Sunday, April 26, 2015

Tories surge, over fears of Labour SNP


Well, I hate to say it (ok, no I don't), but I told you so. Many of my earlier anecdotal predictions seem to be coming true.

The Labour vote is collapsing, and going UKIP. And a goodle chunk of the remaining LibDem support appears to be moving over to the Tories.

And whether we like it or not, the driving influence seems to be fear of a Labour minority government dependent on the Scottish National Party to avoid votes of no confidence.

These points are supported by some more polling of Ashcroft (spit, ptooey, sigh) in some crucial marginal seats.

It really is ridiculous talking heads complaining about the Tory campaign. In the first instance, Ed Miliband is proving no less personal in his attacks than any of the Tories. C'mon, he pretty much accused David Cameron of complicity in the deaths of the Libyan refugees.

Secondly, Truman talked about the heat in the kitchen for a reason., Grow up.

Thirdly, the Tories have, since the beginning of this year, made it very clear that their message is simple and blunt: we got it right, they got it wrong, don't risk it. All that has changed is that the 'risk' now includes dependence on a Scottish political party, which has made it very clear that they will hold England and Wales to ransom.

Why on earth should the Tories talk about vision here, skipping through the daisies there, just to make their message more palatable to an electorate, who increasingly know the message to be true?

We ask out politicians actually to believe in something. To demonstrate genuine passion. Here are the Tories genuinely concerned that Labour-SNP will wreck the UK. And we're saying, um, could you tone down the passion please?

And, for the record, no, I do not like negative campaigns. I hated Obama's 2012 re-election campaign. And I'm none too happy with pounding on Ed the whole time.

But that is the central tenet of the Tory message. It works. And we're buying it. Just like we buy copies of newspapers with intrusive pictures we then condemn.

It ain't the fault of the political parties that, as a species, we really do quite like our lives to be a never-ending soap opera of impending train-wreck ...