Here are a few things that I think we’ve learnt from last night’s result:
1). The Tories are now the best closers in British politics: In London, the local elections and last night the Tories did significantly better than the final opinion polls suggested they would. This suggests that the Tory ground game is now good enough to add a couple of points to their score. At the next election, this could make the difference between a slim and solid Tory majority.
2). ‘Tory hatred’ no longer moves votes: The Labour campaign desperately tried to whip up prejudice against a public school educated, lawyer who looked and sounded like a Tory. But this tactic comprehensively failed in a normally safe Labour seat; the electoral sting appears to have been finally drawn from the ‘Tory boy’ stereotype. The importance of this is that it means there is unlikely to be much, if any, anti-Tory tactical voting at the next election.
3). Labour has no positive message: The Labour campaign in Crewe and Nantwich as unremittingly negative as Labour had nothing positive to say. Indeed, when Harriet Harman was asked on the Today programme what Labour could offer voters the best thing she could come up with was some blather about home insulation.
4).The Tories are hungry: As Fraser notes in his political column, there were worries that the Tories were simply not hungry enough to capitalise on their opportunities. But in Crewe and Nantwich, the Tories saw the breach in Labour’s defences and poured through it. Cameron might have ordered all his MPs to the constituency but I haven’t heard a single MP complain about having to go while most Tories are boasting about how many times they have been up there.
5). This will get nasty: The BNP weren’t standing in Crewe and Nantwich and Labour responded by acting as if they wanted their votes; proof that Labour are now so desperate that they will try anything to win. When you consider how personal Labour went on a by-election candidate, you can deduce just how much mud Labour plan to throw at Cameron in a general election campaign. Encouragingly, though, the voters don’t seem to be buying the negative attacks at the moment.
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