The policies kept coming. Cancelling the proposed rise in fuel duty. Tax cuts for savers. A new Help to Buy ISA. These moves were popular, but I would take issue with anyone calling them ‘populist’. Populism is when you conjure giveaways out of thin air – offering gains without any pain. But we’d had the pain. These gains were the product of five years’ hard work.
While we were putting our Long Term Economic Plan into practice, Labour was waging a very ‘values-based’ campaign. Policies, such as rent controls, were chosen for the signals they sent: helping ordinary people while simultaneously targeting big businesses and vested interests. But there was a lucky-dip element to these policies. They didn’t add up financially. All this played into Labour’s reputation for recklessness.
They hadn’t done much to counter that perception. In his no-notes 2014 conference speech Miliband had forgotten to mention the deficit, while shadow chancellor Ed Balls had only been able to name – or half name – one Labour business supporter on Newsnight. ‘Bill …’ he said. ‘… Somebody?’ the presenter Emily Maitlis suggested. I gleefully explained at PMQs that ‘Bill Somebody’ wasn’t a person, it was Labour’s policy.
Their line of attack was that Tory cuts would ‘return Britain to the 1930s and destroy the NHS’. But our narrative about Labour returning Britain to the borrowing, overspending and debt of the 2000s was more potent. And while they had prepared themselves to fight a campaign based on living standards, living standards were actually going up.
Yet we soon realised that something even more fundamental was putting people off prime minister Miliband than his pie-in-the-sky policies and addiction to spending.
After the Scottish referendum, the SNP dominated the airwaves: aggrieved, antagonistic, and on course for a big win north of the border at the general election. What worried voters was that, just as we had formed an alliance with the Lib Dems to get into power in 2010, Labour might do the same with the SNP in 2015. Our advertising agency M&C Saatchi produced a devastating poster: a giant Alex Salmond with a tiny Ed Miliband poking out of his breast pocket. Labour in the pocket of the SNP.
There was still an internal argument over whether posters were worthwhile or not. Lynton’s unambiguous assessment was that they were ‘bullshit’. In 2010 we had spent £7 million on posters; in 2015 we would spend just £1 million. But George and I remained adamant that they could create ‘moments’ in campaigns. And the poster of Miliband in Salmond’s pocket did just that.
In 2010 we had spent £150,000 on all online campaigning, whereas in 2015 we spent £1.2 million on Facebook alone. Obama’s campaign guru Jim Messina came over to help us. Traditionally, voter targeting had been based on stereotypes and put into practice through direct mail. Messina developed a more sophisticated system that used social media, direct mail, phone calls and face-to-face contact to identify who might vote for us, and that emphasised different messages to different people.
Labour’s campaign was trying desperately to make Miliband look prime ministerial – he was permanently attached to a lectern – but people still saw him as weak. He ruled out a formal coalition with the SNP, but left the door open to some type of less formal cooperation, and did not rule out a confidence and supply agreement with the SNP until the final twelve days of the campaign.
All of this helped us to solve a problem Lynton and I had been talking about for years. The one-Member, one-constituency system often means people vote according to whether or not they like their local MP, regardless of his or her party or the state of national politics. More than ever, we realised we needed to drive home to people the national consequences of this purely locally based voting. ‘Losing just twenty-three seats could mean Ed Miliband as prime minister’ became my refrain. It was no longer the simple warning to UKIP-fanciers, ‘Go to bed with Farage and wake up with Miliband.’ It was addressed to everyone who might have been thinking about straying: ‘Go to bed with anyone but the Conservatives and wake up with Miliband and Salmond.’
So we had two vital things in this campaign: a great message about ourselves, and a great message about our opponents.
But then I delivered a message that wasn’t part of the plan.
I had agreed to do an ‘at home’ broadcast feature with the BBC’s James Landale – an opportunity to cover politics, life, the bigger picture, while hopefully showing people the real me. We were filmed watching Elwen play football for the Chadlington under-10s, and did the interview in my kitchen, as we chopped lettuce and Samantha pottered about in the background. Would I stand for a third term, James asked casually. ‘No,’ I replied without hesitating. I explained that I was standing for a full second term, that I had a lot more to do, but that there comes a time in politics when a fresh pair of eyes is needed. I cited the talents of Theresa May, George Osborne and Boris Johnson. ‘Terms are like Shredded Wheat – two are wonderful, but three might just be too many,’ I said, referencing the 1980s advert.
I thought I had done the right thing. I had been honest. I had confirmed, despite suggestions to the contrary, that I would serve a full second term. But I was clear that I wouldn’t repeat the mistakes of some of my predecessors, whose premierships were cautionary tales of the dangers of clinging on.
However, something that I thought demonstrated staying power was seen as doing the opposite. We were talking about security, our plan, and seeing through that plan. And here was the boss saying something that sounded as if he wasn’t going to be there for it.
Just because I didn’t want to cling on beyond a decade didn’t mean I held the privilege of power at all lightly. I was desperate to be re-elected, and deeply reflective during the final days before the campaign formally started at the end of March. Soon Parliament would be dissolved, and all our MPs would go off to their constituencies. Who would be coming back, I wondered. Almost all of my special advisers would be resigning and trooping over to CCHQ to fight the election. Would they have jobs to return to in six weeks’ time? Sam had already started to pack up the cupboards in the flat, and the pile of blue plastic sacks in the hallway grew by the day. Every ‘last of this Parliament’ might be the last of my career. My last cabinet. My last PMQs.
That last cabinet brought our time in coalition to a close. It wasn’t the end people had predicted – a fiery collapse in the early weeks, or a bitter mid-term decoupling. It was the end of a full five-year term, and a fairly harmonious one at that. I had arranged for the Wychwood Brewery in my constituency to produce a special ‘Co-ale-ition’ for each minister, and Henderson’s in Nick Clegg’s constituency provided ‘Coalition Crunch’ crisps.
The last PMQs – my 146th at the despatch box – got us back on the front foot on tax. Miliband started strong. ‘On Monday, the prime minister announced his retirement plans,’ he said, predictably referencing my faux pas. ‘He said that it was because he believed in giving straight answers to straight questions. After five years of Prime Minister’s Questions, that was music to my ears. So here is a straight question: will he now rule out a rise in VAT?’
There had been a question mark over this for some time, and as recently as the previous day George hadn’t either confirmed or denied it. But he and I had discussed it – in fact we’d come to the same conclusion before doing so – and had decided to rule out putting VAT up again. Cutting spending hadn’t been as painful as some had predicted, and although we weren’t saying no taxes would go up ever again, we believed that VAT, National Insurance and income tax should not increase.
I revelled in my reply, as Sam and eleven-year-old Nancy looked on from the gallery. ‘In forty-three days’ time, I plan to arrange the Right Honourable Gentleman’s retirement. But he is right: straight questions deserve straight answers – and the answer is yes.’ I went on: ‘This is a country where unemployment is falling; the economy is growing; the deficit is coming down; in our NHS, the operations are going up; there are more good school places for our children; living standar
ds are rising; inflation is at zero; and there are record numbers in work. All of this could be put at risk by Labour. That is the choice in forty-three days’ time: competence and a long-term plan that is delivering, instead of the chaos of economic crisis from Labour.’
The classic election campaign offer: Britain is on the right track, don’t turn back.
The following week, Parliament was dissolved. This was it. The final stretch. And I would be spending most of it on a giant, sky-blue battle bus. There were planes and helicopters too. To mark one month before polling day, Sam and I flew to Edinburgh to begin a one-day tour of the UK’s four nations, ending at the Royal Cornwall Showground for an evening rally.
On the way home we stopped off at Jon’s Fish and Chips in Wadebridge with the candidate for North Cornwall, Scott Mann, and his partner Nicki. It had been an incredible day. I’d made a pie and sipped stout in a brewery. I’d even sat on the Game of Thrones ‘Iron Throne’ in Northern Ireland. But the real highlight was sitting on a picnic bench by the River Camel, wooden forks in our hands, getting to know this lovely couple.
Scott had been a postman in this Cornish town for nearly twenty years. Now he was hoping to make his postal patch his political patch. He was down-to-earth, decent, the most modern and compassionate of Conservatives. This is what it’s all about, I thought, all the rallies and interviews and stop-offs and drop-ins. It was about getting people like Scott onto our green benches. Changing our party so we could change our country.
The only interruption to these happy days on the road was the first and only TV debate I’d have to do with my fellow party leaders. In the snap polls afterwards I came third behind the SNP’s Nicola Sturgeon and Farage. I’d certainly won my own battle of expectations. And now I could get back to the campaign.
I couldn’t remember an election when we’d had so many perfect elements in place – the team, strategy, policies, messaging. Trust in the economy was up. Trust in my leadership was up. But the main polls didn’t seem to move. Lynton said to me, ‘If the election was tomorrow, PM, you’d lose.’ In fact, the only change we did see was Labour taking a 3 to 6 per cent lead in the middle of April.
Things felt good on the ground – better than 2010. But the polls just weren’t breaking our way. Perhaps our manifesto, which we were launching that week, would help shift the dial. The three policies from it that we decided to announce during the launch were selected to emphasise the real, tangible, life-changing benefits of our economic plan.
Tenants of housing association properties would be able to buy their homes under Right to Buy. (Previously it was mostly council housing tenants who had this right.)
Parents of three- and four-year-olds would receive thirty hours of free childcare a week, doubling the existing allowance set by Labour.
And anyone earning the minimum wage – at this point, 1.4 million people – would never have to pay income tax again, with legislation stating that the tax-free personal allowance should always increase faster than the incomes of the lowest-paid.
What we were striving to deliver, I said in my speech, was ‘the good life’. I meant this primarily in an Aristotelian sense, and it was a mantra I often came back to when I was thinking over policy decisions. But it didn’t hurt that the papers presented it in a grow-your-own-veg 1970s-sitcom sense. It was exactly the sort of simple, sunny, down-to-earth tone we were going for.
And yet still the polls didn’t budge.
Perhaps reaching out to Britain’s minority communities would swing things our way. Opportunity for all – all people, from all backgrounds – wasn’t something I dreamed up only at election time. My entire leadership had been founded on raising people’s chances while widening our appeal as a party.
During five years in office, we had put that into practice. There were the policies dedicated to removing barriers, such as English-language tutoring (a quarter of British Muslim women didn’t speak English). And there were the mainstream policies, from start-up loans to Free Schools to Help to Buy, which were designed to lift everyone up, but actually had a disproportionate effect on minorities. We finished the Parliament with more ethnic minority students at university than ever before. People from those backgrounds were four times more likely to receive start-up loans. A third of participants in National Citizen Service were from minorities, compared with 13 per cent of the population.
CCHQ was at the forefront of this effort. We launched ‘friends of’ groups to engage with Indian, Pakistani, Sri Lankan, Bangladeshi, Turkish and Tamil communities and more. I was a regular at mosques and temples and gurdwaras, and the election was no exception – I even broke my ‘no hats’ rule to don an orange headscarf for the Vaisakhi parade in Gravesend in April.
The boldest endeavour in this area was something I hadn’t done before. Church attendance among the wider population was dwindling, but legions of worshippers who gathered in warehouses and former bingo halls every Sunday morning were making up for the decline. Many people from these communities had already found a home in our party – British Nigerians were prominent in our associations. But I was sure there were many more potential Conservative voters among these congregations.
In one of the most thrilling episodes of the campaign, I spoke at the Festival of Life, the biggest Pentecostal event in Britain. Going out on stage after 11 p.m., in front of the 45,000 worshippers, I did my best to channel my inner pastor: ‘When I was a child, I had a very specific image of what a church was. I thought, to be a church, it had to be an old grey building, with a slate roof and a big spire … that it had to have pews and a pulpit … But I was wrong – and you prove that. You prove that church is people – that church is a family. And it doesn’t matter what the roof is made of, because with your energy, your devotion, your love of Jesus Christ, you raise that roof every time!’
I loved that speech, and I was keen to get onto the next one, which would be about my vision for the year 2020, specifically how we were going to increase the proportion of people from ethnic minorities in higher education, apprenticeships, the armed forces and the police. I also set a target of 20 per cent BME Conservative candidates in winnable seats.
The stage was set early one Saturday morning in Croydon, the marginal seat of one of our hardest-working MPs, Gavin Barwell. I was working up to my favourite part of the speech: a section about what makes Britain the proudest multiracial democracy on earth. ‘We are a shining example of a country where multiple identities work,’ I told the audience. ‘A country where you can be Welsh and Hindu and British. Northern Irish and Jewish and British. Where you can wear a kilt and a turban. Where you can wear a hijab covered in poppies. Where you can support Man United, the Windies and Team GB all at the same time.’ Then I ad-libbed: ‘Of course, I’d rather that you supported West Ham …’
Wait.
I support Aston Villa.
You know when you say something, and you think: did I just say that? You want to rewind. But you can’t. It’s out there – there’s nothing you can do. And if you’ve got an autocue in front of you, you just have to keep on talking.
So often we misspeak, usually when we’re trying to do two things at once. We say ‘See you at ten’ when we mean eleven. We call someone the wrong name, and don’t even notice we’ve done it.
But this was me, an Aston Villa-supporting prime minister, implying that I supported the wrong team. On camera. On a Saturday. Match day. In a country obsessed with football. Two weeks before a general election. The incident made me look phoney, as if I had always pretended to support Aston Villa, but didn’t really. The opposite was the case. I hadn’t said a huge amount about being a football fan, but I really was one, and I followed Villa more closely than I let on.
Could it be that we’d flown over West Ham’s football ground on our way back to London last night? Or that my political press chief Alan Sendorek and I had been chatting about his team, QPR, facing West Ham that day? Pe
rhaps that had something to do with it, but the thing I most remember was that while I had just said ‘Windies’ it was ‘West Indies’ that was written on the autocue, so I had ‘West’ lodged in my head. I was also beyond exhausted. Brain and mouth had completely disconnected.
‘How bad was it?’ I asked Liz when we were back in the car.
‘Really bad,’ she said.
As we ruefully discussed this cock-up on the journey back to Chequers, all our dissatisfaction with the campaign tumbled forth. Even though we were one team with one head, it did feel that there were several competing arguments inside it.
Lynton didn’t want any new announcements. He wanted me to go around repeating the message ad nauseam. And he was right. But Craig Oliver said if you’ve got nothing new to say, you won’t get on the news – and he was also right. George Osborne wanted everything tightly controlled, because the potential for disaster was so great. He was right too.
The result was lots of scripted speeches at more formal, sit-down events, with a carefully coordinated backdrop, and a total ban on walkabouts. Of course, you could say that the West Ham ad lib was an argument for being even more controlled in what we were saying and doing. But Liz and I felt the problem was that there was too much new written material with complex policy ideas. The low point was ending up in a shed factory in Bedford talking about tax-credit taper rates. It wasn’t me.
Meanwhile, a press narrative was developing that this was the most boring campaign ever. Partly, they were goading us into taking more risks. But I think there was a truth to it too.
With just ten days to go, Liz and I decided things needed to go up several gears. We met Craig and Lynton at Chequers, and agreed a rethink. No lecterns, no autocue, no scripts. More real people, more rallies, and much more energy. We could use the press’s narrative about the campaign being boring to put more fire into it. More passion.
That in itself was slightly contrived. I wasn’t tearing up the script – I’d been doing rallies off the cuff anyway, and I’d still be using notes. But I wanted to make people believe that I was making a switch, turning up the energy. This was a process story, the kind Lynton hated. But process seeps into the wider consciousness. Voters would see a more energetic PM, partly because I was laying it on thicker, but also because the media would be presenting it that way.
For the Record Page 72