How Boris Johnson Made His Historic Election Victory: The Inside Story

The party had been here and failed before in 2017 when Theresa May failed to break through red wall of working class Brexit-backing seats.

But while May’s attempt to woo Labour Leavers who had never countenanced the idea of voting Tory failed on one fundamental error – the ‘dementia tax’ – this time the party left no room for error.

For a man known as a flamboyant, swashbuckling politician, Johnson ran one of the most risk-averse election campaigns in modern memory.

From dodging interviews to refusing to even look at a photo of a sick boy forced to sleep on a hospital floor, the prime minister simply refused to do anything at all that could take him off-message.

It became ridiculous at times, such as when Johnson made a debate audience groan by saying he would give Jeremy Corbyn his Brexit deal for Christmas.

But when voters began repeating the key slogan back at the PM – “get Brexit done” – as they did when he bumbled through Salisbury Christmas market, it was clear he had struck a chord.

Despite, or perhaps because of, disinformation and the thinnest election manifesto in memory (save the Brexit Party), Johnson got to the end of the campaign having successfully stayed ruthlessly on message.

The mistakes of 2017 were avoided, and May’s strategy realised.

As one cabinet minister put it mid-way through the campaign: “Last time we had a dementia tax, this time we’ve got a dementia cure”.

A very wobbly start 

Despite Friday’s resounding win, Boris Johnson’s campaign did not begin well.

In the first week alone, Jacob Rees-Mogg horrified his colleagues and the wider public by suggesting Grenfell disaster victims lacked common sense, Welsh secretary Alun Cairns resigned over allegations he knew about an former aide’s role in the sabotage of a rape trial, and Johnson was facing questions about whether his “friend”, tech entrepreneur Jennifer Arcuri, was given special favours while he was mayor.

But in Conservative campaign headquarters (CCHQ), an election-winning strategy was being honed by Levido.

The Australian protege of Sir Lynton Crosby has been described as a US-style “classical campaign manager” in the mould of David Plouffe, Barack Obama’s 2008 election-winning strategist.

Levido was “more of an MD (managing director) than a CEO” – taking a broad overview of the campaign and making sure everything went to plan.

One insider said he was a “very calm character with no ego, who makes slight adjustments rather than knee-jerk reactions” – an approach seen throughout a controlled campaign in which the Tories very much stuck to the plan.

It is unclear if it was his idea to blast Europe’s 80s classic The Final Countdown around the office at 8.30am every single day of the campaign, by which time many staffers had been in work for several hours and were ready for a nap.

(On the final day of campaigning the record was finally changed to One Day More from Les Miserables, sparking cheering, applause and a mass singalong after a slog of a campaign).