Davis to unveil supporters throughout September in 'rolling thunder' campaign

The David Davis camp is determined to learn from the mismanagement of Michael Portillo's 2001 leadership bid.  Michael Portillo looked the sure-fire winner at the start of the contest and his aides carelessly played up expectations.   At one point there was newspaper speculation that one hundred of the party's 164 MPs were backing Mr Portillo.  Mr Portillo's camp was attempting to steamroller the election process by intimidating MPs and other candidates into surrendering before 'the inevitable'.  The Portillo strategy backfired when the first ballot of Tory MPs was held.  The then Shadow Chancellor won many fewer MPs than his camp had predicted.  Although he led the ballot his campaign suddenly looked like it was going backwards and losing support.   There was further over-spinning that caused The Sunday Telegraph to report that Margaret Thatcher was backing Mr Portillo - only for the next day's Daily Telegraph to rebut the idea.

The Portillo experience explains the big gap between the number of MPs who have publicly declared for Mr Davis, not much than twenty according to The Telegraph, and the same newspaper's suggestion that he has 62 firm pledges (and, perhaps, as many as 74 supporters).  Derek Conway MP, a key aide to the Shadow Home Secretary, has asked Mr Davis' backers to stay quiet for the time-being.  He is planning rolling announcements of supporters throughout September in an attempt to suggest accelerating momentum for Mr Davis.  The 'rolling thunder' programme of announcements will climax on the eve of the Party Conference so that Mr Davis arrives in Blackpool with the appearance of being the heir to the Tory crown.  Still remembering the Portillo experience, however, some announcements will be kept back as Mr Davis cannot afford to underperform in the first ballot.  Any hint of falling below expectations would embolden the second-placed candidate and give him the apperance of momentum and suggest that the Davis campaign was in retreat.

Comments

[James Hellyer]

A cynic might think that the Davis campaign is somewhat becalmed, and that this strategy is designed to give it the illusion of momentum in the hope that this actually becomes momentum.

I'm still not convinced that his support has moved beyond the realms of "narrow but noisy". As an individual candidate he's in the lead, but we all know how reliable MPs pledges are.

Drip feedding confirmed supporters to us, who may not be as numerous as rumoured, would serve to create the impression of a bandwagon others would hopefully jump on.

But then a cynic would say that.

[Wat Tyler]

Sounds like a sensible plan to me...but then I guess I would say that.

Now if only we could trust those pledges...

[Bellman]

So "Desperate" Davis and his crew are planning to use spin to try and make it appear that they have more backers and momentum than they do in reality, by using existing support to give the impression of new impetus. His old mate Ally Campbell would certainly approve.

It does appear from this that DD's support might have peaked & that his team are aware of that. Or is he simply trying to boost his green credentials by doing a spot of pledge recycling?

[James Hellyer]

So what excatly has happened to this Rolling Thunder campaign?

[James Hellyer]

Another day passes with no roll of thunder...

[Simon C]

I'd been wondering about this too.

DD apparently is going to bring his formal launch forward as a reaction to the Ken Clarke launch. And he has arranged an extra speech tonight.

There must be a relationship between rolling thunder and predatory inactivity, but I can't quite glimpse it at the moment.

[Wat Tyler]

Not really sure where this "rolling thunder" thing came from. But we're still over a fortnight away from the Conference...and Davis made his first big speech for two months today.

[James Hellyer]

But I thought the plan was to announce backers throughut September (which is fast approaching the half way mark), so that Davis would arrive at the Party Conference looking like the heir apparent. That doesn't seem to happening...