Campaign 2015 – Tales of the Unexpected

It was not supposed to be like this. Coming in to the general election campaign the Conservatives were said to hold two significant advantages over Labour: perceived competence on economic management, and a more greatly admired leader in David Cameron. Surely the Tories would try and play to these strengths to bring about the much-anticipated “crossover” in the polls that campaign supremo Lynton Crosby had long predicted?

Well, no. The actual crossover has been the odd decision by the blue team to put supposed economic credibility behind them and instead claim to have found tens of billions of pounds in thin air. The future of the NHS, tax cuts, welfare “savings” can all be guaranteed just like that. The Conservatives have crossed over from austere government to irresponsible opposition. This was not expected.

The second surprise has been the jettisoning of prime ministerial stature by David Cameron, to be replaced instead by the rather terse and spivvy salesmanship of the increasingly tetchy Tory leader. Even his opponents had conceded that Cameron has, on occasion at least, looked the part. But just as being interrogated on his own by Jeremy Paxman proved a rather less comfortable experience than shouting insults across the despatch box with 300 backing vocalists in support, so candidate Dave has seemed far more unsure out on the campaign than when he was still back at No 10 getting on with the day job. Such gravitas as he may once have appeared to possess has gone. This much was clear during his Marr show interview yesterday, when the smiles and affected nonchalance were exposed as being barely skin-deep.

Indeed, Dave’s volte-face on all matters Scottish is extraordinary. In September, with tears in his eyes, he begged his Scottish audiences to vote to stay in the United Kingdom. Nothing could have been more important to him, it seemed. Today, “these people” – that is, democratically elected Scottish MPs – will head down to Westminster determined to destroy England and all that is good about it. No road scheme or NHS pay settlement will be safe from these conniving, underhand Scottish bastards – the ones he was so desperate to keep in the UK half a year ago. How do you reconcile these two positions, this miraculous change of heart? On each occasion Dave was thinking about how to preserve his job. Lose the Union and resignation was probably unavoidable. But talk up the SNP by demonising it, firming up its support, and Labour might still just be stopped. It is a pretty shameless performance: tricksy, superficially clever, but unprincipled. And transparent. I do not think this is an act that will go unchallenged and unexposed in the next two and a half weeks.

There has been another crossover during the election campaign – the one carried out by Ed Miliband. He has gone, as some have joked, from Mr Bean to Poldark in a few short weeks. The person we were told would be too awkward, too aloof to campaign well has surprised many. “Where did the weird guy go?”, as ITV News’ Carl Dineen has asked. The young women of Knutsford have spoken for the nation, it seems.

We have come a long way from September 25 2010, the day Ed Miliband was elected leader of the Labour party. That result, we now know, was met by a jubilant response from the chancellor, George Osborne. He has enjoyed telling how he sank to his knees and shouted “Yes, yes, yes!” on hearing the news. And that superior disdain has informed and characterised the Tory attitude to Miliband’s leadership much of the time since.

That was a mistake. Miliband has been under-estimated by many. But the experts of London SW1 are beginning to catch up with what the public started to recognise a few weeks ago: that the Labour leader is a capable, attractive figure, a man of principle and no little resilience. The answer to the question “where did the weird guy go?” is that the caricature has been exposed as a lie. Sunlight has acted as a disinfectant on the poisonous and wilful misrepresentation of the Labour leader.

The general election of 2015 is turning out to be a tale of the unexpected. The biggest unexpected element remains the result. Opinion polls are not votes. The mood could shift again several times before May 7. But it is Labour that looks happier today, and with reason. Perhaps it will be Ed Miliband’s turn to shout “Yes, yes, yes!” when the votes are finally counted.