Could Turnout Be The Statistic That Decides The Final Results On Election Night?

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You’re a fake, baby

Just two sleeps to polling day, and once again this election seems to boil down to the issues of Brexit, the NHS and fakery. It’s thin gruel for an already emaciated body politic, but the main parties don’t seem too inclined to shift from their core messages.

Boris Johnson guaranteed TV news footage with his bulldozer stunt, smashing through a fake wall with the word ‘Gridlock’ written on it. The wall was made up of styrofoam bricks, which are a lot lighter and flimsier than a hung parliament. They were also white, not red, probably because the PM is nervous of bragging he really can smash through the ‘Red Wall’ of safe Labour seats.

Johnson is often as subtle as a brick (he famously used one as a prop in a conference speech), but his team think that’s no bad thing when it comes to Brexit – especially when Labour’s offer has seemed too nuanced at best, and confused at worst.

The party is clearly acutely aware of the need to reassure its Leave voters. Jeremy Corbyn today stressed his Brexit negotiating team would be made up of Leavers and Remainers. And last night, Angela Rayner said: “If we get a deal that protects the economy and jobs, then I would vote for it.”

As for the NHS, Corbyn rammed home his favourite message on the stump today after another photo emerged of a child waiting in AE. “They say you’re politicising the NHS, but the NHS was created through political action!” That’s a classic Corbyn message, and both the health service and the pivot on Brexit in Leave areas are aimed at all those ‘undecideds’.

And those ‘undecideds’ are being picked up in big numbers both by Labour canvassers and by pollsters. If they just stay at home, that could still be very damaging in lots of marginal seats. If they switch to the Tories, they could provoke a huge Johnson majority. Some Labour activists have been seeing some shifting as these people ‘come home to Labour’ (as Unite’s slogan puts it).

Even today, a new Lord Ashcroft poll showed that more Labour Leavers have started supporting their party and leader. Polling guru John Curtice said that the party’s Brexit backers were staying more loyal than some assumed too.

Corbyn’s line today about a PM who wants to “hide the truth in his pocket” did however get overshadowed by his own party’s say-one-thing-mean-another problem. That leaked tape of Jon Ashworth’s remarks, saying his leader was a possible security risk and was bombing in northern seats (plus his lame ‘banter’ explanation), just added to the overall impression that few politicians are telling the truth in this campaign.

“John has my full support,” Corbyn said later, but it feels like Ashworth will be put in the same sealed safehouse that currently houses Jacob Rees-Mogg, Priti Patel, Keir Starmer and Emily Thornberry.

The whole fakery narrative became depressingly familiar with overnight bots on Twitter suggesting that the photo of the boy on the Leeds hospital floor had been staged by his mother. Thankfully, local journalists called that out superbly and professionally.