I want to first start off this piece with a quick thank you to all those that read the first blog post and offered feed back and encouragement. It means a lot. So I struggled to think about what I wanted to talk about today for a number of reasons. Firstly we’re still a while away from the election, in fact we’re 6 weeks from June 8th and parliament is only going to be dissolved next week. On top of that not much has really happened yet, due to the fact many people likely got caught unaware by the announcement and each parties teams have gone into hiding to churn out a manifesto for the party to stand behind. This means that despite the interviews, PMQs and newspaper articles the leaders and their advisors aren’t doing to give too much away in case their party manifesto differs to what they’ve already said or they tie the party to a policy they can’t keep or don’t want to keep. What we have seen though is the beginning of the campaigns from the people most likely to stay on as or become the next Prime Minister. So today I want to focus on Theresa May after my last article mainly tackled the image of Jeremy Corbyn, something which again cropped up in PMQs this week. The Prime Minister holds the cards at the moment. She is leader of the party in power. She was prepared for the election as she was the one who announced it and the media narrative has been on her side for a while now. A quick disclaimer: I shall we talking about polls and while I understand the criticism of how many are run and how accurate they are, they are still often the best piece of data we can use in the run up too an election.

The general feeling from the parties in opposition such as Labour, the Liberal Democrats and the SNP is that Theresa May is ‘running scared’ or ‘hiding from the public’ but I think this might be a desperate attempt to find an early fault to the Conservative armour. The Tories know they are in a strong position and don’t want to push the boat out too much in fear of making a mistake. They are banking on the weakness of the other parties in order for them to keep looking ‘strong and stable’ like the government they seek to create should be. The left opposition parties look to be in a far weaker position. They have to go out and make their case to the public and it’s not quite that easy. The two leaders of Labour and the Liberal Democrats have come in for harsh criticism of their personal beliefs already. Jeremy Corbyn over his take of national defence and security and Tim Farron over his opinions on gay marriage and gay sex. Another example is that some on the left want to form a coalition, like the Greens to fight out the Tories anyway they can however, some like Labour and the Liberal Democrats want to go it alone. It was mentioned in the first article, the latest polling shows that without some from of coalition the Conservatives will likely hold onto power on June 8th. With the anti-Tory vote spilt between Labour, Lib Dems and Greens and even more so in Scotland with SNP. It’s clear the Conservatives and May feel they have less public work to do.

The Conservatives also have the benefit of dictating the conversation this election will be about. They want it to be about Brexit. They’ve realised they are the only party likely to win power that can say they have a clear position. Labour say they want a soft Brexit but hadn’t really expanded on that until Kier Starmer’s speech this week but that still left many confused especially when he spoke about many aims that were actually similar to what the Conservatives have laid out, namely leaving the single market ‘because that would mean free movement of people and the vote against the EU in many Labour areas was fuelled by concerns over immigration’. The Liberal Democrats are likely only able to aim at rebuilding the number of MPs they have in this election and even then they are also calling for a soft Brexit, a far cry from their position during the referendum and in reality doesn’t offer much of a difference on the negotiating table than Labour would offer. This means that the 48% of the ‘Remain’ vote doesn’t really have a voice unless they are now fully behind leaving the EU, while the 52% can either back the Conservatives or UKIP which is a what some would call a ‘wasted’ vote considering they have only ever had 1 MP and he walked out on them as soon as the Brexit campaign was over. This is likely why UKIP support seems to be dropping in favour of the Conservatives on many polls we have seen.

Speaking of a debate. There will be no TV debates, or at least none involving the Prime Minister and again I think this is smart of her behalf. While many are angry that the leader of the party in power won’t attend the debates, it’s important to note there’s no rules on TV debates like in the American election and in fact they only entered British politics during the 2010 election. It might be controversial to rule yourself out of the debates especially when they can used to gain support much like Nick Clegg did in 2010 as he performed the stronger out of himself, David Cameron and Gordon Brown but as previously mentioned there is just one message from the Conservatives this election:

‘Strong and stable ‘.

Why would Theresa May want to potentially show herself off as weaker than other candidates at TV debates, where women are often held up to different standard than men, as we saw during the US election with Hillary Clinton? May will also want to limit the comparisons between many Tory policies and that of Labour. We saw a prime example of this during the last PMQs session where Labour and other parties pledged to keep the Triple-lock on pensions while May refused. While the Conservatives will feel this policy helps the country they are trying to form after we leave the EU it is not popular with the electorate. By limiting the oxygen to issues like this the Conservatives are able to sit above the other parties squabbling for votes while looking…you got it, ‘Strong and Stable’.

What is confusing however is the recent news that Jeremy Corbyn will not take part in TV debates as well, unless Theresa May is there. I can only assume this is a play to force her into turning up but as I’ve mentioned above this is unlikely and Corbyn not showing up at the live debates helps her even more. Jeremy Corbyn needs to use the debates to throw off his image and highlight his strong policies to the public. Maybe he doesn’t have it in him to attack Tory policy without them there to fight back? Does this again show weakness as a leader? Or is something else happening behind the scenes? It’s hard to tell right now but it would be disappointing and rather pointless to hold a leaders debate with maybe just the smaller parties. Then again would Tim Farron, Nicola Sturgeon, Leanne Wood, Paul Nuttall and Caroline Lucas and Jonathan Bartley benefit from the attention being more of them? And would they lead to more of a spilt vote? Maybe we will see Northern Irish parties included in national TV debates for the first time considering the political situation we’ve seen there this year.

So to summarise, while it may anger people, Theresa May’s campaign strategy so far is smart. She’s attempting to distance herself from controversy while hammering home sound bites that make it easy for the whole party to look on the same page. Conservatives MPs have been rattling off ‘strong and stable’ in reference to their own party and ‘coalition of chaos’ in reference to the opposition in interviews and debates up and down the country. While it could be risky to allow the opposition to fight back in TV debates without her ability to fight back on the night, it does allow her to again stay clear of the fight for air time and enable her to put her message out in her own time without worry of being directly challenged face to face especially when a party like Labour are seemingly about to offer people far more than the Conservatives on social polices. Keeping the message on Brexit, security and foreign policy allows the Conservatives to show off their strengths without fear Jeremy Corbyn will match them due to his past and his known beliefs. Of course it is important to note with 6 weeks to go that much could change, especially when we see what parties are including in their manifestos.

Thanks for reading it would be great if you could share this on Facebook, twitter or whatever social media you’re connected too. If you have any questions then please contact me either by email toughenuss@gmail.com or on twitter @PolitcsHeckler

References

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/world/uk/theresa-may-hosts-eu-leaders-as-brexit-positions-harden/articleshow/58376248.cms

http://britainelects.com/polling/westminster/

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/politics/voice-mirror-scared-theresa-run-10283885

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2017/apr/19/theresa-may-accused-at-pmqs-of-running-scared-from-tv-debates

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/2017/04/25/keir-starmer-has-reconfirmed-labour-incoherent-mess-brexit/

http://britainelects.com/polling/satisfaction/

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/uk-wales-politics-39709743/may-pledges-strong-and-stable-leadership

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/live/2017/apr/26/general-election-2017-may-corbyn-final-pmqs-politics-live

Featured Image Credit: http://britainelects.com