29th April, 2010
Alastair Campbell argues in his blog post today that the real story of the election so far, untold by the media, is that after months of leading the polls, Cameron’s support is only the same as Michael Howard’s was five years ago.
How did it happen?
The reason for Cameron’s decline is that his support was bolstered by voter disaffection, which inevitably harms the long-term incumbents more than their rivals. But this was never solid pro-Tory support, merely folk wanting change.
42% of respondents to a Populus Poll for the Times on April 12 – before the first debate – said “it seems like ‘time for a change’ FROM Labour, but I am not sure it seems ‘time for a change’ TO the Conservatives.” The nation has not actually swallowed Tory values.
Clegg is now the focus for that big chunk of disaffected electorate. The tragedy is that the nation hasn’t swallowed LibDem values either – they don’t really know what their policies are. Even the pundits had to re-read the LibDem manifesto after the first debate to remind themselves what the LibDems stood for.
So the real election story is not just that Cameron has squandered his lead. It is that if Labour doesn’t pull something out of the bag, we run the real risk of ending up with Tory values the nation doesn’t actually share, or LibDem values the nation doesn’t really understand.