Just a campaign based around ignoring everything the last 20 years have shown about what a successful Conservative election campaign involves: www.ft.com/content/2971...
The shoe that is going to drop soon is that one of the big names from the past who is spitting blood is surely not going to manage to stop themselves from doing it in public before July 4.
You can really tell that Osborne is just incredibly irritated by the whole thing. That many of his proteges are at risk electorally due to Sunak's blundering means he is definitely risk factor one IMO.
Cameron, like Major, starts from the view that many ex-Tory leaders were incredibly unhelpful to him, and it took quite a lot to push Major to be critical of Boris Johnson as a result. But if anyone can accelerate that process to under six weeks, Rishi can do it!
He must be painfully aware that he set the template for Tory success by not banging on about Europe, speaking about bread and butter issues and talking about what people care about.
And they're doing the exact opposite. With him in the tent.
He is the wild card that I can't pin down. I can't help but wonder if, in the event of the tories getting Kim Campbell'd, he is the emergency panic button the party will immediately pound on to provide a period of stabilisation in the immediate aftermath of ending up in opposition
Spending half the first full week's campaign on a wildcard policy that will inevitably crumble. Then Shapps strides in to tell kids that press ganged service is just what you need when you turn 18. Then again, they can't campaign on Sunak's 4 pledges for govt because they are steaming and smelling.
It’s perfect. Theresa May’s “we’re going to take your nan’s house” was so bad, they had to u-turn and look weak. This is less damaging, so likely no u-turn, but stupid enough to make them look ridiculous every time they (or we) repeat it. As a Labour campaigner, I couldn’t be happier
Can't campaign on the economy, education, NHS, migration, social care… so they come up with this as the bedrock of their campaign. It'll be music to LibDem ears when they go to leafy suburbs and tell sensible older people that their grandkids will go to jail for not abandoning their education 👌🏻
May’s policy, of fixing social care funding and using assets of that generation to pay for it after they don’t need those assets was miles better. It was spun badly but it was a real attempt to fix a real problem. This from Sunak is just utterly bonkers
It’s notable how often that policy is referred back to as shorthand for something going really badly in an election isn’t it? Maybe that will change after this campaign? I get a feeling there’s more to come!
Yes, it was a fairly sound policy, but politically catastrophic.
This seems designed to be the opposite - a stupid idea but popular (with a specific demographic). Coincidentally, the same demographic that hated May's idea.
I just doubt it's working even with them.
I don't think the fact that Sunak has been ignored is the problem.
It's that Sunak is saying " look, everything that has happened so far is obviously terrible, but we can fix it.
