When Brenda Parsons, a 75-year-old from Bristol, was asked for her reaction to Theresa May’s decision to call a snap election six weeks ago, her irritation was unfeigned. “You’re joking,” she said. “Not another one. I can’t stand this.” Brenda from Bristol spoke for many voters, but not for The Times.
This election is both justified and necessary. The logic behind Mrs May’s decision to seek a personal mandate was unassailable. Gordon Brown’s failure to seek one damaged him irreparably, and Jeremy Corbyn has led the weakest Labour opposition in history. Most importantly, the need for a larger majority and the more stable government it would bring is clear now and was clear in April, as leading EU members appeared to harden their stance against sensible compromise over Brexit.
The prime minister started the campaign with a poll lead of 24 points. That formidable cushion was attributable not just to Mr Corbyn’s weakness but also to Mrs May’s assured management of a difficult transition since the EU referendum. Voters saw a glint of steel in her eye that for many recalled Margaret Thatcher. She inspired hope in the electorate at large of the strong leadership that Britain surely needs at this uncertain time; and, in her own party, of a landslide.
Those hopes have since been largely confounded. The Conservatives have fought a poor campaign. Their manifesto includes policies lifted wholesale from Ed Miliband’s Labour platform of 2015, and a headline strategy on social care that was brave in principle but botched in practice. Mrs May has been pitched to voters as her party’s strongest asset but she has proved wooden when she needed to show charisma. She has been inflexible when she needed to think on her feet and evasive when she needed to be honest. That she is nonetheless by far the best prospective prime minister on offer speaks volumes about the choice voters must make tomorrow.
Britain has embarked on a journey towards Brexit that will require firm, far-sighted decision-making at every turn. To her credit, unlike some of her backbenchers, Mrs May understands the scale of the task ahead. Unfortunately the campaign has revealed her weaknesses more than her strengths. Britain needs her to win a substantially enhanced majority and to find the confidence and vision to steer the country to a new and prosperous stability outside the European Union. Yet, judging from the wildly varying polls, she will be lucky to win the former and has yet to show sufficient evidence of the latter.
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Downing Street’s strategy at the start of the campaign was to invoke Brexit and social justice to inflict on Labour a drubbing. The goal was to win working-class seats across the north and midlands with policies that accord with an egalitarian view of one-nation Toryism that Mrs May, and her senior aide Nick Timothy, hold dear. Chief among these was their plan to fix the social care funding crisis by requiring many pensioners to pay for their own care at home out of the value of their houses.
When the plan was published this newspaper welcomed it as a step towards solving a deep societal problem that previous governments ignored. As a tax on wealth, however, it was aimed squarely at middle-class voters wary of being taken for granted. Labelled a dementia tax, it rapidly became a political liability. Rather than defend it, however, the prime minister reversed it within four days and compounded the damage by refusing to acknowledge the U-turn. With weeks of campaigning still to go, strong and stable looked weak and wobbly.
It has since emerged that her own senior campaign consultant and most of her cabinet were blindsided by the policy, which was forced into the manifesto by Mr Timothy. Mrs May’s excessive dependence on a tiny inner circle left no one to defend a courageous but controversial proposal. More broadly, this dependence reflects a lack of confidence in her own judgment that she must overcome to prevail in the titanic negotiations with Brussels that are due to start this month.
If politicians could dictate world affairs this would have been the Brexit election. It has instead been hijacked by terrorists. The horror of the attacks in Manchester and London has required Mrs May to suspend campaigning twice to articulate the nation’s anger and resolve, and to marshal its security apparatus. She has assumed this role with dignity and diligence. But as campaigning has resumed and debate has turned inevitably to police numbers she has refused to admit they were cut sharply on her watch as home secretary. Simple candour would have served her and the national conversation better.
Nor will the attacks crowd out for long less prominent ideas in the Conservative manifesto. The proposal to cap energy prices is an unwarranted intervention in an already highly regulated market that offers other levers with which to enforce competition. The provision for more grammar schools is a distraction from secondary education policies that are working. And the decision to stick to a net migration target in the tens of thousands is posturing at best and at worst a recipe for economic self-harm.
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In contrast, Mr Corbyn has proved a more persuasive campaigner than many expected. He has looked more comfortable in his own skin than Mrs May, never mind his new blue suits. Many of his policies have proved popular with the voters they target. Taken together they would take the country back to the 1970s and create a financial crisis. Scrapping tuition fees naturally appeals to students but would cost £10 billion and threaten a booming higher education sector that, thanks to fees, has doubled the number of student places since 1998. Labour’s childcare proposals would cost another £5 billion in addition to ballooning sums pledged for schools, hospitals and welfare. The idea that they could all be funded from a 50p top rate of tax and a modest increase in corporation tax is fantasy.
The Liberal Democrats’ platform is better costed and more imaginative. As the only party promising a second European referendum they hoped for a windfall of voters from the 48 per cent who voted to remain, as Ukip did from the 52 per cent who voted to leave. But the Brexit choice has been made. Voters, by and large, have moved on. Tim Farron has proved scarcely more convincing as a national leader for the Lib Dems than Paul Nuttall has for Ukip. If opinion polls are even remotely accurate, Britain is returning to two-party politics with a vengeance.
The party best placed to form the next government is without doubt the Conservatives. The nation is entering a period of uncertainty that will involve change as momentous as any since the Second World War. Mrs May’s party is the only one to have grappled seriously with the complexities of Brexit, or with the challenge of funding public services when growth is in danger of stalling. None of the others has earned the public’s trust, and a cabinet led by Mr Corbyn would be a catastrophe. The prime minister herself has had a bruising campaign but remains a formidably experienced politician. She has an appetite for detail that will serve her well in Brexit talks. She has shown she can take tough decisions. There will be plenty more and she must now show she can be resolute in sticking to them. As the population ages and healthcare costs soar, there is no easy way of keeping the NHS solvent and the economy afloat.
In 1987, a bout of pre-election Tory nerves was followed by a period of unprecedented prosperity. Mrs May should be inspired by that lesson to offer a more compelling, optimistic vision of Britain outside Europe sufficient to attract a new generation of entrepreneurs. As a former home secretary she knows that terrorist attacks lead quickly to talk of the trade-offs between liberty and security that are needed to keep us safe. She needs to speak up for both.
“Brexit means Brexit” has given way to “enough is enough”. Mrs May has our vote, but assuming she wins tomorrow it will be despite the platitudes, not because of them. She needs to broaden her circle of advisers, find the inner steel that has been missing during the campaign and be the bloody difficult woman she says she can be. As Brenda from Bristol said once reconciled to the election, “You need somebody who’s got a little bit of guts to get us all going.” It is time for Mrs May to show she is worthy of Brenda’s vote.