Rupert Matthews is a freelance historian who has had over 150 books
published. He is one of the MEP candidates for the
Conservative Party in the East Midlands Region.
It has been a real rollercoaster of a ride these past few weeks on the campaign trail. We got off to a flying start with successful campaign launches in each county and effective campaigning from every association – then everything got overtaken by the whole expenses thing.
I won’t bother rehearsing what has been going on with that as I am sure that most readers of ConservativeHome have been out on the doorstep and know full well the strong feelings of the public. However, it is worth delving a bit below the surface to try to figure out what is going on with voting intentions. I will therefore highlight two incidents from the East Midlands that might give clues as to what may happen tomorrow.
The first was a council by election in Cottesmore, Rutland. Nominations closed before the expenses saga began and there were only two candidates. Susie Iannantuoni for the Conservatives and a Lib Dem. This was in Alan Duncan’s seat and during canvassing I had come in for some stick about expenses after Mr Duncan’s garden featured in the Daily Telegraph and local press. When the results came in it was a Conservative win with a vote share increased by 4%, but on a turnout of only 26%.
One must not read too much into a single by-election result, but it does seem that disgruntled voters had stayed at home. They had not decided to punish the party of their sitting MP by voting for the other party. There again, there was no minority party candidate (BNP, Green, UKIP etc) to cash in on the anti-politician mood.
The second was a little foray of my own. I managed to persuade a couple of associations to give me some time to phone Conservative pledges to see if and how those votes were moving. I telephoned 100 firm pledges and spoke to 65 over two days last week. Of those 65:
- 1 will be voting UKIP in the Euro elections, Conservative in county elections.
- 1 slammed the phone down on me.
- 6 raised the subject of expenses and we had a chat about the situation. I guess we should view these as now being Possible Conservatives – they may stay at home, they may vote for a minority party or they may vote Conservative.
- 7 came across as Possible Conservatives. It was impossible to know if they had changed their views since last canvassed or if the previous canvasser had been more optimistic than I am (I tend to be reluctant to put a person down as a firm pledge).
- 50 remained firm Conservative pledges who said they would vote Conservative in both Euro and County elections.
Of course, this was an entirely unscientific sample and is no doubt statistically meaningless, but I found it an interesting exercise.
It would seem that some of our pledges are drifting. However in the conversations with those who raised the issue of expenses, most thought that David Cameron was getting a grip and voiced the opinion that he was tackling the issue better than the other party leaders. That said, 5 of the 6 said that he needed to be seen to take tough action on transgressors – “actions speak louder than words”.
Overall, I thought this gave a more positive view of how pledged Conservatives will vote than I had been getting on the doorstep. It would seem that most anger – and abuse – is coming from voters who are not firm Conservative pledges. This would bear out my own anecdotal evidence on the doorsteps. In safe Conservative seats I have had considerably less abuse than in marginals. Is it that Conservative voters are more impressed by David Cameron than are Labour voters by Gordon Brown? Or are naturally Conservative people less inclined to have a rant at a canvasser? Who knows?!
What does seem clear is that the picture is rather more complicated that the newspapers would have us believe. There would seem to be all to play for. But then, I am a candidate. Maybe I am being too optimistic, or pessimistic.
