I suggest you get plenty of sleep tonight. If you are a politics junkie, you may get precious little tomorrow.
Lots of decisions to be made over the next day or so. I am always astounded, speaking to voters, how many do not make their mind up until the last minute. Sometimes that comes from indifference, more often perhaps from frustration.
How often have you heard the words “it’s hard to choose between them, they are all as bad as each other”? In response to that, of course I say that that is precisely what the worst politicians want you to believe. And for those who can see disappointingly little difference between the policies of the main contenders, perhaps the decision needs to be made based on track record and probity.
Our current prime minister, soon to be ex-prime minister, came into office with promises of IPA, integrity, professionalism and accountability. Unfortunately that didn’t last long. His and his party’s gaslighting about the economy and the benefits of Brexit continue unabated. Pity Rishi Sunak doesn’t listen to the evidence provided by his own former employers on that subject.
And Rwanda, the signature policy on which he has staked his reputation, is totally lacking in an evidence base. Now it’s about to hit the buffers. More than that, it’s a policy which, by his own admission in unguarded moments, he knows to be nonsense.
He has alienated both wings of his own party, never mind the electorate. It didn’t even require his many faux pas, crowned by the catastrophe of D-Day, to place him in this unenviable position. Nigel Farage and his self-seeking splitting of the right, has certainly helped the opposition cause. But his efforts may not even have been needed.
Desperate times call for desperate measures – or do they?
Over the past few days it’s been very revealing to see the desperate tactics employed by this government in what is, at best, an effort to limit the damage. The latest ‘smear Keir’ tactic seems to have totally backfired. Some Tories have tried to stigmatise him for his wish to spend the eve of the Jewish Sabbath with his family (emergencies notwithstanding). They must now be kicking themselves, recognising that it was bound to be labelled as anti-Semitism. Even their own leader has distanced himself from it.
Then there’s the talk of ‘super majorities’, as if that were somehow an intrinsically evil outcome. I cannot recall any Conservatives taking that view when the boot was on the other foot. If Labour achieve a supermajority then surely that is nothing more than the ‘will of the people’, something which those same Tory apologists used to declare was sacrosanct when the talk was of Brexit.
And if Labour achieve a majority on a minority of the votes, that speaks about the weakness of the first past the post system – once again a sacred cow of those same Tories. It should not be a pretext for a single voter to vote Conservative against their own instincts.
And the desperation deepens. Surely Sunak was telling us the cupboard was bare when he turned to his discredited predecessor, Boris Johnson, to lend support. As if voters need to be reminded of what it was that poisoned the party’s reputation in the first place. Now everybody will be talking of Johnson’s duplicitous behaviour during Covid, and of the week when Johnson made history by forcing the resignation of his entire cabinet.
I wonder whether employing the Johnson tactic will rank among Sunak’s monumental errors of judgement alongside his early abandonment of the D-Day commemoration? You really couldn’t invent it.
Does your vote matter?
With our first past the post system, your vote has in the past tended to matter only in a small number of marginals. Most seats were safe and of course it can be demoralising for voters to feel that they’re wasting their vote on their party of choice. Hence the need for tactical voting. In a fair, proportional system, such as exists in most other European countries, tactical voting would be unnecessary. In the UK it can make all the difference.
There are numerous tactical voting websites. But beware of those planted by the Tories to catch you out and split the opposition vote. In Oxfordshire, all five rural constituencies are now potentially in play, and with widespread use of tactical voting any, or potentially all, could change colour from blue to yellow or, in the case of Banbury, to red.
Similar things are happening up and down the country. To those who are tempted to stay home on polling day I can only say this: for the first time in well over 100 years (in the case of Henley and many other constituencies) your vote could make a real difference. How will you feel on Friday morning if the election is won or lost by a single vote? And that is how tight it may well be in some places.
So if you haven’t already voted, remember to bring your photo ID. Remember also that if there is a glitch (many postal ballot papers have yet to arrive), and you can still apply for an emergency proxy vote until 5pm tomorrow if you meet the criteria.
Portillo moments?
If you’re up overnight tomorrow, the question will perhaps be different than in most previous elections. It’s not going to be about who will win. But it could potentially be about who forms the official opposition.
And it will certainly be about how many ‘Portillo moments’ there are. Who will be the first, do you think? A ‘Hunt moment’ seems almost assured. What about a ‘Truss moment’? A ‘Mordaunt moment’? ‘Rees-Mogg moment’? Or even a ‘Sunak moment’?
It would be unprecedented for a sitting prime minister to lose his seat. If that happened Sunak would certainly replace Portillo in the dictionary of English usage. At any event, it would be worth staying up to see what happens. To help you, there is a website that gives the estimated time for each declaration. Estimated time for a concession of defeat is, if you’re wondering, 4am.
After that, the start of a new chapter. Eagle eyes will be kept on Starmer and his new government. But the real surprises may well happen on the other side of the House. The psychodrama isn’t over. Perhaps it is only beginning…
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