Short-circuiting Maybot threw away a 17-point lead…and let Corbyn take centre stage
Anyone who thought 2017 was among most depressing years they remember should spare a thought for the Prime Minister. Twelve months ago, Theresa May was buoyant in the polls, secure in her party’s backing, the mistress of all she surveyed.
But after a disastrous election gamble and a series of blows to her credibility, she ended it like Monty Python’s black knight, stumbling around with one limb left, more pitied than hated, her hopelessly divided party unable to let her go as the alternatives are even more dire.
The polls make spectacular reading. At the start of the year, the Tories were 17 points up on Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour. By April, when she called the election, some pollsters had May 25 points ahead.
A landslide of historic proportions was hers to be claimed, or so her (now departed) chiefs of staff believed.
Come the general election in June, that lead was down to low single figures, and at the beginning of this month she trailed Labour by eight points.
That is a remarkable turnaround not seen in modern British politics and not predicted by anybody. And it came about for three reasons: a series of catastrophic tactical mistakes by May, a robotic personality exposed in the red heat of the hustings, and the stark contrast with Corbyn, who for many, especially the young, exuded humanity and hope.
The tone was set for a calamitous election when May refused to do live TV debates. She had called a needless poll to get a mandate to govern, then chose not to meet anyone outside of selected Tories to explain why she should.
So dull were her performances she earned the nickname Maybot. So inept was her campaign she became the first party leader to reverse a manifesto pledge (on elderly care costs) before polling day. Newly appointed London Evening Standard editor George Osborne labelled it “the most disastrous manifesto in recent history”.
It resulted in Labour gaining 30 seats, the Tories losing their overall majority and May having to bribe the DUP with £1billion extra funding for Northern Ireland to stay in power, contradicting two of her most-used cliches. The “magic money tree” she said didn’t exist clearly did. And her offer of “a strong and stable
government, not a coalition of chaos” was thrown back in her face.
It wasn’t just May’s impression of a short-circuiting Dalek that cost the Tories their majority but Labour running a far more effective campaign than anyone expected.
Their blood-red offer of nationalisation, massive investment in public services, a big hike in the minimum wage, taxing the rich and the scrapping of tuition fees struck a chord with millions who could no longer take austerity. And Labour’s secret weapon was Corbyn, who had been caricatured as an out-of-touch dinosaur yet came across as everything May was not: genuine, unscripted and human.
Their contrasting year can be summed up in two images. First, May’s tragi-comic party conference speech, interrupted by a hoaxer and her cough. Meanwhile the letters f, e, l, v, w and o, fell off the slogan “Building a country that works for everyone” behind her, leaving the Tory faithful unsure whether to laugh or cry.
And second, Corbyn on Glastonbury’s Pyramid Stage, with festivalgoers singing the unofficial anthem of the summer, “Ohh, Jeremy Corbyn”, as he told them “another world is possible”. It was the closest we’ve seen to a bearded JC having a Second Coming. And it was a scene repeated at festivals and nightclubs for months after the election.
His appeal was summed up by London Underground driver Charlie Foster Lewis, who said at Glasto: “He was fabulous, friendly, meeting everyone, pulling pints at the bar, taking selfies. He was talking about Grenfell Tower, he said no one should have to live in those conditions.” That tragedy at a block of West London flats, killing 71 people six days after the election, played into the growing suspicion that we had encouraged a society where the rich were getting richer and no one gave a damn about those at the bottom. During the election campaign, May said she wanted to lead a Government that would rule for ALL the country. But Grenfell, a neglected high-rise packed with working-class people in the richest of boroughs, became a big, ugly, smoking symbol of that lie. London Mayor Sadiq Khan claimed the disaster was caused by “years of neglect” by a wealthy council. Among devastated residents left without help or answers, the feeling was that nobody in authority wanted to know. As Daniel Webb, 36, put it when I visited the scene: “People are so angry and frustrated that nobody listened to them when they said it was a death trap. Those people got burned alive simply because they were poor.”
There were more needless deaths which rocked the country, in Westminster, Manchester and at London Bridge, caused by Islamist terrorists.
In March, Khalid Masood, 52, drove a car on to the Westminster Bridge pavement, killing four pedestrians before stabbing a policeman to death.
Then in May, Salman Abedi, 22, detonated a bomb as people left Manchester Arena after an Ariana Grande gig. Twentytwo people, most young, were killed, and more than 500 were injured.
And in June, terrorists launched a van and knife attack on London Bridge as revellers enjoyed a Saturday night out. Eight were killed and all three attackers were shot dead in a remarkably swift police response.
The link between the Manchester and London Bridge atrocities was clear. By targeting young people enjoying music and pubs, the radical Islamists were attacking our freedom to enjoy ourselves. Thankfully, the response of solidarity and defiance in both cities was inspirational. In London, there were countless tales of courage and selflessness, as people of all races and nationalities risked their lives to thwart the attackers. In Manchester, from taxi drivers who gave free lifts home and the first responders who worked to save lives, to the way the city united with dignity and defiance, we saw the best of the British spirit.
During an emotional peace vigil in Albert Square the evening after the bombing, the words of local poet Tony Walsh articulated that defiance: “We won’t take defeat and we don’t want your pity because this is a place where we stand strong together. With a smile on our face. Greater Manchester forever. Choose love.”
Such stoicism gives us all hope that in the grimmest of years, which confounded expectation and shocked us to the core, maybe not all is lost.
Closest we’ve seen to a JC having a Second Coming ON CORBYN’S SURGE IN POPULARITY IN SUMMER