Bottler Boris is mark of Tories playing it safe
■ I’M looking forward to interviewing Jeremy Corbyn on Sophy Ridge On Sunday this week, as he tries to convince voters he should be the next prime minister. Tune in to Sky News at 8.30am on Sunday morning.
THE Conservatives aren’t trying to win this election – they are trying not to lose it. If you want evidence, look no further than the party’s manifesto. Published last Sunday, the message seemed to be that the Tories would spend a bit more – but not as much as Labour.
It promised money for potholes and scrapping hospital car park charges – both things that affect millions of people, granted, but the manifesto read more like a Budget than a vision for the country.
By contrast, Labour’s radical manifesto – where an extra £28 has been spent for every pound shelled out by the Conservatives, and industry from broadband to water will be nationalised – is promising genuine change, even if it is change you profoundly disagree with.
And it’s not just the Tory manifesto that is steady-as-she-goes, but its media strategy as well.
I landed one of the first interviews with Boris Johnson after the election was called, and was struck by how carefully he was sticking to the script.
He was far more disciplined in his message than when I had interviewed him previously, and kept darting looks at his media advisers when under tricky questioning.
Now, a few weeks more into the campaign, the team is taking even fewer risks.
Jeremy Corbyn – along with Lib Dem leader Jo Swinson and the SNP’s Nicola Sturgeon – submitted himself to a forensic grilling from BBC interrogator Andrew Neil, who hammered him over his party’s record of handling anti-Semitism.
The newspaper headlines the next day were full of Mr Corbyn’s repeated refusal to apologise to the Jewish community.
Now, perhaps unsurprisingly, it transpires that Mr Johnson may be ducking out of the leaders’ interview series.
Labour, which was under the impression that Mr Johnson would subject himself to the same Andrew Neil interview, is furious.
Discussions are still ongoing between No.10 and the BBC, we are told. But I wouldn’t hold your breath.