In The Napoleon of Notting Hill Gilbert Keith Chesterton describes the game that the human race (‘to which so many of my readers belong’) has been playing since the start of time, which he calls ‘Cheat the Prophet’. ‘The players listen very carefully and respectfully to all that the clever men have to say about what is to happen then go and do something else instead.’
There are plenty of prophets in and around Parliament this week. The people around David Cameron are prophesying a Conservative victory next year. Steve Hilton, Andy Coulson, Ed Llewellyn, Catherine McFall, and the rest of Cameron’s flunkeys are planning which desks to nab in Number 10 Downing Street. They’re well past measuring up the curtains. They’ve got colour swatches, mood boards, and delightful little objets they picked up in the Portobello Road. The crates are ready. The removal lorries are booked. They think it’s theirs for the taking, and the general election is a mere speed bump on the road to victory. Conservativehome is even discussing the possibility of a joint Cameron/Osborne set-up in Downing Street to avoid the communication breakdowns and rivalries between No 10 and No 11 which have affected some, er, previous administrations.
Tim Montgomerie from ConHome says, ‘I am not aware of definite plans for integrating Numbers 10 and 11 Downing Street but thinking is going in that direction.’ Cameron should stamp out his little helpers’ arrogance, but I suspect he shares it. He’s probably got a crate marked ‘PM’s study’ already packed.
Elections can throw up unexpected results. In 1970, the opinion polls during the election campaign put Labour ahead by 12 points. On the Sunday before polling day, readers of the Observer were treated to the front-page headline ‘Labour to win by 100 seats.’ On the eve of poll Tony Benn wrote in his diary ‘my assessment is that we should win with a big majority.’ Yet Labour’s campaign was derailed by that notorious dead Russian, who often tramples on psephological certainties, the Late Surge. Labour’s vote slumped on the day by 5 per cent, the Tories gained 4.5 per cent, Edward Heath snatched a surprise win, and a whole load of pundits and pollsters looked pretty daft.
Again, in 1992, the polls pointed to a Tory defeat, with Labour the biggest party in a hung parliament. On 1 April the polls suggested a strong Labour lead. On polling day a week later, and despite nine Tory ministers losing their seats, John Major won a 21-seat majority. On that terrible night, I was at Labour’s election night party at 4 Millbank. The champagne stayed firmly corked. Ben Elton pretended to throw himself out of a window, and it’s fair to say he spoke for all of us.
Some interesting analysis popped into my inbox this week from John Spellar, who has the air of an Old Testament prophet about him. He offers some rays of hope for those Labour prophets of doom whose pessimism mirrors the Tories’ exuberance. He suggests that the Tories need to win 120 extra seats, mostly in England, for a parliamentary majority of one. In the 1997 landslide New Labour gained 147 seats across the whole of the UK, 132 of them in England. Yet in the Euro-elections in May, the Tories increased their vote in England by just 1 per cent. Spellar’s conclusion is this is no Tory version of ’97, and there is ‘all to play for’, and he is right. No election is over until it is over, no matter what the group-think of the political class decrees.
No-one is pretending it will be easy. My own view is that Labour is especially vulnerable in the English towns. The party strategists need to address the needs of disgruntled voters in places such as Chester, Gloucester, Worcester, Lincoln, Exeter and Carlisle. Indeed anywhere that was a strongpoint for the Romans is potentially dodgy for Labour. We will need legions of Labour activists to keep the Tories from breaching the city walls.
Across the country there are Labour candidates working their socks off to secure a Labour victory. People like Ruth Smeeth in Burton, Stella Creasy in Walthamstow, Rushanara Ali in Bethnal Green, Simon Burgess in Brighton, Rachel Reeves in Leeds, Stuart King in Putney, Stephen Twigg in Liverpool, and many more besides. They’ve never filled their boots from the public purse, or flicked avariciously through the John Lewis list, and they’ve never given up on Labour. They are the honest, decent face of the Labour party, and whilst they will never cheat the public, they may well yet cheat the prophets.