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JAMES DEBONO explores whether the Tory’s negative campaign will work to challenge Labour’s lead in vital marginal seats where only a few hundred votes matter.
The Tory poster, which featured a smirking Tony Blair beside the warning “if he’s prepared to lie to take us to war, he’s prepared to lie to win an election”, epitomises a campaign dominated by the trust issue. Tory leader Michael Howard has also accused Blair of lying about tax, particularly by increasing national insurance in 2003 without warning people of his plans in the preceding general election.
Speaking in Scotland, the Tory leader said that the message people should send to Blair is: “We have had enough of your broken promises, we have had enough of your talk, we have had enough of you.”
Although the Tories’ tough and populist campaign – characterised by scaremongering on immigration and viscous personal attacks on Blair – has not cut Labour’s lead in the opinion polls, it appears to be working where it matters most: in the key marginal seats and among those people who say they are certain to vote.
A private report presented to Labour’s campaign headquarters has warned that the overall Labour national lead is slipping in the marginal seats with up to 100 constituencies showing their candidates at most two per cent ahead of their Tory or Liberal Democrat opponents. Whether this report was purposely leaked by Labour to the left-leaning Guardian is fodder for speculation.
In a bid to combat complacency and disenchantment among Labour supporters, Labour has been amplifying survey results, which show both parties neck to neck. Such surveys might be a blessing in disguise for Labour in its bid to rally its full support in marginal seats. Labour’s logic is clear: if Labour supporters start contemplating a Tory victory, they will eagerly vote to keep Howard out even if they don’t trust Blair.
Labour’s campaigns chief, Alan Milburn spelled it out when reacting to recent polls suggesting that, amongst those certain to vote, Labour and the Tories are neck and neck.
“The worry for us is that the propensity to vote amongst Conservative voters seems to be higher than the propensity to vote amongst Labour voters. That plays very much to the Conservative strategy.”
His comments may appear dangerously frank. By sounding the alarm bells, Milburn is warning disenchanted Labourites not to risk letting in the Tories through the back door by not voting or by switching to the apparently more left-wing Liberal Democrats.
Similarly, Mr Howard’s apparent confession he is running second is designed to shore up his core vote while encouraging disenchanted Labourites to believe they can afford a protest vote against Tony Blair.
Labour fears that Mr Howard’s strategy of conceding that his party is 2-0 behind while urging people to ‘send a message to Tony Blair’ is succeeding in depressing the Labour vote while encouraging those who are disillusioned with the government to make a protest vote without contemplating the prospect of a Tory win. Labour’s campaign coordinator, Alan Milburn, told the BBC today: “The Tories think their only hope of winning is to play a relentlessly negative, grievance-based, protest campaign in the hope that they don’t win by the front door but by the back door.”
In a bid to pre-empt a big British raspberry for Blair, Labour is preparing a final week advertising campaign based on the Wes Craven horror film franchise Nightmare on Elm Street. Under the tagline Nightmare on Howard Street, the election broadcast and posters will show people dreaming about what life would be like under a Tory government.
Throughout the campaign Labour tried to deflect the focus from the issue of trust to the “stark choice”, facing British voters between its positive record on the economy and public services and a dangerously opportunistic Tory party lacking credible policies.
Yet to make things worse for Labour, Labour has to withstand an attack from their left flank. The campaign of the Lib Dems has been bolstered by the defection of former Labour MP Brian Sedgemor who is being presented as a role model for left-wing Labourites.
In order to discourage anti-war Labourites from going back to the fold due to fears of a Tory comeback, Charles Kennedy insists that the chances of a Tory victory are nil. Kennedy says the Tory campaign accusing Tony Blair of lying over the Iraq war, shows Michael Howard has accepted he is losing this election.
Kennedy declared that “the latest gambit from the Conservatives is that they have concluded internally, as indeed Michael Howard has all but acknowledged publicly, that they are going to lose this election – so they are falling back now on the most negative form of personalised campaigning.”
By persuading anti-war Labourites that the chances of a Tory victory are nil, Kennedy is hoping that a substantial number of them will switch to the Liberals.
In a remarkable twist of events, while the Tories and the Lib Dems are bent on persuading Labour voters that they can afford punishing Blair because he will ultimately win, Labour is busy persuading voters to contemplate a Tory victory.
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