Labour haven't changed - they're still closet Corbynistas - the Tories can still win next election, says David Morris MP
Conservative MP David Morris gives his outlook on British politics ahead of the next General Election
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Recently, I was stopped in Portcullis House by a long-serving MP who proceeded to glaze my eyes over telling me he could not decide if it’s going to be a '92 or a '97 as if I could care.
After suffering this pontificating insight from a generational safe seater, I said ‘have you thought it might be a 2015?’
Let’s look at the facts. In 2015 Cameron’s Conservatives were anywhere between 5-17 percentage points behind Miliband’s Labour.
Cameron won with nearly a 7 per cent majority against an eerily similar Shadow Cabinet that we have right now, even down to the make up of the individuals in it and their strategists.
Nothing really has changed.
Figuratively speaking, Labour might have shaved off the beards and put on suits and gel through their hair in the hope no one will notice. But despite their apparent discipline, they are still the same.
The backbenchers are closet Corbynistas that are gagged for fear of deselection and the majority of the selected candidates are Corbynista retreads. Imagine the problems Starmer will have forming a stable Government with that intake.
The plethora of by-elections also have one historic fact in common: they all have swings in excess of 20 per cent against all parties in Government. The only time this differed was when Boris Johnson was Prime Minister.
Conservatives get elected because they are competent to the majority not because they are playing to the mood music of the day.
They also have to show a vision which is challenging against a costly backdrop of a recent global pandemic and its national furlough scheme to keep the country going which has largely been forgotten now, and immediately after a major war in Europe involving the collective West against Russian aggression.
Still Labour have yet to show a tangible policy or even a vision. Only a few weeks ago the Government won a sizeable majority on the Rwanda vote.
Labour were sneering beforehand expecting the Tories to rip themselves apart doing their job for them, but instead saw what a united party can do and it shook them to the core.
The realities are that every General Election is different. Every seat is different.
There are different swings in each seat and in every area for very many local reasons I’m living proof of that, but always remember, nationally, oppositions don’t win elections. Governments lose them.