Imagine if none of the party leaders retained their seat. Oli Scarff, Leon Neal / Getty Images
Faced with a choice of Boris Johnson or Jeremy Corbyn, quite a few unhappy British voters are driven to ask: “Can’t they both lose, please?”
According to Ipsos Mori, Corbyn sets records for public disdain: 62% disapprove of his record and his net score is miserable -39. But Johnson is hardly the people’s darling: 44% give him an unfavourable rating and his net rating is also underwater, at -8.
Could it happen? Could they both lose — personally? By that I mean: could they both lose their Commons seats, sacked by their own former constituents? It is, of course, wildly unlikely, but this is 2019, and you know what that means about political probabilities.
***
It was shortly after 2am on 13 December that British politics opened the door to a new circle of hellish turmoil. After inspecting the piles of votes on the tables in Islington Town Hall, and accepting that the grinning Lib Dems weren’t bluffing, Jeremy Corbyn’s agent quietly confirmed to his candidate what they’d suspected for a few hours: “You’ve lost.”
To describe that loss — confirmed by the returning officer at 2.30am — as seismic was not hyperbole. When the Lib Dems announced they were pulling their campaigners out of Islington South to allow Emily Thornberry (“our fellow Remainer”) a clear run and focusing their fire on the Labour leader (“Since he won’t get off the fence on Brexit we’re going to knock him off,” said Jo Swinson), no one took them seriously. Yes, they’d won Islington in the (worthless) European elections, but Corbyn had held Islington North for 36 years, claiming almost 75% of the vote with a majority of more than 30,000.
At best, the Lib Dem push against Corbyn was supposed to help Swinson rebut Tory claims that “a vote for the Lib Dems is a vote for Jeremy Corbyn in No 10”, allowing the Lib Dem press office to counter: “If we’re so cosy with Corbyn, why are we trying to decapitate him?” (The use of the word “decapitate” was of course deliberate bad taste to get the strategy more publicity. Successfully, as it turned out.)
And somehow, it worked. On a night when Kensington also turned yellow and Twitter blazed with the hashtag #RemainersRevenge, the Lib Dems leapt from barely 5% of the total to beat Corbyn by 195 votes.
At Conservative Campaign Headquarters, there was disbelief at the Corbyn result, but not outright jubilation. For one thing, the Lib Dem surge was much bigger than the campaign planners had expected, which was sending all the models haywire. CCHQ had, of course, been quietly resigned to a few Lib Dem seat gains (sorry, Zac) but the central forecast had suggested that a solid night for Swinson was actually a net positive for the Tories.
By drawing a good chunk of the Labour Remain vote away — but not enough to get near winning — the Lib Dems would help some Conservatives retain their seats in Remain-leaning southern parts. But the sort of earthquake that might topple Corbyn could change things in ways the Tory scenarios barely anticipated.
Anyway, even as Tory officials tried to work out what the earthquake meant for them, an asteroid struck. The Prime Minister was in his car on his way to the seat for the Uxbridge and South Ruislip count when the call from the Tory agent came. It was short and bleak: “It’s going to happen.”
By the time Boris Johnson arrived at his own count, his team had told him to prepare for the worst. Despite all the CCHQ bombardment of the seat with online ads, despite all the pavement pounding by London Tories dragged in from across the capital, his majority of not much more than 5,000 had gone.
For that, Johnson could thank Donald Trump and that moment at the Nato summit when he put his arm around Johnson’s shoulders and declared: “Hey London, this is my guy, such a great guy. When he wins again, and he’s gonna win, win so big, we’re gonna do great things, maybe the best it’s ever been. He’s my guy and he’s gonna make Britain great again, just like we’ve done. Vote Boris, London, vote Boris.”
Those presidential words turbocharged the Uxbridge campaign of Labour’s Ali Milani. An army of students, youth campaigners, minor celebrities and one elegantly-dressed lady in dark glasses who said she was from “just outside Reading” all flocked to Uxbridge to urge residents to “stop Boris selling us out to Trump”.
On her regular visits, the lady from Reading proved especially good at persuading traditional Tories to switch sides, seeming to know just what made them tick. No one could quite put their finger on it, but she seemed quite familiar too, although as she wasn’t much for small talk or personal chitchat, no one ever found out her name.
And so it was that as the sun, eventually, rose on Friday the 13th, Britain found itself in a new and — for once the word was justified — extraordinary new form of political chaos. With almost all the results in, the BBC exit poll said that the Tories would still be the biggest party, with 316 seats. (Just one less than Theresa May got in 2017, though no one could find her for comment.)
Despite that outlier in Uxbridge, Labour slumped and were projected to end up with just 230 seats, while the Lib Dems — who came close to beating Labour’s overall vote share — were forecast to have 39, behind the SNP on 44.
Though pundits, civil servants, voters and most MPs went into a turmoil of confusion and sometimes panic, the Labour team were relatively calm in those first hours — almost as if they’d been preparing for something like this. Just in time for the 7am bulletins, Labour’s John McDonnell spoke to TV reporters to set out what would happen next:
“Jeremy remains our leader. He was elected by our members and they want him to remain as our leader. He may have been cheated out of his seat by the Conservative media working hand-in-glove with the bankers in the City and MI5, but he remains the spiritual leader of the Labour movement, our moral guide. He has told me that he feels liberated from the confines of Parliament and will be spending his time among the people of Islington and this country, so that he can lead them from the places where they live and work.
“No, he won’t be speaking directly to the media today, or for the foreseeable future. What he’s doing now is much more important than that.
“The party in parliament will be led by deputy leader, Rebecca Long-Bailey, who has asked me to serve as her chief of staff and representative in the talks that must start immediately about forming a progressive alliance government to lead a country that has decisively rejected Boris Johnson and Donald Trump’s Tories and which must now have a chance to have its say about the Tory Brexit plan too. When we form that government, Rebecca will be the Prime Minister, but she will govern in Jeremy Corbyn’s name and true to his ideals.”
On the Conservative side, there was no comparable statement or clarity. By 7.45am, no fewer than five people had suggested that they would now lead the Conservative government that would ask the Queen for a chance to demonstrate that it had the confidence of the Commons. Dominic Raab was first out of the blocks, quickly followed by Sajid Javid; neither even mentioned Johnson in their statements. Priti Patel did so, but mostly she talked about Margaret Thatcher.
David Davis surprised many people by convening a press conference where he talked about the SAS and being good in a crisis, concluding: “I am ready to serve again.” His moment was rather spoiled when TV gallery directors cut away from him, however, because at that exact moment Nigel Farage spoke to the cameras outside the Red Lion and revealed that he’d thought long and hard about it and was in fact willing to accept a peerage and the premiership for long enough to see Britain out of the EU without a deal at the end of January.
Financial markets were having none of it, however, and after initial panicked falls, the pound was rising sharply again as traders decided the turmoil meant no Brexit in January and quite possibly ever. They were encouraged in this by tweets from Guy Verhofstadt in Brussels suggesting that the EU27 should unilaterally suspend the Article 50 process.
Of Johnson himself, there was no sign. He was still, technically at least, Prime Minister, and so remained shut up in Downing Street. The No 10 press office issued a brief statement saying that the PM was consulting officials and no further comment would be made. Off the record, Tory officials briefed journalists that the only conversation going on in No 10 was about how a minority Conservative government would reconvene Parliament and bring about an immediate dissolution with a new general election in January; Johnson would be a candidate, though they declined to say where. There was no question of changing the Brexit timetable, they insisted.
Yet equally, off-record, “sources” at Buckingham Palace insisted that the Queen was constitutionally bound to consider all the possibilities; officials were seeking an urgent conversation with Sir Graham Brady of the 1922 Committee to ask just who, if anyone, was actually Conservative Party leader at that moment.
In the Palace view, the possibilities to consider included Long-Bailey, Swinson and Nicola Sturgeon somehow assembling a government that could govern at least long enough to reset the Brexit process, most likely by way of a referendum but possibly by simply asking the EU to stop the clock. The only sad certainty was that the Monarch would not be making her annual New Year trip to Sandringham.
That was the state of play just after 8am when another snap dropped on the Press Association election wire, bringing one of the results that had been delayed due to ballot boxes being delayed when a van crashed on a slushy Scottish road. A split second later the news flashed up on phone screens across Westminster: “East Dunbartonshire: SNP GAIN…”
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SubscribeMost of us aren’t obsessing over it Tom. It is only the wretched BBC that is obsessing over it in their vicious and demented desire to discredit the government in any way they can.
I agree that as usual, journalists are being unhelpful. But there is nothing wrong with a stretch target, a very common and normal business tactic. Whether you get there or not, it makes the workforce try hard..
I agree with the sentiment behind the points made in this article but politicians and governments should be held to account when they make pledges of any kind.
Even in the case of the arbitrary 100,000 number, Hancock pledged that this would be the number of tests carried out daily by now, and has since changed his statement and spoken in terms of capacity. He offers no rationale for the change of phrasing and thus should be pressed to provide one.
Although this particular case of moving the goalposts is ultimately irrelevant in real terms, the principle of politicians promising things only to go back on them at later date without acknowledging that they have done so, is a habit that needs to be booted out of politics.
The minute journalists cease to press politicians to explain their u-turns or subtle rephrasing of explicit pledges, we encourage the cycle of dishonesty and ambiguity, and hand more power from the people over to the politicians.
The Government has been very clear, the target is for tests carried out, not for testing capacity.
That’s what they initially said, yes. Then in the last week of April, Hancock et al switched and started talking in terms of capacity rather than tests carried out. They moved the goalposts without explanation or acknowledgement. Not very clear at all…
And today (1st May) we find out that the government is claiming to have met (and exceeded) its target. However, when looking at the numbers, “people tested” falls well below the 100k threshold. They topped up the numbers with “number of tests sent out to people”. Even if we take your comment as correct (which it isn’t), they have still fudged the numbers without explanation or acknowledgement. It’s shady, dishonest, and should be queried.
Absolutely 100% agree. It has just become another foil for bloviating TV and Radio 4 pundits to gibber about.
The German testing success, which the media and government keep referring to has nothing to do with testing. On Marr on Sunday the next German Ambassador to the UK (Andreas Michaelis) distanced himself from the assertion. How can it have? The best guesstimate for the number of Germasn having had the virus is 7.5 – 10 million. Their test program has found 160,000, That represents circa 2% of the cases that are beleived to have occurred. What difference does that make? The German success is the death rate not the case rate. They must have wrapped up their old and vulnerable exceptionally well. We need to ask them how they did it.
Hancock set himself up to fail, he panicked pulled out a figure to satisfy press scrutiny and then crossed his fingers that it could be done, it wasn’t a goal it was a wish.Clearly he’s never been in business, if he had been he would have known that this situation was crying out for the classic under promise over deliver. As a result Hancock, I am afraid, is serving on borrowed time.
I hope so. Another chancer in a cohort of charlatans.
Tom Chivers identified the system which the TV Leftwing political hacks used to try to get a GOTCHA over a Tory government minister. This was just a political ploy to rubbish the government.
The trap the Luvies failed to see: Criticism of the governments efforts over their COVID-19 campaign have now brought calls for a review, which will bring the beloved NHS into the spotlight. NHS Quangoes may not be able to dodge.
But he did not fail. He smashed his target. Obviously he had to pull a number of stokes to do it, but it was important to show the immense challenges could be overcome and thereby give confidence that the even bigger challenge which is to get out of this mess and get our economy back in some semblance of order can also be met.
Hear hear
A program to avoid
Don’t you mean progrom? Or have you resorted to American spelling as a means of stressing your Celtic identity?
All pogroms should be avoided. They’re beyond the Pale of Settlement.
Having bee sexually active since the early 1970s, I believe I have the experience to state that sex between brain-functioning men and women need not be continually punctuated by requests for permission, apologies, self-doubt, etc. A truly “normal” person can sense how far to go, what to do or not to do, and just enjoy him or herself and get on with it.
It was certainly foolish of Hancock to pluck an arbitrary figure out of the air and then commit to reaching it by a specific date. However, Tom, I can tell you that, now it looks like – amazingly – the target might be met, the media have already stopped obsessing about it and changed the goalposts.
See the BBC website yesterday: “Is who we test more important than how many?”
But .. an independent review of a global pandemic is impossible, unless Star Trek is real and you have some Vulcans handy
Meantime, here is an alternative point of view. It makes for difficult reading, but an uncomfortable amount of it rings true: https://medium.com/@indica/…
“Judge Wilson believes that if a living thing is not a person, then one has the right to end its life. She also believes that a foetus is a person. Therefore, Judge Wilson concludes that no one has the right to end the life of a foetus.” This is the logically unsound argument (I think).
If I’m right then an initial reaction might be to pat myself on the back and tell myself how rational and logical my thinking is. I would, however, also do well to notice that the focus of that particular syllogism (i.e. abortion) is a topic that I am uncertain of and have yet to formulate a strong opinion about…
Following the idea that partisanship blinds in the face of confirmation, my indecisiveness and non-partisanship on the topic of abortion meant that the syllogism stuck out to me like a sore thumb as logically unsound, whereas this may not have been so glaring if I was strictly “pro-life” or “pro-choice”. In other words, my opinion that “I don’t yet have a firm opinion on the topic of abortion” may have meant that syllogism stuck out to me immediately as logically unsound because it does contain “firm opinions” on the topic of abortion – effectively the opposing stance to mine.
Or I’m over-thinking things and it’s simply just the one that is logically unsound and not actually that difficult to spot in any case. But at least I was right…
Unfortunately the government and the various supporting quangos have shown themselves to be repeatedly wrong and easy targets. The testing is just one area, the others insufficient and inadequate PPE, ventilators, beds, general preparedness when they have even run scenario exercises, centralisation, logistics (only worked with support from the military). The bloated ineffective quangos such as PHE who nobody is tackling. They should thank themselves lucky the news system is not more thorough.
This comments system is glitching, replacing about half a dozen comments with just one.
Great opinion piece from Sarah. On a minor point, “recherche theories” might be better written as “recherché theories”. The English language gets along quite well without any diacritical marks for homegrown words, and there is a temptation to omit them all from all words borrowed from foreign borrowings as well. In Canada, my country, where French is an official language, one is more likely to see the diacritical marks included, but usage varies in English-language publications, so one will find, for example, both Rivière-du-Loup (it means “Wolf River”) and Riviere-du-Loup being used for the city in Eastern Quebec, but no Anglophone would ever pronounce “Riviere” with two syllables instead of three. The word “recherché” poses a particular problem, because unlike “rivière”, the unaccented word is a noun with a meaning, “research” or “search”, quite different from the adjective, “exotic” or “pretentious”. It would seem to me that hear the danger may be, not so much that the use of the diacritical mark may be seen as an affectation by an anglophone reader as its omission may be misleading to a francophone reader with imperfect grasp of English, who might misleadingly think that the idea that girls’ eyes are specially adapted to spotting berries is one of the most carefully researched theories of sexual differences, which is not what Sarah is saying. I presume Sarah is already reaching an international audience; I am reading her after all. To my mind, even if the diacritical mark is generally omitted, it should always be included where the omission implies a difference in meaning, and therefore a chance of misunderstanding. Incidentally, the great Henry Fowler, who was opposed to the pretentious use of French in English, seemed to have no objection to diacritics as such, and lists “recherché” as a French word in common use in his “Modern English Usage”.
To eradicate the virus we’ll need the capability to test millions a day and get more or less instant results. I’d like to see journo’s sticking that on the table and challenging the government to say it’s unnecessary or unachievable.
Yawn. UnHerd is losing it with this sort of sub-women”s page filler (which is sexist in itself). More generally, UnHerd seems to have moved to too much in quantity, too little in quality. Time to get back to the basics that made it so refreshing as a start-up.
Developers looking to buy up hotel blocks at quiet spots in the UK e.g. Heathrow.
“
What sort of sexist are you?
The superficial niceness of benevolent sexism allows boys to hang onto it more easily”
Isn’t your headline sexist?
Well said, Peter. I hope all the people who read Giles Fraser’s condescending column, “What Peterson Shares with Pelagius” read yours, which almost appears to be written as a rebuttal.
I didn’t know anything about Claire Lehmann before I read this, so I watched an interview of her with John Anderson, and she is simply marvelous. Thank you so much, Peter, for getting me interested in her work. The “intellectual dark web” sounds like something Doctor Strange will have to defeat if there is a movie sequel, and it is just some NYT journo’s pejorative term for a gaggle of conservative thinkers who can be found on the internet. It shows how the woke left seeks to demonize conservatives rather than to understand them. By the way, Peter makes no mention of Debra Soh, the brilliant Ontario sex researcher who is an ally of Jordan Peterson, although she is mentioned as a member of the intellectual dark web in the NYT article. Peter may have inadvertently given the impression that the so-called IDW intellectuals are all Caucasian, or even worse, that one must be a Caucasian to be a member of the club. That’s not the case.