IN a fortnight’s time you will know what has happened.
Is Boris Johnson back in Downing Street with a majority and in a position to break the political logjam that has held this country back these past few years?
Or, are Jeremy Corbyn, Nicola Sturgeon and every other politician who wants a second referendum in frantic discussions about how to cobble together a government.
There is Tory nervousness about what the next week of the campaign will bring.
One influential figure frets that “things are tightening quite a lot”.
This source says that despite the events of this week — the Chief Rabbi’s denunciation of the Labour leader and Corbyn’s disastrous interview with Andrew Neil — “Labour are still rising”.
Boris' team do not want him bogged down by the NATO summitOne Cabinet ally of Boris Johnson tells me: “What’s worrying is the Lib Dems. They’ve fallen like a stone.”
If the Remain votes do coalesce behind Labour, Boris Johnson might yet be denied a majority.
I am told that Labour’s internal numbers have also seen an uptick in their fortunes.
Indeed, the very YouGov model which showed the Tories heading for a 68-seat majority also had them losing 16 seats in the four days before the prediction was published, showing just how close this election could be.
A particular issue for the Tory campaign is the row about Boris’s interview with Andrew Neil. The other party leaders have done — or are doing — a sit-down with the BBC’s premier interviewer.
If the PM ducks it, he will look like he’s chickening out and the subsequent row will crowd out the Tory message for a few precious days.
Another problem for the Tories is next week’s Nato summit in London. Key figures on the Tory campaign are irritated that it is going ahead — “that really should have been prevented,” one tells me — for two reasons.
First it interrupts the rhythm of their campaign, taking Boris off the road at a crucial time.
Second, the arrival of Donald Trump threatens to take the campaign in unpredictable directions.
Labour will undoubtedly use the US President’s visit to try to push their absurd argument that the Tories are about to sell off the NHS to the Americans.
The Tory position — that they will simply walk away from trade negotiations with the US if the Americans want the NHS to pay more for drugs — offers some protection against this charge.
As one Tory puts it: “No deal is better than a bad deal.”
Another concern is that Trump might choose to, again, pick a fight with the Mayor of London Sadiq Khan.
Given yesterday’s terrorist attack on London Bridge and the Mayor’s role in responding to that, this would be particularly unfortunate timing.
But on the positive side of the ledger for the Tories is that they know what they want their closing argument to be.
Their message will be quite simple: Vote for us to get Brexit done and then we’ll invest more in infrastructure, the NHS and the technologies of the future.
By contrast, they’ll say, vote for anyone else and Corbyn will be PM, Nicola Sturgeon’s SNP will hold the balance of power and the next 12 months will be even more dominated by Brexit than this year has been.
This is a potent message that will resonate with an electorate fed up with the political paralysis of the past few years.
The emphasis on Corbyn is, senior Tories believe, particularly helpful to them.
As one Cabinet minister tells me: “It is going from being a Brexit election to a Corbyn election. That’s great for us as it is the one area even better for us than Brexit — it solidifies Tory Remainers behind us.”
If a week is a long time in politics, a fortnight is an eternity.
But, as things stand, Boris should be able to get the majority that will enable him to break the Brexit deadlock.
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