Rishi Sunak’s chief strategy guru has warned the cabinet that the Conservatives have only a “narrow path” to victory at the next election and that ill-discipline could lead the party to disaster at the polls.
Isaac Levido, the Australian strategist who oversaw Boris Johnson’s general election victory in 2019, has told ministers at a cabinet “awayday” that solid adherence to a core Tory message is vital.
With the Conservatives typically trailing Labour by 20% in opinion polls, PM Sunak has told colleagues privately that party discipline is key. *“We can win, but it depends whether our MPs actually want to win”*
Sunak on Thursday convened the cabinet at Chequers, the prime minister’s country retreat in Buckinghamshire, to hear Isaac Levido warn that 2023 was going to be a tough year, but that the party had to hold its nerve.
One person briefed by Levido in recent days said: *“Isaac has told us we have to buckle in for 2023 and that people shouldn’t expect the polls to budge for quite a long time. But it’s vital we do not get distracted.”*
Sunak told ministers to focus relentlessly on his “five promises”: halving inflation, growing the economy, reducing public debt, cutting NHS waiting lists and “stopping small boats” carrying migrants across the English Channel.
The prime minister’s problem, privately acknowledged by his allies, is that Tory MPs may not stick to Levido’s script and the first few weeks of 2023 have not been auspicious.
Under the Levido plan, Sunak will focus on his five promises during 2023, most of which should be achievable because of the current trajectory of the economy. Stopping small boats could prove to be the most difficult to attain.
The template for the strategy is John Major’s unlikely Tory election victory in 1992, when he persuaded voters that the UK was “on the right track”, even though the party appeared exhausted after 13 years in power.
Levido’s plan is to have a clearly targeted campaign for an election expected in the autumn of 2024. One Tory MP said: *“We’ve been told there’s an 80:20 election strategy so it’s clear exactly which seats we are contesting.”*
Under this strategy, the Conservative party will focus its efforts on defending 80 Conservative seats which are deemed most vulnerable, while also targeting 20 opposition constituencies which might be winnable in a benign political environment.
*“I would be astonished if Labour were 20 points ahead going into the election”* said one former Tory cabinet minister. *“Things will narrow as the election nears. In the political sphere the election is round the corner but in the real world it’s still a while away.”*
Another Conservative MP said: *“Isaac has pushed this idea that there is a very narrow path to victory for the party but it is possible to scrape a win. He says the strategy could work but it requires no screw ups on the part of the party.”*
Just a reminder that First Past The Post gave Cameron a win in the 2015 election with 36.8% of the votes.
A targeted 0.7% swing from 2010 gave the Tories an additional 24 seats.
It really is battle of the bland in this next election. Sunak’s blandness served him well against Johnson and Truss but how is he supposed to compete with Mr Bland himself?
Starmer’s strategy of do nothing and wait for the Tories to implode has come out successful, is Sunak going to try the same (no chance of success) or try something radical (next to no chance or success) or what?
Simples… i) id card ii) reduce taxes iii) more benefits iv) early campaigning v) victory
“Sunak told ministers to focus relentlessly on his “five promises”: halving inflation, growing the economy, reducing public debt, cutting NHS waiting lists and “stopping small boats” carrying migrants across the English Channel.”
Might be a good strategy if they were likely to achieve any of this. They aren’t.
Inflation will slow and they might be able to get some small growth before the next GE, but the damage to their economic trust is done.
Reducing debt, cutting waiting lists, and “stopping” small boats in any meaningful way… highly unlikely.
Little boats is all they have, even though hey’ve caused them.
Narrow path? Its a length of floss, stretched over a chasm, that they’ve already started picking bits off because they cant agree what flavour it is.
They are currently deploying the ‘anti-woke’ blame strategy in the hope that nobody will notice their failed promises – 40 new hospitals etc. Likewise, their failure to curb migration to which they have started to blame shift “Lefty lawyers” as stopping them. You can expect more of this.
Until Sunak wised up this weekend they were going to end up in a mess with the Lineker situation. Ditto ‘Partygate’ when Dorries tried to blame Gray/Starmer instead of keeping schtum. They will no doubt be aided by the right wing rags and t.v.
It is still possible that Tories could win a slight majority. If they failed to win a majority, they could still win the highest proportion of votes and form a minority government, or form a coalition government with a far right party. They could do this by consistently focusing the moral panic of transgenderism, grooming etc. and by focusing on the so-called ‘invasion’ of muslim migrants, small boats etc..
If the economy gets worse, the middle class could lose the value of their homes. This will lead to resentment and the Tories will use it to their advantage. When the middle class in the Weimar Republic lost the value of their savings, this is what led to them supporting the Nazis.
I am actually quite frightened about the possibility of this happening in the UK.
The Tories are extremely good at winning elections. They are one of the most successful political parties in the world. I am sure they have a few tricks up their sleeve we’ve yet to see.
That narrow path is stoking racist devision. It’s literally all they have left.
Narrow path = Accelerate the whole woke/culture war rhetoric because the party’s now so far down the rabbit hole- having completely broken the country- that their only hope is to keep doubling down hoping they will still appeal to people’s worst prejudices. They won’t have a chance of winning otherwise if they ground their campaign in any sort of reality.
Please don’t. If you genuinely give a shit about this country just stand down.
12 comments
Rishi Sunak’s chief strategy guru has warned the cabinet that the Conservatives have only a “narrow path” to victory at the next election and that ill-discipline could lead the party to disaster at the polls.
Isaac Levido, the Australian strategist who oversaw Boris Johnson’s general election victory in 2019, has told ministers at a cabinet “awayday” that solid adherence to a core Tory message is vital.
With the Conservatives typically trailing Labour by 20% in opinion polls, PM Sunak has told colleagues privately that party discipline is key. *“We can win, but it depends whether our MPs actually want to win”*
Sunak on Thursday convened the cabinet at Chequers, the prime minister’s country retreat in Buckinghamshire, to hear Isaac Levido warn that 2023 was going to be a tough year, but that the party had to hold its nerve.
One person briefed by Levido in recent days said: *“Isaac has told us we have to buckle in for 2023 and that people shouldn’t expect the polls to budge for quite a long time. But it’s vital we do not get distracted.”*
Sunak told ministers to focus relentlessly on his “five promises”: halving inflation, growing the economy, reducing public debt, cutting NHS waiting lists and “stopping small boats” carrying migrants across the English Channel.
The prime minister’s problem, privately acknowledged by his allies, is that Tory MPs may not stick to Levido’s script and the first few weeks of 2023 have not been auspicious.
Under the Levido plan, Sunak will focus on his five promises during 2023, most of which should be achievable because of the current trajectory of the economy. Stopping small boats could prove to be the most difficult to attain.
The template for the strategy is John Major’s unlikely Tory election victory in 1992, when he persuaded voters that the UK was “on the right track”, even though the party appeared exhausted after 13 years in power.
Levido’s plan is to have a clearly targeted campaign for an election expected in the autumn of 2024. One Tory MP said: *“We’ve been told there’s an 80:20 election strategy so it’s clear exactly which seats we are contesting.”*
Under this strategy, the Conservative party will focus its efforts on defending 80 Conservative seats which are deemed most vulnerable, while also targeting 20 opposition constituencies which might be winnable in a benign political environment.
*“I would be astonished if Labour were 20 points ahead going into the election”* said one former Tory cabinet minister. *“Things will narrow as the election nears. In the political sphere the election is round the corner but in the real world it’s still a while away.”*
Another Conservative MP said: *“Isaac has pushed this idea that there is a very narrow path to victory for the party but it is possible to scrape a win. He says the strategy could work but it requires no screw ups on the part of the party.”*
Just a reminder that First Past The Post gave Cameron a win in the 2015 election with 36.8% of the votes.
A targeted 0.7% swing from 2010 gave the Tories an additional 24 seats.
It really is battle of the bland in this next election. Sunak’s blandness served him well against Johnson and Truss but how is he supposed to compete with Mr Bland himself?
Starmer’s strategy of do nothing and wait for the Tories to implode has come out successful, is Sunak going to try the same (no chance of success) or try something radical (next to no chance or success) or what?
Simples… i) id card ii) reduce taxes iii) more benefits iv) early campaigning v) victory
“Sunak told ministers to focus relentlessly on his “five promises”: halving inflation, growing the economy, reducing public debt, cutting NHS waiting lists and “stopping small boats” carrying migrants across the English Channel.”
Might be a good strategy if they were likely to achieve any of this. They aren’t.
Inflation will slow and they might be able to get some small growth before the next GE, but the damage to their economic trust is done.
Reducing debt, cutting waiting lists, and “stopping” small boats in any meaningful way… highly unlikely.
Little boats is all they have, even though hey’ve caused them.
Narrow path? Its a length of floss, stretched over a chasm, that they’ve already started picking bits off because they cant agree what flavour it is.
They are currently deploying the ‘anti-woke’ blame strategy in the hope that nobody will notice their failed promises – 40 new hospitals etc. Likewise, their failure to curb migration to which they have started to blame shift “Lefty lawyers” as stopping them. You can expect more of this.
Until Sunak wised up this weekend they were going to end up in a mess with the Lineker situation. Ditto ‘Partygate’ when Dorries tried to blame Gray/Starmer instead of keeping schtum. They will no doubt be aided by the right wing rags and t.v.
It is still possible that Tories could win a slight majority. If they failed to win a majority, they could still win the highest proportion of votes and form a minority government, or form a coalition government with a far right party. They could do this by consistently focusing the moral panic of transgenderism, grooming etc. and by focusing on the so-called ‘invasion’ of muslim migrants, small boats etc..
If the economy gets worse, the middle class could lose the value of their homes. This will lead to resentment and the Tories will use it to their advantage. When the middle class in the Weimar Republic lost the value of their savings, this is what led to them supporting the Nazis.
I am actually quite frightened about the possibility of this happening in the UK.
The Tories are extremely good at winning elections. They are one of the most successful political parties in the world. I am sure they have a few tricks up their sleeve we’ve yet to see.
That narrow path is stoking racist devision. It’s literally all they have left.
Narrow path = Accelerate the whole woke/culture war rhetoric because the party’s now so far down the rabbit hole- having completely broken the country- that their only hope is to keep doubling down hoping they will still appeal to people’s worst prejudices. They won’t have a chance of winning otherwise if they ground their campaign in any sort of reality.
Please don’t. If you genuinely give a shit about this country just stand down.
You’ve done enough damage already.