Election Blog: Could Bromsgrove be Cameron’s Waterloo?

I’ve been puzzled by my own constituency in recent weeks. Bromsgrove is Julie Kirkbride’s seat and has been a Conservative stronghold since the seat split with Redditch due to boundary changes in 1983. Kirkbride has been returned with a circa 8,000-10,000 majority in the last two elections, but I had assumed that things might get a little more exciting this time for two reasons.

Firstly, the Conservatives will have inevitably taken something of a hit for the Julie debacle, not least because Bromsgrove was furious, which manifested itself in the windows of the local constituency office being broken this time last year.

Secondly, and most importantly, Bromsgrove Conservatives have had a Central Office appointment foisted upon them, namely Sajid Javid, and they don’t like it. Javid who, if he holds the seat, will become the Tories’ first Muslim MP also has a less than PR-friendly past.

Why? Well it's simple really, because before becoming a Conservative candidate, Sajid was Managing Director and Head of Global Credit Trading at Deutsche Bank in London, responsible for cash and derivative credit trading, CDOs, securitisation, structured finance, convertibles etc. In short, most of the stuff which created the credit crunch in the first place. (Funnily enough, he doesn’t mention this much in his campaign literature).

One Bromsgrove Conservative, namely Adrian Kriss, decided enough was enough and decided to run as an independent candidate.

Despite all this, all has been quiet up until now, with exception of a couple of small posters for Sajid in fields adjacent to the A38, with no visible advertising for Labour or the LibDems. However, in recent days, Kriss has upped the ante, rebranding himself as an Independent Conservative. What's more, I noticed this morning that Mr Kriss has purchased an enormous 48 sheet poster site in the centre of Bromsgrove which must have cost circa £2k at least with printing and media costs.

Two questions. Can Kriss win? You have to say ‘no’ but these are not ordinary times and just being able to purchase this poster will be a shock to the Tories.

Secondly, what does this mean for Cameron? Well, the electoral arithmetic goes like this. In order to get a majority he has to hold onto all his current seats, take a huge number of Labour seats and take approximately 23 LibDem seats. After last Thursday the latter was looking like a big ask but I am beginning to wonder if he is not getting into a fight for one of his own here.

The Tory nightmare, even if Kriss can’t win is that he splits the Conservative vote and lets in Labour or the LibDems.

Interesting times.

Is the political narrative changing?

For me the big news of the weekend was not Wayne Bridges’ “historic” snubbing of John Terry’s handshake (in my informal league table of great handshake snubs I rated it second only to US Secretary of State John Foster Dulles’ snubbing of Chinese Premier Chou En Lai’s hand at the Geneva Conference in 1954) but the Sunday Times YouGov poll which gave the Conservatives a mere 2 per cent poll lead.

YouGov have a reputation for accuracy, but even if you take this as rogue poll, the evidence suggests that the Tory poll lead has declined dramatically over the last few months. What is going on?

I think there could be a number of factors. Firstly, it could be that the Government is getting some credit for bringing the country through the economic crisis. Last week’s numbers which showed the economy had grown by 0.3 per cent compared to the forecast 0.1 per cent will have been like a dagger to the heart of Team Cameron. On a related note, 65 top economists publicly writing a letter denouncing Tory economic policy will not have done them any good either.

Secondly, it would appear that the cliché that Dave has “not sealed the deal” is true. I asked my wife last night what she thought of Cameron and was given a succinct answer straight from the heart of Middle England. “I don’t know what he stands for.”

Thirdly, I wonder whether all this beating up on Brown (accusations of bullying, tantrums etc) is actually having the opposite effect from the one you would expect. I read an excerpt from Andrew Rawnsley’s book in last week’s Observer and recognised the description was not of a bully, but of a man failing to cope with the demands of the job, which in turn demands sympathy not revulsion. Does all this beating up on Gordon somehow offend the British sense of fair play?

Alastair Campbell used to talk about story narrative. That narrative has been stuck in one direction for the last eighteen months, namely that the country is being led by a tired, out of ideas Government led by a socially awkward loser. If that narrative is now beginning to turn and the public and media are taking a long hard look at the Conservative Party then this election campaign may have one or two turns left yet.

Crude politicking will hurt Cameron

Just got back from a visit to a client during which the conversation turned briefly towards David Cameron’s fact checking issue. As my client eloquently put it. “What a c#ck up. I bet he got back to his office and tore a strip off somebody.”

The facts of the case are almost immaterial but, for those not in the know, Dave accused the Prime Minister at PMQs of state funding two schools with links to Islamic extremism. The BBC this morning ran with the fact that the Conservatives had been forced to concede they had got some facts wrong.

Couple of points. Firstly, what beggars belief is why the Tory party chose this line of questioning yesterday. There are plenty of vulnerable areas to attack this Government on, domestic terrorism is not one of them.

Secondly, Cameron has now given a Brown a wonderful put down for PMQs. Expect Gordon to be asking “has the Leader of the Opposition got his facts right this time?” every time he gets to his feet.

These are dangerous times for the Conservatives. As many commentators have rightly pointed out there is no groundswell of popular support for them. In many ways they are the least worst option. And, as the Prime Minister himself has found out over the last two years, seemingly small issues can grow disproportionately in the public’s mind to become issues of leadership and credibility.

Cameron has benefited in the last year from the fact that the media spotlight has not been trained upon him. Any more c#ck ups like this and that spotlight may begin to turn.