We need little reminding that the Conservatives had a great 2015 campaign and Labour less so but there is no harm in having the contrasts spelt out so clearly again. Tim Ross is a working journalist and his newsy prose makes Why the Tories Won very readable.

Ross takes us through each campaign and the key personalities. There are fascinating nuggets and valuable insights in this book. However, his desire for maximum coverage leads him to turn the first two chapters into a synopsis so that fellow journalists do not need to read the entire book, resulting in too much repetition. He is also far too bewitched by the Australian Conservative campaign ‘guru’ Lynton Crosby, whom he constantly calls the ‘wizard’ and a ‘genius’. Crosby is thorough, focused and a great campaign manager but brings little new to the Conservative campaign. This is the man who ran a dreadful campaign in 2005 for Michael Howard and only just got the popular Boris Johnson over the line in 2014. Too much focus on personalities could distract us from the real reasons why the Tories won and Labour lost.

Here Ross’ main insight is that Labour is weak on the economy and leadership. He also recognises that most voters in England and Wales did not want to be dominated by the Scottish National party through a coalition with Labour. Stephen Gilbert, the Tories’ director of campaigning, used this information to find individuals in target seats through a questionnaire using a ‘Likert-type’ scale. The Tories then began a dialogue expanding on these themes with face-to-face contact, on the phone, direct mail, leaflets and social media.

This was no different to any of the campaigns under Tony Blair. In 1997 we found Liberal Democrats who would vote for Labour as a second preference or former Conservative supporters who could easily ‘return home’. We built a relationship with them based on the stage they were at in their lives through the same communications used so successfully by the Conservatives, although social media had yet to be invented.

Ross believes we made big organisational errors. Perhaps the most significant was the absence of a defensive strategy. The Conservatives’ approach was 50-50 hold and gain. A Labour defensive plan would not have worked in Scotland after the strategic mismanagement of the referendum campaign coupled with an unreformed Scottish party, but we could have saved seats like Morley, Bolton West and Vale of Clywd. Just as we did in 2001 with a series of campaigns to protect our defensive seats – even tackling immigration head on in the Kent marginals.

So, none of this is new or complex. Crosby took these techniques and remorselessly targeted United Kingdom Independence party voters and Liberal Democrat voters in seats where the Tories were second – voters who were most worried about a Labour government.

Again no surprise as we always knew that unlike Liberal Democrat activists most Liberal Democrat voters were more frightened of a Labour government than a Conservative one. Throw the SNP into the mix and you get panic. Indeed, the Liberal Democrats need to be careful as their remaining seats will be targeted at the next election and they could end up without representation.

The Tory campaigning that was new and interesting was their social media advertising – all too often political parties try to be too clever, developing websites and tweeting to each other. The Tories went mainstream and talked directly to their key seat target voters on Facebook – where data can be bought on a constituency basis – spending £100,000 each month before the campaign started.

When Ross turns to the Labour campaign he makes clear how no one was in charge and how we lacked political message. Although painful, it is worth reading the chapter to understand how little respect we can have for the intelligence of the British people. One Labour campaigner explains that the public were not interested in politics so a ‘bacon sandwich’ could decide their vote! And his account of the ‘Ed Stone’ is truly funny and the only laugh out loud moment of the entire book. But, just as the Sheffield rally was not why we lost in 1992, these were not the reasons we lost in 2015.

Ross repeats ad nauseum the party’s pledge to have ‘four million conversations with voters’. ‘Conversation’ here is misused. All Labour did on the doorstep was to ask voters the same questions again and again. Maybe they thought that if we kept asking voters the same question one day we would get the right answer. The reality was that we had nothing to say in 2015, just as we lacked a clear message in 2010. It is a complete mystery to me why some Labour leaders fight hard to get to the top but do not know what they want to do when they get there.

Ross also rightly focuses on the Tory threat ‘Vote Labour and you’ll get the SNP’ – David Cameron and George Osborne were ‘mystified’ at why Ed would not deny the threat. Indeed many of us in parliament pleaded for an SNP coalition to be ruled out before the campaign as we saw the beartrap ahead. But Ed would never rule it out and, as Nick Clegg said, ‘the attack worked because it was true’.

While Ross is great on explaining organisation and message he never fully addresses the epicentre of an election campaign – vision and leadership. These are the attributes that take a political party over 40 per cent of the popular vote, the magic number that all of us who have run British elections seek to achieve.

Vision for Tony Blair was running a country for the ‘many not the few’ followed through with policies that showed how he could change his party and go on to change his country. Cameron used his idea of a ‘big society’ which, though subsequently sidelined, helped to detoxify the Tory brand. Ed’s ‘One Nation’ vision only lasted the length of a conference speech.

On leadership and character Cameron scores highly with his devotion to his family. Ed was defined from the outset by running against his brother. Apart from two mentions of a ‘family psychodrama’ and its use as a ‘dead cat’ issue to get out of trouble, Ross fails to articulate the full scale of revulsion felt by most British people.

Ross believed that Labour would win in 2015 or would lead a hung parliament, a view shared by many pundits. So he concludes, ‘Crosby’s remarkable stewardship was to be the decisive factor in the Conservatives winning a shock majority in 2015’. It was not a shock to anyone paying attention to what was being said on the doorsteps any more than our 1992 defeat was. The reality is that the Tories were never behind at any time between 2010 and 2015. We were always seen as untrustworthy on the economy and lacking a vision and an acceptable leader. Yet, while Ross may overdo the role of Crosby, he has produced a very readable account of the election. Any activist wanting to better understand, or, dare I say, win elections, should read this book.

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Margaret McDonagh is a former general secretary of the Labour party

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Why The Tories Won: The Inside Story of the 2015 Election

By Tim Ross

BiteBack Publishing | 316pp | £12.99