So where have we ended up? Where has our new pollster heroine, ‘Whitby woman’, landed at the end of this General Election campaign? Looking back, what ‘cut throughs’ have actually hit home and lasted to the end of the race?
And here’s a controversial answer: none of them. No really, none of them.
It seems to the REC team that minds were hard set before the election started. The polls have been static for 18 months. No one's really changed their mind. The nation’s views, mindset and opinions were baked in long before this election began. Do we really remember anything that happened to Labour during this election? Not really. Do we care? Not much. But we are aware of the endless Tory mishaps: drenched in Downing Street, offending D-Day veterans, Farage returning, ‘Fluttergate’ etc because they reinforced our previously held views. And to meet our low expectations, the Tories, starting 20+ points behind and not unreasonably expecting to narrow that substantially through the campaign, waged such a historically bad campaign that they managed to defy all recent electoral precedents.
The national mood seems to be:
1. We are fed up with the Tories after 14 years. We’d like them to go please. We could all list a whole raft of oft-repeated reasons off the top of our heads, but really can’t be bothered at this point.
2. We have no idea what Labour’s policies are, and seemingly neither do they. The other guys have had their go, so now it's their turn. Chop chop.
And that's about the size of it really. So, for all the noise, all the words, all the analysis, all the polls, we thank you.
Two things will likely happen next: the turnout will probably be lower than usual because we all know the result and thus a good number of voters won’t be bothered to turn up. And the winner will probably get a poll bounce after the election as is usual which will be followed by much hype, over excited giddiness and hubris all around. Remember ‘we’ve banished boom and bust’?
Anyway, let's get cracking, there's lots to do.
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