To win the election, the Tories must learn to fight dirty

Wednesday, 17th February 2010

James Forsyth reviews the week in politics

Having to work on a Sunday is a chore — doubly so when that Sunday is Valentine’s Day. But there were plenty of worker bees at Labour headquarters on Victoria Street last Sunday, devoting themselves to the passion of their life: hounding Conservatives. They came to rebut a document that the Tories had just released on how Britain has grown more unequal under Labour. Late in the afternoon, all their Valentine’s dreams came true: they found a mistake.

Somehow the Tories had managed to claim that 54 per cent of girls under 18 got pregnant in the most deprived areas of the country when the actual figure is 5.4 per cent. To make things worse, this was not just a decimal point in the wrong place in one table, but a mistake that appeared three times in a document containing a foreword by David Cameron. It was a painful reminder to Conservatives of what one campaign veteran calls the ‘institutionalised incompetence’ of parts of Conservative campaign headquarters — and was spotted by a newly reinvigorated Labour attack team.

For all Labour’s problems, it still has a formidable election-fighting machine: one driven by visceral hatred of the Tories. They are convinced that the Conservatives are not just wrong but wicked — and they delight in causing the enemy pain. ‘I bet we ruined at least a couple of Tory staffers’ Valentine’s night,’ one remarked to me. (They did.) These feelings have been intensified by Labour’s sense that they are up against a Tory operation that is awash with cash; that they are now the underdogs. They have internalised Lord Mandelson’s injunction to view themselves as insurgents fighting an army. Like most insurgents, they have come to believe that whatever tactics they use are justified by the fact that they wouldn’t win in a conventional fight.

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cityboozer

February 18th, 2010 11:06am Report this comment

I do wish you journo and political types would find a better word than "staffer". It really is very ugly.

Vulture

February 18th, 2010 11:34am Report this comment

The Duke of Wellington famously said that the battle of Waterloo was won on the playing fields of Eton. Well, it may have been, but every subsequent battle has been lost there.

The problem with Cameron and his clique is that they don't do hate. Having never had to fight for anything harder than the corner table at the Ivy, they don't understand the bare-knuckle, broken-bottle tactics of Whelan, Campbell, and the sadly departed Irish bloke.

This comes over clearly on programmes like Question Time or Any Questions. Inevitably the Tory spokesman is a mild-mannered gent like Willets, Gove or Damian Green. And inevitably their tepid, cerebral, fluffy comments are forgettable - and forgotten.

Those that gets the roars and applause are not official Tories at all but the red-meat
popular journos like Littlejohn or Kelvin Mackenzie who are happy to talk abt topics forbidden in polite Tory company such as crime, the EU, and the two 'I' words: Islamification and Immigration.

But Dave and co. won't go there. No wonder they are wobbling in fear of Liebour attacks. They are just too effete, too posh, too gentlemanly, too rich and fastidious to get their hands dirty, - and too arrogant to spot idiotic mistakes.

In other circumstances they would deserve to lose, but Liebour are so unutterably awful that they will probably scrape in despite themselves.

Personally, I don't have a problem hating Bruin and Liebour. My problem is that I hate
Clique Cameron almost - not quite - as much.

Cogito Ergosum

February 18th, 2010 9:22pm Report this comment

I am surprised Labour have not made more of 54% versus 5.4%. The Conservatives claim they will set our economy straight; but they won't if they make blunders like that.

There does seem to be widespread innumeracy at the top of the Party.

Steve Patriarca

March 3rd, 2010 10:23am Report this comment

Is it a matter of learning 'to fight dirty' or learning to fight at all? I cannot bekieve they have let the Labou media - and Dark Horses - make the running over Lord Ashdown. They have not even tried to point to the difference between Domicile and Residency. Most of the reports are a complete muddle.