We know the odds are stacked. That’s not me as an agent of despair, snuffing out any vestiges of hope and optimism flickering in your mind. Consider it a kick up the backside. For I’m told that Conservative HQ is expecting to rise from the current working majority of 17 to something between 80 and 90 MPs – or even more. Despite the Labour surge, some of its senior figures still genuinely fear the party will dip from the 229 MPs at dissolution to considerably below 200. The Ukip collapse means that – even if, say, Labour won the same share of the vote as in 2015 – the party could still lose dozens of seats.
Some Labour candidates in the north and Midlands are genuinely worried. One describes the polls as “total horseshit”. Others differ: one northern Labour MP representing a constituency the Tories initially thought was theirs for the taking tells me: “I’m feeling pretty confident. Postal vote returns look good. I think I’ve taken votes from Lib Dems, Green and Ukip while retaining a significant amount of my 2015 support.”
An arch Corbyn-sceptic Midlands MP tells me support is holding up. An east Midlands colleague with a sizable majority, who feared the worst a few weeks ago, now cautiously talks of a “positive” reception. “It feels a lot better,” says one northern Labour MP. “I’m certainly not anticipating the wipeout that we thought at one point.”
But that’s scant comfort. Theresa May is visiting seats with big Labour majorities, just as in 2015 David Cameron visited apparently impenetrable Lib Dem citadels, which then fell. And where polling is favourable for Labour, it’s based on a dramatic surge in youth turnout. That too is problematic. Unless Labour can mobilise the young, previous non-voters, and women who have driven its recent polling surge, a Conservative landslide – or decisive victory at the least – will soon unfold on our television screens.
Still: to quote that wise philosopher – Sarah Connor in Terminator 2 – there is no fate but what we make for ourselves. In the last crucial moments of this campaign, anyone who wants the undeniable odds against Labour to be defied has a number of simple, but helpful, tasks to carry out. Turnout among 18- to 24-year-olds was estimated to be a paltry 44% in 2015; it’s estimated to have jumped 20 points in the EU referendum. Labour’s support is disproportionately concentrated among young voters who, in recent times, have been less motivated to vote. That means ringing, texting, WhatsApping, Snapchatting, whatever, younger voters. The saddling with debt of those aspiring to university, the closed youth services, the lack of secure, well-paid jobs, the vanishing dream of a home of their own: all of this can only end if the young use their voice.
The Conservatives believe that they have an irreversible lock on older people. Perversely, that’s why they’ve launched an offensive against pensioners too: the dementia tax, and the means-testing for winter fuel payments, which will deter many pensioners in need from claiming because of the forms and complexity. A last-minute chat with older relatives – why not?
Some will take the day off work to get the vote out – their role will be essential. Even if only for a couple of hours after work, campaigning is essential, particularly in seats where there is a genuine contest between Labour and Conservatives. As one Labour campaigner in a marginal seat put it to me: “It comes down to on-the-day turnout. If it’s 62% or less than we are in trouble. Over 66%, and we smash it.”
Consider where we started this campaign: Labour’s headline polling was calamitous, heading to the low 20s; the Tories had about double that; Labour’s ratings on everything from leadership to the economy were dreadful; parliamentary byelection results were very bad, and council byelection results were poor; and the local election results seemed to be a harbinger of looming electoral catastrophe.
However, the general election polls – to wildly varying degrees – show movement described by the eminent psephologist David Butler as “bigger than in any election I’ve covered since 1945”. A shambolic Tory campaign, replete with U-turns, sophistry and inconsistencies, has played its role in that, though bear in mind that the Ukip-infused Conservative share of the vote has not dropped much.
Labour’s poll ratings – and Corbyn’s own numbers – have risen for two reasons. Unfiltered media coverage of Corbyn has allowed many prospective voters to reconsider their first impression of the Labour leader. Both he and his team have run an astonishing campaign. But above all else, it’s the vision Corbyn’s team offered in Labour’s manifesto that has lifted all the party’s ratings.
A pledge to raise taxes on the top 5%, big corporations and financial institutions – while freezing tax for everyone else – and to invest in the NHS, education, housing, public services and jobs has resonated. So has a genuine living wage, the abolition of student debt, and bringing public utilities run by profiteers and foreign governments back under the ownership of the British people.
The odds remain against Labour, but those odds are not set in granite. In the last moments of the campaign, everyone who wants Labour to succeed – and to transform the arrogance of the Tories into hubris – has a role to play. Make those calls, write those emails, send those texts, knock on those doors. This story has not reached its climax. You can still help write its ending.
