The Spectator

After Theresa May’s missteps, a Corbyn victory is no longer inconceivable

On the eve of the US presidential election, experts at Princeton university decided that Donald Trump had a 1 per cent chance of being elected. Before the last general election, Populus, the opinion poll firm, gave David Cameron a 0.5 per cent chance of winning a majority. Much is made of the need to look at ‘the data’ when considering political arguments, but so often it is a wildly inaccurate guess with a decimal point at the end to give an aura of scientific specificity. So when we read that Jeremy Corbyn has just a 17 per cent chance of becoming prime minister, this does not mean that the election is in the bag. The Tories are still quite capable of blowing it.

It’s understandable that voters have misgivings about Theresa May. She has retreated from much that was appealing about David Cameron’s conservatism: the social justice agenda, for example, and the education reform that was achieving such good results in non-selective schools. She positioned herself as ‘strong and stable’, only to conduct humiliating U-turns — on her first Budget, and on the so-called ‘dementia tax’ in her manifesto — because she had not thought through the policies. This doesn’t necessarily make her a bad leader, but it does cast doubt over her claim to be steely and resolute.

Her manifesto copied too much Labour Party policy, snarling at business and stealing Ed Miliband’s much-derided proposal of an energy price cap.  If this was a strategy to attract Labour voters, then it seems to have failed. Instead the opinion polls show an extraordinary surge support for Jeremy Corbyn’s party: the latest YouGov poll shows the Tory lead reduced to three vulnerable points, down from 20 points since the campaign started. She has not sold conservatism in this campaign, but sold herself instead. Her popularity ratings certainly were impressive, but there is more to the Conservative Party.

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