Aussie Lynton was reduced to chewing the corks on his hat
watches Mrs May woo Welsh voters
THERESA May was ostensibly in south Wales for a spot of electioneering but the real reason for her visit soon became clear: to see how many times she could say ‘strong and stable leadership’ (or, for extra points, ‘strong and stable leadership in the national interest’).
The afternoon venue was a community hall in Bridgend, mid-Glamorgan, where a crowd of 200 smartly dressed Tory activists had gathered to provide a human backdrop for the telly cameras. A sparkly-eyed Mrs May stood on a dais in the middle. As is her wont, she arrived early and did not linger. Political campaigns normally run chronically behind schedule but Mrs May is dauntingly efficient. It is always on, on, on to the next event – with perhaps never quite enough time for a companionable beer.
People should vote Conservative because ‘we’ (she meant ‘I’) offered ‘strong and stable leadership’. PING. Jeremy Corbyn would be no good at providing the ‘strong and stable leadership’ – PING – needed to secure a deal from the Brexit talks.
‘Doing the right thing for Britain,’ said Mrs May, with one of those non-sentences politicians employ. She shrugged and pulled back her mouth in that way she has. The eyes narrowed and again she came out with the line, uttering it as though she was vouchsafing a secret: ‘Strong and stable leadership in the national interest.’ PING, PING. Full house!
Boy, she’s good at it. Not at electioneering. At remembering a buzz phrase and parroting it so often that the thing becomes almost painful to hear. Some of the activists held little placards saying ‘STRONG AND STABLE leadership in the national interest’. Were they there for the TV pictures or to act as cue boards for Mrs May?
Her stump speech, which is not yet blessed with much levity, lasted ten minutes followed by seven minutes of questions. I lost count of how many times she said ‘strong and stable leadership’ but it must have been about 20. If a restaurant drunk started repeating herself that much, you would move tables.
The Conservative campaign is being run by Sir Lynton Crosby (Australian) and he is a believer in the inattention of voters. He reckons you need to repeat something umpteen times before the message hits home. But yesterday even Brother Lynton might have been reduced to saying ‘strewth, mate’ and chewing the corks on his hat as his candidate kept repeating herself.
Bridgend has been a Labour seat since 1987. Its MP, Madeleine Moon, is lowish-key and would probably have lost to the Tories in 2015 had Ukip not taken 15 per cent of the vote. The Tories select their candidate this coming weekend.
My train from Paddington had the remains of a splatted pigeon on its front end. A metaphor for Labour’s electoral fortunes in Wales? The morning brought claims that the Tories could outperform Labour in Wales for the first time since 1918.
WHATEVER it is that has dented the Welsh socialist vote, I am not sure it is Mrs May’s ‘hwyl’ (a fine Welsh word for emotional verve and motivational spirit). Whipping up a crowd is not really her thing. Her style owes less to Lloyd-George and Heseltine and Kinnock and rather more to former TV weather forecaster Barbara Edwards.
And yet she is plainly geared up for this fight. By her own untheatrical standards, she was gripped of the moment, spanking words such as ‘plan’, ‘determination’ and ‘leadership’ hard on the bottom.
She took a swipe at Labour’s patchy stewardship of the NHS in Wales and, immediately after talking of ‘fighting terrorists’, said she would ‘also be standing up to separatists’.
She claimed the Tories were a party that ‘believes in lower taxes’ but no actual details on tax were given.
‘Strong and stable leadership,’ she said yet again, as though the thought had only just entered her mind. Was that 21 times? It’s a record! Or maybe a stuck record.