Lynton Crosby (right) led London Mayor Boris Johnson's campaign | Ian Burt/Flickr (CC BY 2.0) Forum Lynton Crosby speaks his mind The political strategist lets it all hang out at the Oxford Union.

OXFORD — Lynton Crosby will not be running the 2020 election campaign for the British Conservative party. Nor will he be formally involved in Britain’s “Brexit” referendum.

This is notable political news. Crosby, one of the world’s most successful political strategists, not only oversaw three consecutive election victories for Australian Prime Minister John Howard and two mayoral victories for London’s Boris Johnson, he was the mastermind widely credited with securing an astonishing majority for the Tories in 2015.

The last was an election in which almost all pundits and pollsters had considered an outright Tory victory impossible, predicting, instead, a hung parliament or a victory for Labour.

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Crosby, sometimes referred to as “the Australian Karl Rove, is known for his reticence, making few public appearances and granting few interviews. But in a candid conversation with Oxford University students last week, he discussed his political future, his thoughts on the state of British politics and the Tory bullying scandal now engulfing the party.

Crosby revealed that he will not be managing the Tories’ next election campaign, and also confirmed that his firm would have no involvement in the upcoming referendum on Britain’s membership of the European Union. He did, however, confirm that his firm would assist with Conservative candidate Zac Goldsmith’s campaign to become the mayor of London.

Taking questions from students at the Oxford Union, Crosby attacked a culture of “student politics” among members of the Tory party.

Asked about the allegations of bullying by senior Tory campaign managers that may have led to the suicide of Tory activist Elliot Johnson, Crosby said that “politics is more than a game. Politics is a serious business that has serious consequences … Some people get caught up in the game and overstep the mark … That’s what’s happened here. You have to be careful about how you conduct these campaigns.”

Crosby attacked the British media over its election coverage, calling it “the most aggressive press in the world.” He described the wide publicity given to photos of Labour leader Ed Miliband’s inelegant eating of a bacon sandwich “unfair, unwarranted [and] irrelevant … nothing to do with his policies.” He also joked that “we managed to get [David Cameron] out of most TV debates.”

Crosby advised left-wing Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn to “tidy up his image … have a shave and get rid of the track pants.”

Criticizing Corbyn, he said, “When you're in opposition it's difficult for the public to judge what you would be like in government because there's not a whole lot you can actually do. How you conduct yourself is important. Competence breeds confidence and I think he is failing on competence — if you can't govern your party, how can you govern a country? If you can't stick to a position and deliver your party on that issue, how will people believe things in your policy program?”

Crosby added that he had “much more regard for Tony Blair than most in his party. They might have better luck if they started having more regard for him.”

The uber-strategist also offered a post-mortem on Labour’s election campaign, explaining that “Ed Miliband didn’t do the work.” His campaign was based around “interventions. The media talked about how his proposed energy price freeze was brilliant, but he never successfully communicated what he stood for. The most important rule of politics is that message matters most.”

But Crosby declined to rule out a Corbyn-led Labour victory victory at the next general election, saying only that “he must deliver a united party which has clear messages. He has a way to go.”

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Asked about the difference between the Conservative Party campaigns in 2010 (which resulted in a hung parliament) and 2015 (when the Tories won outright), Crosby explained that “the reason we didn’t win a majority in 2010 was because we never successfully communicated to voters in marginal seats what their vote stood for … [In 2015] we learned that it’s very important that we communicate to voters how much their vote actually matters.”

Crosby credited his ruthless strategy of targeting the seats of the Conservative’s coalition partners, the Liberal Democrats, for giving the Conservatives their majority. “Many voters liked their popular, hardworking local Liberal Democrat MP. They think ‘I’m going to vote for them because they do a good job locally.’ What we had to help them understand was that there was something more they could get from the election … Throughout the campaign, polls consistently showed that David Cameron was [the] preferred prime minister, by double-digit figures. So we stressed the possibility of Ed Miliband being prime minister being kicked around by the SNP … it was this campaign that made the difference.”

Crosby added that he had no desire to get involved in U.S. politics. "I’d never run a political campaign in the United States," he said. "Politics in America, as we've seen this year in the Republican primaries, often turns into a reality TV show."

Nick Mutch is the managing editor of Byline Media. He Tweets at ‪@NickTMutch