Katy Balls Katy Balls

‘I don’t think they can win’: Tories mull electoral doom

(Credit: Getty images)

Conservative party conference in Birmingham has got off to a strange start. MPs and activists aren’t in open revolt but few have much that is positive to say about the situation the Tory government finds itself in. As one long-time activist put it to me on arrival: 

‘I have been voting for the Conservatives for over two decades but now I’m not sure I can’

Truss’s problems are twofold

With a string of polls suggesting that the party would face electoral annihilation were an election held tomorrow, Liz Truss’s honeymoon is well and truly over. One particularly downbeat fringe event took place this afternoon, titled: ‘Can the Tories win the next election?’

Given a YouGov poll last week gave Labour a 33-point-lead, the panel – which included pollster James Johnson, 2019 Tory manifesto co-author Rachel Wolf and US pollster Frank Luntz – weren’t exactly optimistic over the party’s chances. Johnson argued that prior to Kwasi Kwarteng’s not-so-mini Budget the Conservatives still had a decent chance of re-election. However, the shift since then was so ‘drastic’ it’s now very hard to see how. Luntz said the party would get its ‘ass kicked’ unless it changed course.

Wolf put it more bluntly: ‘I don’t think they can win’. She pointed to how much of Johnson’s 2019 pitch of higher spend had been rejected by Truss in favour of a low tax agenda that could involve mass spending cuts. It means Truss’s problems are twofold. 

First, the party’s reputation for fiscal competence. And second, the fact that the electoral message has shifted. The problem for Truss is all this talk of the Tories being on course to lose the next election leads to inevitable talk about what could change that.

Already a subscriber? Log in

Keep reading with a free trial

Subscribe and get your first month of online and app access for free. After that it’s just £1 a week.

There’s no commitment, you can cancel any time.

Or

Unlock more articles

REGISTER

Comments

Don't miss out

Join the conversation with other Spectator readers. Subscribe to leave a comment.

Already a subscriber? Log in