After thirteen years in office, the Conservatives face an uphill battle to keep their seats come the next election. But don’t despair true blue Tories, for the new party chairman Greg Hands has a cunning plan: endlessly tweeting out pictures of that infamous Liam Byrne note. The 2010 letter by the then Labour minister in which Byrne joked that ‘I’m afraid there is no money!’ has been resurrected by Hands in an audacious bid to paint Labour as the party of fiscal mismanagement.
Whether it’s doubling as a Pret serviette or a giant novelty placard, Hands has been photoshopping and firing off copies of the letter at every opportunity. Pity the poor printers of CCHQ. The Chelsea MP’s opportunism even extended to using the launch of the national alert at 3 p.m on Sunday to share yet another image of Byrne’s letter.
But might there be a method in his madness? Mr S has got his hands on some polling which suggests that Greg Hands’ constant reminders of the note might have some cut-through with voters. Some 57 per cent of voters said they are either ‘very’, ‘fairly’ or ‘slightly aware’ of Byrne’s letter, according to a survey done by Redfield and Wilton of 1,500 voters last Wednesday. Perhaps all those constant tweets are paying off…
Of those who say they are at least ‘slightly’ aware of Liam Byrne’s note, some 74 per cent said it would have an effect on their vote, with 26 per cent saying it would have ‘a significant effect’, 31 per cent opting for a ‘moderate effect’ and 17 per cent going for a ‘slight effect’. Just 25 per cent of those aware of the note said it would have no effect on their vote at all.
And of those who said it would have at least a ‘slight’ effect on their vote, some 31 per cent said it would make them less likely to vote Labour at the next election. This outweighed the number who, bizarrely, said it would make them more likely to vote Labour (28 per cent) but was less than the 37 per cent who said it made voting Labour ‘neither more nor less likely.’
When it comes to reminding the Starmer army of their party’s past record, it looks like the Tory chairman will be taking a ‘Hands on’ approach at least…
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