Jim Murphy’s Post

I’m so thrilled to welcome Labour’s former Deputy Chief Whip to Arden Strategies. Holly Lynch was the Labour MP for Halifax until standing down, and was also the Shadow Security Minister. She’ll offer brilliant counsel to Arden’s clients.

What does it feel like to be elected as a new MP as part of a landslide victory? So much has changed for this generation of new MPs. Back in ‘97 the parliamentary hairdressers were male only, the PA teleprinter spilled reams of paper across carpeted floors every time England scored a run in the Ashes, and Parliament had no visible armed guards. For most, every day will be different. On my first day as an MP I got a message on my pager asking me to call a number I didn’t know. It was the Downing Street switchboard. I hung up thinking I had the wrong number. Over on X/Twitter, I've pulled together 17 lessons and tips for the new MPs arriving in Westminster today, based on my memories of being elected unexpectedly for the first time in that 1997 win. Check them out here: https://lnkd.in/eemrHbWc

I’ll be in the BBC studios for election coverage from 11pm tonight for 14 hours.   So, if you’re at an election count and have intel on how any constituency contest is going anywhere in the UK then do let me know at any time overnight.   You can do so in four different ways: DM me on X @GlasgowMurphy Comment on this post Email me at info@ardenstrategies.com Or if you already have my mobile number then drop me a text

Today was probably the busiest day I’ve had since leaving politics. Five different online seminars; two for US audiences, all wanting to better understand Labour’s priorities. A main takeaway to corporate leaders for their UK political engagement is to be in the policy solutions, not the policy problems, business.

I've done lots of media on this political gambling scandal and this was my opening line in a BBC interview this morning. Thinking of making it my new ringtone....

Five Reasons why Reform won’t beat the Conservatives:   There’s lots of focus on whether Reform will outpoll the Conservatives on the 4th July. Here’s why we believe it is unlikely that they will win more votes and certainly won’t win more seats than the Conservatives.   - Reform isn’t standing in every constituency and so are hampered in their national vote share. There are forty-one seats where voters don’t have a Reform candidate to vote for which means that would have to significantly outperform the Conservatives in the other 609 seats.   - They don’t have a ground-game that will get their vote out. It sounds strange to those not involved in politics, but party machines can be effective at turning out their supporters to vote. Reform just don’t have the organic or established community connections that the Conservatives have. And while the Tories’ have lost much of their local capacity after the defeat of so many councillors, they still have those all-important local tentacles.   - Reform’s vote is too spread out to win many seats. Like nationalist parties across the world, they win votes in most parts of the country (England) but isn’t focussed enough in one city or group of constituencies to win seats. Perhaps Farage may finally break his eight-contest losing streak and win in Clacton. But he is likely to be lonely in parliament unless or until he is accommodated within a more nationalist Tory party.   - They are a nationalist party in a country with a range of other nationalist parties. Scotland and Wales already have nationalist parties with their own grudges and grievances, which squeezes Reform out. In Scotland Reform are 10% behind the Tories, and in Wales the gap is 5%.   - And most importantly, they are less popular than the unpopular Conservatives. They have been ahead in just one YouGov poll out of the dozens of polls so far been in this contest.   All of this comes with one giant caveat which is that Sunak is running the worst election campaign in living memory, and there’s still two weeks to go.

Is a Labour victory inevitable or is there a route back for the Conservatives? Join me for the latest of our online election insights events this Friday. I’m delighted to be joined by Kelly Beaver the CEO of Ipsos in the UK who will present their latest analysis. Register below ⏬️ https://lnkd.in/eqbq2pHK

The dangers of being spread too thick and thin   The danger for the Conservatives is that they are spread too deep, while the challenge for Labour is to make sure that they’re not spread too shallow. I’ll explain what I mean.   Going into any election all parties have their target seats - the ones where they pile all their energy, visits, and resources into. The criteria for deciding these things is an inexact science but the most important criteria is the parties’ relative position in the polls.   Under the new parliamentary boundaries, and using notional results from 2019, Labour needs to win 125 to have a majority of one seat in Parliament. That would mean that their targeting is aimed at those seats that get them over the line.   The Conservatives have to lose no more than 46 seats to have a majority of one.   In normal circumstances Party workers in safer seats are allocated to the nearest marginal constituencies, where they are expected to spend most of their campaigning time.   But in a contest where there’s such a significant poll lead for one party, it can sometimes be difficult to maintain strategic prioritisation. It’s already the case that some Tory MPs and volunteers are refusing to help in more marginal neighbouring seats because they fear that the polls mean that they will lose their own safer seat. It’s human instinct to behave in this way, but effectively it means giving up on those marginal seats that the Party needs to hold to retain power. It will lead to the Tories being spread too thick in such a small number of seats that they don’t have a route to victory.   For Labour the opposite is the case because their significant poll lead impacts on which additional seats are in play. Like all parties, Labour switches people and resources into the seats that can be won with a little extra effort. And right now some in the Party will have an unrealistic sense of what is winnable. Being so far ahead in the polls convinces some activists that their own unwinnable seat is winnable. Just like the Tory activists, they too decide to stay in their own seat. Labour will want to make sure that they are not spread too thinly across too many seats.   I’ll finish with a cautionary note about the limits of the science of political prioritisation. It is this: when the mood changes, there’s little you can do. Back in the Tony Blair 1997 landslide, we had no idea we were winning my constituency, which Labour hadn’t won for seventy years. I held the seat until 2015 when again the mood (in Scotland post-referendum) had switched. If, and it’s too early to be certain, this is a moment of national shared political zeitgeist around Labour’s ‘Change’ message then the Parties’ prioritisation models simply don’t apply.

What’s really going to happen on 4th July? Hear from Labour’s premier pollster this Thursday at midday. Online event where you can put your questions to the person who knows most about Labour’s numbers.