I’ve covered a lot of failed political campaigns (by definition, most are), but Sunak’s 2024 general election campaign and his 2022 leadership bid are both striking in their complete and total absence of a theory of how they were going to win.
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It is so bizarre to me that everyone knows the Tories will lose because nothing works any more (NWAM) but they haven't tried to *do* anything about it.
Like there must have been a meeting early in the Rishi premiership where his strategists laid out NWAM and its electoral significance to him. Was there just an awkward silence and a general "Welp, I guess we're doomed then"?
It is clearly related to numbers and priorities, though. Pretty much everyone- politicians, members of the public, commentators etc wants bobbies back on the beat. Identifiable community police officers that know an area and everyone knows in return. Someone who can respond quickly.
I think some of it (see also the collapse in GP services and the way they used the pandemic as.an excuse to stop doing things they'd always done) is that underfunding is an excuse not to try to provide a good service, because it's impossible so why aim to get as close as possible?
I think it's both. You need the resources for actually good to be plausible, but you also need the insistence that as it's plausible we're damn well going to get it. Which I think has always been the more palatable end of public service reform.
Some of that is targets, some of it is finding where things work, working out why and spreading that practice whether or not those it is being spread to want to adopt it.
None of which is new - I don't think it's easy, but it's also not breaking new ground. This has all happened before.
I have.
We are badly policed because if you are a bully who wants to throw his weight around, the police will welcome you and give you the tools to do it.
It may be only a few bad apples but one bad apple spoils the barrel (said Sister Brigit in English class).
A criminologist chum once told me it was because the theory of policing in Britain has changed, and whereas the police used to see their job as crime prevention they now see themslves as a sort of civic army, hence the closure of community police stations in favour of out of town mega cop shops.
And hence why many police stations no longer have a front desk. My local station, Denbigh, is not open to the public at all so if I wanted to report a crime to an actual copper in person I'd have to drive the extra eleven miles to Rhyl.
The fact Boris Johnson could use the lovable buffoon angle is certainly a larger indictment. The very fact our society, economy, future is given over to a sociopathic, narcissistic, self-entitled failure in life should have shaken the very foundations of our society. Sunak just a pretty boy flake.
Re: doomed campigns of yore, was thinking the other day that Sunak approach to Reform is a bit like the Owen Smith plan to beat Jeremy Corbyn by conceding that he was basically right about everything and promising to be a wimpier facsimile.
the closest i can think of is romney in 08 and 12. mittens was saved from complete devastation by the nature of the system here but ultimately just kind of a doofus stepping on rakes constantly and everybody could see plainly why he lost to mccain the first go
Would it have resulted in favourable comparisons for Rishi Sunak? No. But would it have been a good way to win friends among Democrats or Republicans in 2023? Also no!
but! tbf i imagine even most tories find trumpism pretty horrifying, and mittens *is* one of the more prominent faces for anti-trump conservatives. so i guess i can get it on some level. but still, it’s…just mitt romney
Yeah, you're correct re: most Conservative MPs and Trumpism, and most Tory MPs do think, e.g. people who have walked away from it like Paul Ryan are great (also they agree with them a lot more politically on the economic side), while some are just out and out Clintonians.
A mate who used to be involved his local Tory party told me that the problem with his ‘22 campaign is that he hadn’t updated the planning folder since summer 2021, when he had high approvals and the economy was in a better state pre-Ukraine
In a parallel universe, he steps back after losing to Truss and becomes a Tory David Miliband. That world would be better for him, but worse for you, because like with Miliband, you'd have to spend years explaining why he really didn't look like making a good leader.
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None of which is new - I don't think it's easy, but it's also not breaking new ground. This has all happened before.
We are badly policed because if you are a bully who wants to throw his weight around, the police will welcome you and give you the tools to do it.
It may be only a few bad apples but one bad apple spoils the barrel (said Sister Brigit in English class).
(Not trying to start a fight! Just think it’s funny, that’s all…)
Can easily imagine someone in the One Nation Wing running a similar campaign against whatever lunatic the right put up in the leadership contest.