Praise for Previous Editions 'The Bible of General Elections' —David

Praise for previous editions ‘The Bible of General Elections’ —David Dimbleby, BBC ‘It’s popular academic writing at its best, combining a clear narrative (using anecdotes and quotes garnered from more than 300 background interviews) with lots of solid, meaty number-crunching’ —The Guardian ‘Dennis Kavanagh and Philip Cowley have penned a political thriller … The book is distinguished by the quality of its sources: the ministers, aides and strategists who open up to these academics in a way they might not to journalists’ —The Observer ‘Indispensable’ —Matthew d’Ancona, Daily Telegraph ‘If you want real insight into the last election, Kavanagh and Cowley look like they’re on the money’ —London Evening Standard ‘The quality of the analysis is as sharp as ever’ —Fabian Review ‘… a riveting read … this is easily the best political book of the year’ —PoliticalBetting.com ‘The studies have become by now almost part of our democratic fabric’ —The Listener ‘The best series anywhere on national elections’ —Annals of American Academy of Political and Social Science Other books in this series THE BRITISH GENERAL ELECTION OF 1945 R. B. McCallum and Alison Readman THE BRITISH GENERAL ELECTION OF 1950 H. G. Nicholas THE BRITISH GENERAL ELECTION OF 1951 David Butler THE BRITISH GENERAL ELECTION OF 1955 David Butler THE BRITISH GENERAL ELECTION OF 1959 David Butler and Richard Rose THE BRITISH GENERAL ELECTION OF 1964 David Butler and Anthony King THE BRITISH GENERAL ELECTION OF 1966 David Butler and Anthony King THE BRITISH GENERAL ELECTION OF 1970 David Butler and Michael Pinto-Duschinsky THE BRITISH GENERAL ELECTION OF FEBRUARY 1974 David Butler and Dennis Kavanagh THE BRITISH GENERAL ELECTION OF OCTOBER 1974 David Butler and Dennis Kavanagh THE BRITISH GENERAL ELECTION OF 1979 David Butler and Dennis Kavanagh THE BRITISH GENERAL ELECTION OF 1983 David Butler and Dennis Kavanagh THE BRITISH GENERAL ELECTION OF 1987 David Butler and Dennis Kavanagh THE BRITISH GENERAL ELECTION OF 1992 David Butler and Dennis Kavanagh THE BRITISH GENERAL ELECTION OF 1997 David Butler and Dennis Kavanagh THE BRITISH GENERAL ELECTION OF 2001 David Butler and Dennis Kavanagh THE BRITISH GENERAL ELECTION OF 2005 Dennis Kavanagh and David Butler THE BRITISH GENERAL ELECTION OF 2010 Dennis Kavanagh and Philip Cowley THE BRITISH GENERAL ELECTION OF 2015 Philip Cowley and Dennis Kavanagh Philip Cowley • Dennis Kavanagh The British General Election of 2017 Philip Cowley Dennis Kavanagh Queen Mary University of London University of Liverpool London, UK Liverpool, UK ISBN 978-3-319-95935-1 ISBN 978-3-319-95936-8 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-95936-8 Library of Congress Control Number: 2018952784 © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2018 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors, and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, express or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institu- tional affiliations. Front cover credit: Bloomberg / Contributor Back cover credit: Ian Forsyth / Stringer This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland AG The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland PREFACE This volume is the twentieth in a series of books which originated in 1945 in Nuffield College, Oxford. The first volume in the series was the result of Ronald McCallum’s frustration with what he saw as the constant misinterpretation of the 1918 election; he wanted to place on record the events of the 1945 contest before similar myths took root. It began what is now the longest-running national election series in the world. This is the third volume in the series where neither of the authors is based at Nuffield, but our aim remains the same: to create an accurate and, as far as possible, impartial account and explanation of the general election. In the introduction to the 1945 volume, McCallum and his co-author Alison Readman began with the Duke of Wellington’s observation that you could no more describe a battle than you could describe a ballroom. ‘Still less’, they remarked, ‘can you describe a general election.’ The only thing they said that was certain about a general election was: ‘It is not simple.’ Their comments certainly apply to the 2017 contest, which was a particularly difficult election to write about. Once an election is over and it is possible to talk openly with the participants, it is usually the case that for all the complexity in any election, there is a broad consensus about what happened. For the most part, Labour staffers and politicians agree with their rival counterparts about why one campaign struggled and why the other succeeded. There are nuances and differences—sometimes genuine, and a result of the different perspectives of participants, sometimes driven by self-interest or partisanship—but these are often quite marginal. When it comes to the fundamentals, there is normally little disagreement. v vi PREFACE This was not true this time. Once we move beyond the merely descriptive—that is, the Conservatives had a huge opinion poll lead, which they proceeded to lose—there is little consensus about what happened in the 2017 general election or, at least, why it happened. Perhaps most striking of all, there is no intra-party consensus on these questions. There are at least two versions of the Labour campaign, both passionately believed, along with a similar number of views of the Conservative campaign. During interviews, the phrases used by insiders about supposed comrades or colleagues were often much cruder, and more industrial, than those about their supposed opponents. Much remains contested. For example, below, we report the claim that at various points during his leadership, Jeremy Corbyn ‘wobbled’. Any wobbles would have been understandable. Leadership was not a position he had ever expected to hold. He had faced repeated—and often brutal— criticism. (Which of us, under similar conditions, would not have won- dered whether this was the game for us?) Some of these accounts have Corbyn in tears, with members of his family telling him that it is not worth it, while some of his aides tell him that he must hang on for the good of the left. Yet members of his key team vehemently deny that any of this ever happened. Something similar applies to Theresa May on the night of the election, once the result of the election became clear. Did she wobble? Again, it would be understandable. She had called an election, run on a hugely personalised campaign, in which she had been front and centre, and squandered an enormous opinion poll lead. (Which of us, under similar conditions, would not have considered throwing in the towel?) There are multiple claims that she came close to resigning on the night of the election—although these claims vary hugely depending on who is recount- ing them—but again the official line remains that she did not do so. Similar differences, more trivial perhaps but just as frustrating for those attempt- ing to chronicle the contest, attach to many key moments in the campaign. As will become clear, in what follows, the snap nature of the contest presented problems for all of the parties (ironically, perhaps, the Conservatives most of all) but it also made life harder for us as authors. Normally with a book like this, much of the preparation—drafting, data collection, background interviews and so on—is carried out in the run-up to the election. After the Prime Minister’s shock announcement on 18 April 2017, we started with a blank page. The same goes for our contribu- tors, all of whom did not expect to be spending much of 2017 writing PREFACE vii about a general election. We owe them a huge debt for meeting demanding deadlines and repeated editorial requests. In addition to writing Appendix 1, John Curtice, Stephen Fisher, Robert Ford and Patrick English also sup- plied the data from which Appendix 2 has been compiled. Yet despite all the hard work, it was a fascinating election to write about. Both the decision to call the 2017 election and the eventual outcome can fairly be described as surprises, but then they were merely the latest surprises to hit British politics. Since the 2015 contest (the result of which was itself a surprise), Jeremy Corbyn became Labour leader, Britain voted to leave the European Union, the Prime Minister resigned after a year in office as head of a majority government, and a year later his successor— having repeatedly declared she would not do so—called another general election in search of a bigger majority of seats, which she then failed to achieve, despite seemingly being on course for a landslide.

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