Baby bounce
As the country awaits the arrival of Kate and William’s second child, Anne McElvoy asks if David Cameron’s party can expect a boost in their popularity from the reflected glow of a royal birth
OH KATE: on your slender shoulders rests an even greater responsibility than the rest of your duties as wife of the heir-to-be. A second royal baby is due to William and Kate on April 25, just days before the nation votes in the tightest election in memory. David Cameron’s manifesto launch last week heralded the return of the “Good Life” for Britons, bored rigid by rows about belt-tightening. It’s the same promise the monarchy has made for centuries — stick with us, don’t risk nasty revolutions or parvenu pretenders, and all will be well for the common weal.
But symbolising such benign states is tricky these days. Were it only about job-creation and rise in GDP, the Camerons could be planning more confidently on keeping their designer shag-pile rug in front of the Downing Street hearth. What Dave needs in the final phase of the race is portents of ease and frivolity, to help slough away doubts about future prosperity and make us all feel that the tough years presaged better to come.
Ben Page, who runs Ipsos MORI, thinks that events like a royal birth matter “at the margins”. But one thing pollisters have difficulty measuring is the way that externalities influence mood, which is different from how people say they intend to vote, or their views on more concrete issues.
A senior member of the Cameron team explains which factors might weigh with the voters after the hurlyburly of the campaign is done – “sunshine and a healthy new royal baby”. The unspoken hope is that this will cheer up female voters, whom Dave desperately needs to recapture to offset women drawn to Ed Mliband.
Support for the monarchy, reinvigorated by the more informal style of Wills and Kate, is at levels politicians can only dream of — 80 per cent in the population as a whole, even among previously more sceptical younger voters.
Royal babies symbolise virtues that in c u mbent gove r n ment s wa n t to underline: small-c conservative continuities, good news that can be shared regardless of tax bracket and optimism about a shared future. Mr Cameron is trying doughtily to insert that into a Tory message which, while rationally stringenton spending and state reforms, has sometimes sounded a bit like an accountants’ charter.
Infant royals also have a reasonable track record in helping boost public moral e . In Ju ly 2 01 3, when Ba by George’s birth launched a thousand front pages celebrating His Royal Cuteness, economic confidence leapt up — for the first time, pollsters recorded more people feeling optimistic about the economy than the reverse. Second only to the Olympics, the arrival proved a successful recruiting officer for tourism to London.
Royal associations play better for the Tories (indeed the left probably lost its last royal enthusiast in the Queen Mother, who respected “the dear old Labour Party of Clem Attlee and Ernie Bevin”). Just as importantly, a softer focus Dave – a family man who likes having children tumbling around and may even be having a “She-wants-he’s-not-sure” conversation with his missus over trying for a late baby – highlights his accessible side.
He has ensured that he is photographed with mothers and children on the campaign trail. His Easter tweet was a shot of himself feeding an oprhaned lamb, as any good shepherd should. The focus has swung away from his image as a brashly confident product of the shires, Oxford, Eton and a se a ml es s rise t h rou g h the smarter end of the Tory ranks, to a more thoughtful patrician.And even the most hard-hearted recognise that Dave has often been at his best as a family man — he helped hold things together when Sam was distraught after the birth of their disabled son Ivan and he was eloquent in defence of the NHS after his death. If there is a flaw in the attempt to make Ed Miliband more approachable, it’s been the focus on his relationship with his own children (every politician identifies with their genetic material) and bloodless policy offers on childcare.
Mood music matters, in ways we tend to recognise after the campaign billboards have been torn down. Tony Blair knew that when he spoke of his “new dawn” in the sunrise of May 1997. Let’s remember, 18 years on, how little most voters follow the outpourings of the political parties or give a hoot what the spin-room maestros say. It is spring, there’s royal good news on the horizon. All the party leaders will rush to greet the glad tidings when the next royal arrives, but Mr Cameron knows it might seal his own magisterial continuity in Downing Street.