us that. But six weeks is a long time and campaigns can, and do, make a difference. While we can’t yet say for certain where we’ll end up, we can better understand the route the competing parties would like us to take to get there. Off we go.