Are the Tories having a bad campaign? It certainly doesn’t seem to be as slick and upbeat as some had expected. Many Tories had expected the polls to stay right where they are until polling day, but others had assumed that there would at least be some signs of a public panic about Ed Miliband by now. Instead, normally gloomy Labour types say their leader is becoming less of a problem on the doorstep. That’s damning with faint praise, still, but the Tories had assumed things would be getting worse for Labour now, not better.
The Tories I’ve spoken to over the past couple of days talk of the need to ‘hold our nerve’, which suggests a risk of getting nervous but certainly not outright panic. They understand the argument about the polls not moving until the last minute. But the way the campaign has been conducted has contributed to those nerves. One Cabinet Minister, who is still upbeat about the chance of the Tories remaining in government, says ‘I’m not entirely happy with the way the campaign has been conducted, I think the messages have been somewhat vague and a little bit mixed’. But like most others, that minister felt the SNP attacks were helping.
Some, though, do worry that the SNP message doesn’t help the Tories ditch their ‘nasty party’ image. One senior Conservative says ‘This campaign is showing negative campaigning by Conservatives has as much chance of re-inforcing the very brand values Conservatives are trying to ditch – the nasty party. Labour can do negative campaigning, the Conservatives can’t.’
Many of my contacts also expect David Cameron to ‘step up a gear’, and are worried that he may be leaving it to the last minute to do so. ‘We need a bit of pizzazz at the end,’ says one.
But some of the nerves aren’t related so much to the specific Tory campaign, but the way the election itself is working. The short campaign has actually been quite a long one, and the parties have really been fighting the election since at least January. This means that, in the words of one Cabinet minister, ‘we are at mile 20 in the marathon’ and are starting to have a crisis of confidence about making it to the finish line. Everyone does seem exhausted already, and few people are good at staying cheery when they’re tired. And that’s just those fighting the election: wise ministers point out that the public have grown used to electioneering over the past few months and are still tuning it out. One says: ‘The challenge has been the length of the campaign which makes it harder to get the public fully engaged. The last 10 days are crucial.’
I suspect that once we get into those last 10 days, Tories will start saying ‘the last 10 hours are crucial’. They had hoped to be sitting more comfortably by now.
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