Voters play Theresa May slogan bingo as election fever grips Tory HQ
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Version 0 of 1. Challenged about robotic slogans that are already dominating the narrative of the 2017 general election, Theresa May replied in one broadcast interview, apparently without irony, that she wanted to talk about “strong and stable leadership”. On social media, the remark warranted a tick in so-called election bingo as political enthusiasts joked about how many times the prime minister would roll out the same stock phrases. We'll be covering @theresa_may's appearances on the @MarrShow and @pestononsunday this morning. Here's your bingo card to play along at home pic.twitter.com/qURHuMomFb Senior Conservative figures argued that the messaging was part of a “ruthlessly disciplined” campaign in which they were uninterested in the musings of the Westminster bubble and simply determined to hammer the message through to voters. Internal polling had delivered one key lesson: that May’s personal ratings were well ahead of the party and that an intensive six-week campaign had to be centred on her. One source said while the Tory leader enjoyed campaigning she was less keen on the personal nature of the strategy, but had been convinced that it offered the best chance of victory. In Westminster, the Conservative party has been rapidly drawing together advisers from No 10 and government departments into what is known as CCHQ: the party’s control centre. The ground floor consists of an open room with one corner office for the Conservative chair, Patrick McLoughlin, and an open space in which most of the team are asked to hotdesk. A central pod is reserved for key figures such as Sir Lynton Crosby (who has yet to properly decamp), deputy chair Stephen Gilbert and May’s joint chief of staff, Nick Timothy and Fiona Hill. The room is staffed from early morning until late at night, with a breakfast of cereal, muffins and croissants served each day and a hot meal brought in for dinner. At one side is the Thatcher room, which sources say is used for key meetings. A basement floor is available for phone-banking. Even some of the most key advisers based there, with critical logistical roles over the next two months, were given just hours’ notice of the snap general election. They described how May had been able to quickly gear up for the polls by pulling together the infrastructure and individuals who drove her predecessor, David Cameron, to success in 2015. Crosby has been joined again by close colleague Mark Textor and Barack Obama’s former deputy chief of staff, Jim Messina. Also on board are digital media specialists Tom Edmonds and Craig Elder who reached 17 million people a week with targeted online communications during the previous general election. They argued afterwards that the internet was “one of the quickest, most powerful and cost effective ways to reach the people you need to reach”. Everything, they revealed, had been “tracked, measured and scrutinised” so every penny was spent to maximum effect. It was not about Vine or Instagram when they wanted to target a 40-year-old mum of two in Derby North, they said, but Facebook in the evening when the kids were in bed. One example was an interactive calculator to show how much people saved from policies such as raising the personal allowance. On the road, May has chosen a similar backdrop to Cameron in the form of Tory activists gathered in community halls in key constituencies across the country. The controlled nature of the campaign was mocked by the SNP’s Westminster leader, Angus Robertson, who said the prime minister had “braved the Scottish electorate with a closed meeting in a forest booked as a children’s party”. So PM May has braved the Scottish electorate with a closed meeting in a forest, booked as a children party, apparently breaching the rules 👎 pic.twitter.com/shRaAJTf8T As they get to work, the Tory MP for Ipswich and Cabinet office minister, Ben Gummer, is working on the manifesto along with May’s closest advisers, Timothy and Hill, as well as John Godfrey who was brought into Downing Street as director of policy from his City career at Legal and General. Ideas from MPs are fed through the chair of the prime minister’s policy board, George Freeman, while the chief whip, Gavin Williamson, has a critical role. For Timothy, sources say the aim is to reposition the Conservative party as a brand that can reach not just the well-off but the working class, taking votes even from the most unlikely parts of the Labour heartlands. The focus will be education reform, with grammar schools at its heart, as well as a more interventionist approach to the economy and a key industrial strategy – as well as the promise to deliver Brexit. The package will be delivered in a “slimmed-down but bold” manifesto, according to sources, which will aim to avoid trapping the government through gimmicks and giveaways like the tax lock, which tied the government’s hands by preventing any flexibility on VAT, income tax and national insurance. Despite that, those close to the campaign admitted they were frustrated when a hint from the chancellor, Philip Hammond, about the tax strategy saw the issue dominate the media and delivered a deeply negative “Pay and DisMay” headline in the Sun, which is seen as a crucial newspaper to have on board. Before policy, the first job for Tories is to explain to voters, bored of three national polls in three years, of why this election is happening. “That is what we have been told to focus on for the first 10 days,” said one cabinet minister, outlining the messaging about the need for a Brexit mandate in the face of troublesome opposition and the opportunity for an election while the EU27 prepare for talks. Before MPs left parliament to start the campaign they were summoned up to offices in Portcullis House to be pictured alongside key ministers in order to boost their election literature. Urgent work is also taking place to ensure that as many Tory candidates as possible fit the new messaging, although one figure said there was “limited room for manoeuvre”, given that lists had been drawn up. In CCHQ, special advisers have been brought in to run the communications under the directorship of Hill, who has appointed as head of news Rob Oxley, who did the same job for the Vote Leave campaign. In 2015, the Tory’s director of communications was Giles Kenningham, who said everything then was “carefully choreographed”. In interviews with the Guardian’s Politics Weekly podcast and BBC Radio 4, he recounted the “acute sense of paranoia” in the ground floor office, where curtains were drawn to avoid photographers snapping any sensitive documents. “We had a clean-desk policy in case there were any moles from Ukip or Labour and we lived in constant fear of anyone being snapped drinking champagne or looking complacent,” he said. Kenningham also revealed how the team would reinforce the election message – also being used by May – that Labour would win power only if it was propped up by the SNP, then led by Alex Salmond. “There was always a cry which came out of CCHQ every time we knew where Ed Miliband was speaking of ‘activate the shoal of Salmonds’. The team would then send an ‘army of activists’ with Salmond and Nicola Sturgeon masks to goad the then-Labour leader.” The same messaging is being rolled out once more but with a firm poll lead and no campaign stumbles so far. One source said the more personal attacks on Jeremy Corbyn, the Labour leader, were staying in the “back pocket” – at least for now. |