The UK election has been a six-week campaign. It feels like longer. Much longer. Commentators anticipated the election for months and so it’s a relief that the end is in sight.
If the polls are correct, it’s the end for Rishi Sunak’s government, too.
He led a shambolic campaign, and his public relations strategy has been – to put it politely – bizarre. After 14 years of Conservative governments and five rotating prime ministers, even someone more skilled in the dark arts of voter persuasion than Mr Sunak would have found it difficult to make the case for five more years – almost 20 in total.
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The Labour party has captured the public mood with a one-word slogan: change.
In 2024, the UK is more divided, more unsettled, less healthy and grumpier about politics than in 2010. Health outcomes have declined. Our rivers and seas are more polluted. Our public services – particularly the National Health Service – are not functioning as well as they used to. Brexit isn’t supposed to be an issue, but everyone knows it’s been a failure.
If the polls are right, Labour will indeed bring change – but will also inherit a disconsolate and divided country. The challenges are immense, and in these past few days, the party remains frightened by another word: complacency. Will Labour voters take victory for granted and stay at home?
Back in 1992, the then Labour leader Neil Kinnock appeared to be coasting to victory against a tired and scandal-ridden Conservative party. He lost. John Major and the Conservatives continued in power for another five years. Even though that does not look likely this time, the complacency question leaves deep scars.
Mr Sunak is, however, fighting on several fronts simultaneously – against Labour to his left, the upstart Reform party of Nigel Farage to his right, the Liberal Democrats in the centre and numerous internal enemies within his own party. Some of Mr Sunak’s colleagues are already quietly jockeying for the leadership if – or when – Mr Sunak loses.
The sense that voters have made up their minds is borne out by the declining viewing figures for TV election debates. Back in 2019, 6.8 million British viewers watched then prime minister Boris Johnson take on then Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn. In the first debate this year, only 4.8 million viewers tuned in.
Viewing figures have declined in other televised debates since then. For a sense of perspective, a peak of 15 million watched England play Serbia in the European Football Championship. (And the England team has been criticised for being “boring”.)
What has been revealed during this campaign is that Labour under Keir Starmer is a cautious party under a very cautious leader. Promises have been costed, yes, but in policy terms it’s been – frankly – a bit dull.
The election fireworks have come away from the formal campaign and a series of scandals. It was revealed that a number of people, including some police officers who served in Downing Street, and some Conservative politicians, candidates or advisers, bet money on the election date of July 4.
The precise details are not yet known. But even if no laws were broken – and that may take some time to establish – the idea that some people potentially with inside knowledge of the election date were able to place assured bets on that date is not a good look.
One MP, Philip Davies, is alleged to have bet £8,000 (about $10,000) that he himself would lose his seat. This is astonishing. His wife, Esther McVey, was made by Mr Sunak his “Minister for Common Sense”, perhaps revealing that common sense these days is uncommon within the Conservative party.
Mr Davies will not confirm or deny the allegations but says he has done nothing illegal. That, of course, is not the point. And the point is that all this froth and serial scandals reveal why the Conservatives may be on their way to a historic defeat. Few people truly understand the complexities of inflation, taxes or improving the health service, but we all understand that a small group of people allegedly exploiting privileges or insider information is unfair and deplorable.
The joker in the pack this week is now – and for years has been – Mr Farage. He is one of the architects of Brexit – now highly unpopular. Mr Farage has also managed to unite most other political parties in condemnation of his comments that Nato and the West were to blame for Russia invading Ukraine.
The charge that Mr Farage is a friend of Russian President Vladimir Putin, however, does not seem to have dented his popularity with voters on the far right, who seem to lap up his loathing of migrants and what many suggest is Mr Farage’s Islamophobia.
The opinion polls vary a bit but seem to have settled on the Labour party winning an enormous majority of at least 100 seats. The Conservatives, the polls say, are being battered on all sides, and Mr Farage’s Reform party could win two or three seats.
But – in that old political cliche – the only vote that matters is on Thursday, and we could yet be in for some surprises.
