https://consciousnessofsheep.co.uk/2024/05/27/wtf-am-i-watching/

The term “bad optics” sprang to mind last Thursday when Rishi Sunak appeared in front of 10 Downing Street to explain that he had a plan to solve Britain’s many (and growing) problems if re-elected for another five years. Somewhat painfully, however, this self-identifying master of forward planning had failed to look out of the window, check a weather forecast, or even borrow an umbrella before heading out into the rain. And so, we were treated to the prime minister – looking weak and diminutive behind an oversized lectern – being deluged literally and metaphorically (by someone blasting out Tony Blair’s 1997 election song, Things can only get better). Indeed, the election announcement was so cack-handed that few could believe there wasn’t some dark secret crisis about to befall us… at best, a repeat of the 2008 crash, at worst, the king or princess of Wales having terminal cancer, another Carrington Event, an imminent nuclear war or maybe an alien invasion.

Although not wishing to rule out some kind of “black swan” event entirely, it struck me that we might simply be looking at rank incompetence. After all, the Tory Party has been in office for so long that they may have taken winning elections for granted. In any case, the two down to earth reasons for calling a summer election having told even their own MPs that the election would be in the autumn, were economic – that the economic trends were going in the wrong direction – and political – to wrongfoot Reform UK, who have yet to select all of their candidates.

This is plausible, since Reform have been the main beneficiary of “red wall” voters deserting the Tories after the litany of broken promises since 2019. Current polling has reform in third place, competing with the Tories and potentially handing lots of marginal Tory seats to Labour or the LibDems. If the Tories can find enough social media dirt on Reform’s many unvetted candidates, the Reform leadership will be forced either to sack candidates (it will soon be too late to replace them) or they will have to endorse them, giving the impression at least that they endorse whatever sins they are accused of.

This is unlikely to prevent a defeat on 4 July, but it may prevent the loss of hundreds of marginal seats, at least leaving the Tories with enough MPs to form a workable opposition. It is a prerequisite, however, that the Tories appear at least as competent as their opponents. And key to this is a successful start to an election campaign. And so, it is essential that the first weekend of campaigning shows the prime minister and his party in the best possible light.

The very last thing Sunak needed to do was to visit the Titanic Museum in Belfast, since this would inevitably draw the comparison between that ill-fated vessel and a Tory Party which is evidently holed beneath the water line and soon to slip to the bottom of the political ocean. The other early cock-ups were perhaps less damaging, although having half of the backbench Tories publicly seeking to reverse the dissolution of Parliament scheduled for next Friday gives the appearance of a party which can’t even communicate with itself, even before they attempt to communicate with a British public who are clearly fed up to the back teeth with them.

Not knowing that Wales is a different country to England and, crucially, that the Welsh team didn’t qualify for the European football championship has probably lost the Tories their Welsh voter. Moreover, if you are going to plant a couple of Tories dressed up as workers to ask you easy questions, it is best not to use local councillors who will be spotted by journalists straight away (with any luck, as happened in 1997, there will be no Tory MPs in Scotland or Wales from 5 July). Then we had the insane pledge to “bring back national service” after having spent the best part of a decade cutting and undermining Britain’s armed forces. This is a policy which surely only appeals to the over-80s (the last cohort to have done national service in their youth… when Britain still had an empire) along with the seriously hard of thinking. Even though the plan is in reality merely to have 18-year-olds (there are around 700,000 of them at present) engage in compulsory training, volunteering, or a year in the military, the costs and logistics would be staggering. Military chiefs view it as completely bonkers, taking funding away from Britain’s defence. And since adult education and training is already underfunded and oversubscribed, it is hard to see where the additional facilities and tutors are coming from, and at what cost. Volunteering may be a little easier, since Britain’s 170,000 or so charities are often crying out for volunteers… except that someone who is compelled by law is not really a volunteer and may not be desirable to charities who require a degree of enthusiasm rather than sullen resentment. In any case, rather like Sunak’s smoking policy, national service is a solution looking for a problem at a time when the UK is fast disappearing around the U-bend.

These are merely the visible cock-ups. Less obviously, the election announcement came before some 100 to 150 local Tory parties had chosen their candidates. As a consequence, instead of focusing on the campaign, paid employees at Conservative HQ will be spending the next week or so working overtime to vet their candidates. This needn’t be too much of a problem, since most people vote for the party rather than the candidate. So long as the election manifesto offers a positive plan for the future, all is not lost… except… er… the election announcement was so hurried that the Tories hadn’t written, still less approved, a manifesto.

With all of this in mind, it becomes clear that at least the basic proposition behind the various conspiracy theories – that they are deliberately destroying their credibility – must surely be true. More than 100 (and growing) Tory MPs have already jumped ship rather than face the electorate… including senior figures like Michael Gove, former chancellors Kwasi Kwarteng and Sajid Javid, one time deputy prime minister Dominic Raab, and former defence secretary Ben Wallace. It would seem that what is left of the Tory Party is determined to humiliate Rishi Sunak while avoiding the “Portillo moment” on election night.

As for Sunak himself, there is a credible rumour that he already has a far better-paid job lined up in California.

This will be the twelfth general election that I have been eligible to vote in (and the seventeenth in my lifetime) but I can’t remember a campaign quite so incompetent… it even makes Theresa May look like a top-tier electioneer.