{"id":96423,"date":"2019-12-15T23:39:39","date_gmt":"2019-12-16T05:39:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=96423"},"modified":"2019-12-15T16:35:40","modified_gmt":"2019-12-15T23:35:40","slug":"election-2019-isaac-levido-secured-tory-triumph-with-skill-and-sharp-slogan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2019\/12\/15\/election-2019-isaac-levido-secured-tory-triumph-with-skill-and-sharp-slogan\/","title":{"rendered":"Election 2019: Isaac Levido secured Tory triumph with skill and sharp slogan"},"content":{"rendered":"

Extract from Times (UK)\u00a0 Report<\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n

Inside the Conservative Party\u2019s headquarters, the chants began shortly after the exit poll was announced.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

With the Tories heading for a landslide, the assembled staffers erupted in a chorus of oh,\u00a0Isaac Levido<\/a>\u201d in tribute to the softly spoken Australian who had led them to victory.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nobody in the CCHQ sweepstake had predicted that the Tories were on course for a\u00a0majority of nearly 80<\/a>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Tories\u2019 slogan get Brexit done\u201d, combined with their relentless determination\u00a0to stay on message, had paid dividends. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mr Johnson and his team settled on the slogan shortly before the party conference in September. In focus groups they found it appealed to both Brexiteers and those who were wanting to move on.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Tories presented voters with a choice between getting Brexit done and more dither and delay. By contrast Labour presented voters with a variety of messages and policies designed to appeal to different groups.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When someone walks into a polling booth they\u2019re answering a question,\u201d Mr Levido said. The successful campaign frames the questions that voters are asking. What was the question that Labour was asking?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

From the off, the team had united behind Mr Levido. Dominic Cummings,<\/a> Boris Johnson\u2019s most senior adviser, deferred to him along with the rest of the Downing Street team. Lee [Cain, the Tories\u2019 director of communications] and Isaac hadn\u2019t even spoken to each other before the summer,\u201d said one adviser. But it wasn\u2019t an issue. The line of authority was crystal clear, and it stopped with Isaac.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The campaign had barely begun when the Tories had to show a ruthlessness that is fast becoming one of the cornerstones of Mr Johnson\u2019s leadership. Alun Cairns, the Welsh secretary, was sacked hours after it emerged that a former aide had been accused of sabotaging a rape trial<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jacob Rees-Mogg, the leader of the Commons, was barred from doing interviews after appearing to suggest that the victims of the Grenfell fire should have used their common sense\u201d<\/a> and fled the building.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Tories also knew there was a path to victory. Theresa May had first identified the Red Wall\u201d of seats stretching across north Wales, the northwest, the Midlands and the northeast \u2014 seats that had historically voted Labour but backed Leave in the EU referendum.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

They were effectively finishing the job Mrs May had started with a more charismatic candidate. They were also determined to avoid the pitfalls of 2017.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Their response to Labour\u2019s policy announcements and a glut of retail offers such as free broadband typified the approach. <\/strong>Instead of engaging with the policies themselves, the Tories focused on the cost of Corbyn\u201d and the catastrophic\u201d risk they posed to the economy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A lot of MPs are former barristers and think it\u2019s all about winning the argument,\u201d a campaign source said. It\u2019s not. It\u2019s about getting your message across as many times as possible.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Conservative Party\u2019s manifesto was a deliberately slimmed-down affair.<\/strong> Sajid Javid, the chancellor, argued for tight fiscal rules and the publication of full costings.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Amid reports of tensions between the Treasury and Downing Street, Mr Javid and Mr Johnson met two days before the campaign began and signed off the approach. Mr Levido is said to have supported Mr Javid in his push for fiscal rules.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Contentious policies were ditched. An early draft of the manifesto included a commitment to a national care system, broadly similar to Labour\u2019s plans for a national care service. In the end it was replaced with a broad commitment to cross-party talks.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Extract from Times (UK)\u00a0 Report Inside the Conservative Party\u2019s headquarters, the chants began shortly after the exit poll was announced. With the Tories heading for a landslide, the assembled staffers erupted in a chorus of oh,\u00a0Isaac Levido\u201d in tribute to the softly spoken Australian who had led them to victory. Nobody in the CCHQ sweepstake […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-96423","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/96423","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=96423"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/96423\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=96423"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=96423"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=96423"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}