Eyes to the Left

Welcome to the latest instalment of Eyes to the Left, Trafalgar Strategy’s updated newsletter. In the run up to the election, we’re talking about a subject we know a lot about: campaigning.?

Having run successful campaigns in the UK and North America for political parties, individual candidates and companies, we will dissect the key points and highlight the latest data. And with the Labour Party so widely expected to win, that’s where our focus will be.?

A new year has broken

Sir Keir Starmer started off 2024 with a set piece speech to the nation. With pretty much everyone expecting an election this year (Autumn is the present consensus) it’s no surprise that the speech focused on framing Labour’s campaign.?

A New Year speech can set the narrative for the year so you need to get your key message landed for broadcast and socials. For Labour the message is “change” (aka vote Labour and this is the year Britain gets its future back). But New Year speeches are also an opportunity to shape the wider election debate (only Labour offer change, the Tories have failed, you can trust us). The challenge for Sir Keir was that with no idea when the election will be, it’s a bit too early to be making detailed policy promises that the Conservatives can attack. This can leave a speech a bit thin, with little explanation of what “change” actually means. So, how did he do?

As a speech it was fine. There were the classic rhetorical flourishes like the repetition of ‘change Britain’ and ‘national renewal’ and ‘year of choice’ to create a bit of urgency and optimism and ladder up to his key message. There was a bit of bright sunlit uplands: “we have a plan to take back our streets, switch on Great British Energy, get the NHS back on its feet, tear down the barriers to opportunity, and get Britain building again.” There was also a lot of juxtaposition with the 14 year ‘hard slog’ of life under the Tory Government.

In fact this was a speech about the Conservatives as much Labour. In just under 1400 words, Sir Keir mentioned the Labour Party 24 times and the Tories 25. This balance provided the structure of the speech and a linguistic device with which to explore the idea of change, with Sir Keir constantly alternating between allegations of Conservative failure and mismanagement and Labour’s (vague) vision for the future.?

Although effective, this structure poses a few questions. If you spend all your time playing into “anti-Westminster” sentiment can you motivate voters to believe in the possibility of change? Does it make sense to accuse Tories of being “entitled”, “self serving” and “complacent” and yet make “national unity” your rallying cry? We’re not saying that it’s not the standard opposition mantra. We’re just not sure how well it works.

Having spent a lot of the speech attacking the Conservatives, Sir Keir also made a decent stab at positioning himself as on voters’ side. He gave his “we feel your pain” and “i grew up working class” routines a go. The problem with this is Sir Keir’s knighthood is a mental shortcut which communicates that whether he likes it or not, he has left his working class roots behind.?

In this regard, it was interesting to see him lean into his pre-political resume. The Conservatives are consistently using scandals from the Post Office to Jimmy Saville to suggest Sir Keir can’t be trusted for his time running the Crown Prosecution Service. But in a calculated move, we got Sir Keir talking about the power of Government to “make or break a life” and making “life and death decisions”. One of the questions we ask ourselves at the ballot box is whether a party leader can credibly make the big decisions - this was Sir Keir saying he’s been there, done that, got the knighthood.?

Perhaps understandably, the damp squib in this speech was policy. Yes the election could still be months off and the public may be fed up with the Conservatives but there was no real attempt to answer the question of why vote for Labour? There was a lot of talk of “hope” but any definition of the hope a Labour government will deliver was conspicuous by its absence.?

For all the talk of change, it's ironic the speech talked a lot about the collective eye-roll towards politicians. A speech that limits itself to saying how bad the other lot are without providing any alternative doesn’t disoblige the electorate of that opinion. If, as Sir Keir says, his biggest fear is that the electorate listen to him and give a “shrug of the shoulder” then he’s going to need to show a bit more ankle. He’s going to have to define change. But this probably wasn’t the time to do it.?

Adding up

Here are some of the numbers that have caught our eye:

• Voters would prefer investment in public services over income tax cuts by a margin of 64% - 26% according to a recent poll. Good news for Labour - not so good news for those in the Conservative Party who are pining after Liz Truss.?
• According to the World Economic Forum the number one risk facing the world in the next two years is misinformation and disinformation. It’s almost as if over half of the world is going to the polls in the next year.?
• Ipsos has asked Brits who they predict will win the election. 54% think Labour, 22% think the Conservatives. 62% believe Sir Keir will be leader of the Labour Party but only 43% say Rishi Sunak will remain leader of the Conservative Party. We’re pretty sure there won’t be a leadership contest in either of the main parties before the election but what do they say about the wisdom of crowds?

Poll of polls (figures taken from The Spectator data hub):

Candidate watch

Miatta Fahnbulleh, Labour Candidate for Camberwell and Peckham

• Fahnbulleh is the former CEO of the New Economics Foundation and was previously Director of Policy and Research at the IPPR.?
• A long time Labour insider having spent time in Gordon Brown’s No 10 Strategy Unit, Fahnbulleh is well connected (her website has endorsements from Mick Lynch and Andy Burnham) and boasts a strong record in policy development and campaigning.
• Her constituency pitch is that she’s a local, having moved to London aged five when her family entered the UK as refugees (and that she’ll restore some local bus routes).?
• The constituency of Camberwell and Peckham has been held by Harriet Harman since its creation in 1997. Harman was the MP for the old constituency of Peckham since 1982 and has consistently enjoyed large majorities (currently 33,780 votes or 60%).?
• The seat is the 18th safest Labour seat in the country so Fahnbulleh should be a shoe in.?