PM ignored shock poll memo

Chiefs said that ballot would be a ‘huge risk’

A BOMBSHELL secret memo which shows that Theresa May ignored a warning that her snap election was a ‘huge risk’ and could backfire has been leaked to The Mail on Sunday.

The ‘killer memo’ was written by her Australian-born Tory election guru Sir Lynton Crosby in April, days before May announced the surprise June 8 poll.

In it, Crosby, known as the ‘Wizard of Oz’ because of his record of election campaign successes, told her in stark terms there was ‘a lot of risk’ in calling a snap ballot. Voters were desperate to ‘avoid uncertainty’ – but by going to the polls, May was doing the exact opposite, Crosby warned.

Instead of the landslide win she was banking on, she could easily end up doing no better than David Cameron’s narrow win in 2015, he added.

In the event, she did even worse than Cameron and ended up with no Commons majority, forced to rely on the Ulster Unionists to cling to power.

The memo underlines how May paid a heavy price for Cabinet rifts. Crosby’s plea to her to focus on the economy was hampered when Chancellor Philip Hammond was sidelined in a feud with May’s joint chief of staff Nick Timothy.

This newspaper has been told Timothy reportedly referred to Hammond as a ‘c***’. Timothy resigned immediately after polling day.

The election campaign was also hampered by a rift between Timothy and Crosby, with Timothy subsequently blaming the strategist for the party’s failure to notice the surge in support for Jeremy Corbyn among young voters. Timothy also argued that Crosby’s strategy of putting May at the centre of a Presidential-style campaign contributed to the disaster.

The sensational disclosure that Crosby argued against calling the election comes as a new poll shows most voters, including Tories, believe it is ‘inconceivable’ that Mrs May will fulfil her surprise pledge last week to lead the party into the next election, due by 2022.

The Prime Minister’s ‘I’m not quitting’ comments flew in the face of a widespread view that she would stand down after Britain leaves the EU in March 2019.

Many Tory MPs believe her latest remarks were a mistake and could revive speculation of a leadership challenge by Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson or Brexit Secretary David Davis.

But The Mail on Sunday understands that the feud between Crosby and Timothy is key to her renewed confidence: she increasingly believes that she only lost because of Crosby’s campaign ‘mistakes’, and could win a second election with a different strategy. Worryingly for the Prime Minister, the Survation poll for The Mail on Sunday indicates Conservative voters think they have more chance of winning if she quits. Johnson is favourite to replace her.

The survey shows Labour five points ahead of the Conservatives – and if May goes head-to-head with Corbyn in 2022, a majority believe he will win the keys to No 10.

The opening sentence of the ‘Election Strategic Note – April 2017,’ says: ‘Summary: There is clearly a lot of risk involved with holding an early election – and a real need to nail down the “why” for doing so now. Voters are actively seeking to avoid uncertainty and maintain the status quo, yet by calling an election the Conservatives are the ones who are creating uncertainty.

‘Furthermore, there is a real risk that the Conservative vote share would end up broadly similar to that the Party secured in 2015. Voters don’t want the uncertainty that an election will cause, in large part

‘A hung Parliament could cause Brexit chaos’

because they are worried about the risk of a hung Parliament creating chaos over the delivery of Brexit.’

One piece of advice in Crosby’s memo that May did heed was to portray herself as ‘strong and stable’ and target Corbyn. However, her ‘strong and stable’ image was left in tatters four days after launching her manifesto when she was forced to do a U-turn on her ‘dementia tax’ plan – and made it worse by shouting ‘Nothing has changed!’ at a press conference.

An investigation by this newspaper has established further evidence of how May’s Election campaign was a shambles from

‘Call an election? That’s not a very smart idea’

start to finish. She had pinned her hopes of a landslide win on Crosby, who helped Cameron pull off a surprise victory over Ed Miliband in 2015 and ran Johnson’s two successful London Mayoral campaigns.

But Crosby’s first response on being told of the snap election was: ‘I don’t think that is a very smart idea.’ He didn’t join the campaign HQ in London until almost two weeks after it started as he was in Fiji on a family holiday.

Sources say Crosby raised concerns about the so called ‘dementia tax’ – but it was too late.

Mrs May went ahead with the plan and ignored research by Crosby that showed undecided voters were frightened to give the Tories a big majority for fear of what the party might do with it. According to one Tory insider, May confessed to aides a week before polling day that she feared a humiliating result.

The leaked memo prompted an angry response from a Conservative official: ‘We were all deeply disappointed by the result. To suggest it was the fault of one person or another is a travesty. Lynton Crosby bears the same responsibility as everyone else. The blame game will not get us anywhere.’

Neither Crosby, Timothy nor No 10 would comment last night.