Ramping up the fear levels, one recent correspondence warned: “We don’t want to wonder if we could have done more after polling day, so we are asking now.”
Another opened with the panicky statement: “The truth is our fundraising has not picked up as much as we had hoped at this point.”
The timing of that slowdown is “not great,” party spinners warned. But you could avert disaster by simply clicking on one of those big red donation buttons below …
Hosting an election night gathering? Keep your guests entertained before the exit poll by grabbing a few subject-line samples and playing “Pin the plea on the party.”
Suppressive fire
Lagging far behind Labour in the opinion polls, and feeling the heat from Nigel Farage’s insurgent Reform, the Conservative Party is trying out a novel election tactic: admitting defeat.
When Tory ministers first started talking up the likelihood of a Labour “supermajority” two weeks ago, it appeared they were offering an unprecedented early concession speech.
But as polling day approaches, this dark entry into the political lexicon has morphed into a cynical campaign strategy.
Party strategists and ministers have weaponized the phrase to suggest a Labour landslide would turn the U.K. into a de facto one-party state, a narrative that has been amplified by the right-leaning press.
Critics argue the move is a flagrant attempt to suppress turnout among potential Labour supporters by suggesting there is no need for them to trudge along to the polling station, given that the result is apparently a foregone conclusion.
But Tory spinners have been pushing the line equally hard at their own base in the hope that warnings of a unchecked socialist superstate will cajole apathetic voters into backing them, or at least dissuade those tempted by Reform.
While that narrative shift came late in the campaign, there are clear signs Tory tacticians were simply waiting for the right moment to strike.
A Facebook page called “Keir Starmer needs you” was created by the party just hours after the election announcement, but sat dormant until mid-June.
Since then, more than £30,000 has been spent pushing attack ads which claim voters switching to Reform will not actually increase Farage’s chances of winning any seats, but instead “risks getting Labour for life”.
Lies, damned lies and statistics
And if none of that works, parties can just try flat-out fibbing.
While the British public is resigned to a certain degree of spin on election claims, this campaign has seen more than its fair share of blatant bull.
According to Full Fact, both Labour and the Conservatives have made “misleading” claims about the government’s promise to build 40 new hospitals by 2030.
Sunak and his party have repeatedly claimed a new Labour government would raise taxes on working families by £2,000, despite major concerns about their sums.
Meanwhile, the fact-checking site branded Labour’s claims that spending commitments in the Tory manifesto would add £4,800 to the average mortgage over the next parliament a “speculative estimate that relies on several uncertain assumptions.”
Away from the spotlight of mainstream political debate, the whoppers only get bigger.
A major Tory social media ad campaign targeting hundreds of individual constituencies claimed Labour was planning to immediately launch a “national ULEZ” scheme if it won on July 4, a reference to London’s anti-gas guzzling car levy.
Repeated on paper campaign leaflets, the claims may have been viewed by tens of thousands of voters, only a tiny majority of whom will have spotted that the ads disappeared a few days later following emphatic Labour denials.
And while online ads are open to some degree of scrutiny, paper leaflets dropped through letterboxes have become a veritable buffet of bad-faith claims.
Want to over-inflate your role in a local campaign? Why not? Make tenuous claims about your opponent’s record? Who’ll notice? Butcher a bar chart to suggest council by-election results make you a top contender? Well, we’ve already lost the statisticians’ vote.
In several constituencies where the Liberal Democrats came a distant third in 2019, voters are even being told that either they win, or the incumbent stays in post. “No other result is possible,” the leaflets claim.
When it comes to election time, it appears a cheery willingness to deceive voters is the only cross-party consensus we’re likely to get.
