Very few people called this election result. Some Conservatives, especially amongst their leadership, may have been whispering about the possibility but the word ‘majority’ barely featured. The fact that the Conservatives have got there (or there abouts) means that Cameron, Osborne and Lynton Crosby will be hailed as tactical geniuses. The decisions of 2010 have been vindicated and Cameron is no longer a failed leader – he has transformed the Conservative Party and its future outlook.
There are already some clear lessons from the campaign.
- Fear works – the fear of what the Labour Party would do, what the role of the SNP would be and, it seems, of another Coalition made the electorate really think about what they wanted from a Government. The answer was not the same across all parts of the country but largely fell into not wanting Labour or the Lib Dems and, in Scotland, a near universal embrace of the SNP cause.
- Do not make assumptions based on one General Election result – just as huge majorities were assumed to the natural order under Thatcher and Blair, coalitions were the sign of a new type of politics after 2010. Both assumptions are wrong and the demise of the first past the post electoral system has been widely exaggerated.
- Don’t trust polls – all the parties, it appears, need to think about how they develop policies and what it means to be a political party – are they national campaigning machines or organisations that are built from the ground up. Policies based on perceived public perception will no longer be enough.
- No more TV debates – the Crosby approach of zero tolerance towards risk taking means that future debates look less likely.
- A need for local activists? – what will become apparent in the coming weeks is what happened ‘on the ground’ and whether the role of local activists is dead. If, as has been suggested, Labour fought good local campaigns with large numbers of activists then it does not seem to have worked. If the Conservatives used their better resourced campaign to buy internet ads and work through social media then maybe that is now what works in British General Elections.
Before we even get #GE2020 there are elections in London, Scotland, Europe, and locally to look forward to. The lessons from this election can be considered and applied before we get to 2020.