A few weeks ago, we wrote about the apparent imperviousness of the Conservative party, following the resounding by-election victory in Hartlepool, the effective roll-out of the vaccination campaign and the successful delivery of the Budget 2021. We signalled that any bumps in the road the government might encounter were likely to be of its own making. This has come true to a certain extent, but what we couldn’t predict (and what has certainly taken the wind out of the Conservative party’s sails) was the public disgrace of Matt Hancock (who had only recently survived Dominic Cummings’ WhatsApp revelations) and its subsequent effect on the trust and confidence of the general public.
This week, we explore the Hancock scandal, take a look at the Amersham by-election, and the increasing rates of COVID-19 across the UK - and what this could all mean for the Conservative party in the long run.
Hancock hung out to dry
On Friday, security camera video footage revealed the former secretary of state for health and social care, Matt Hancock, in a compromising situation with Department of Health and Social Care non-executive board member, Gina Coladangelo. Boris Johnson subsequently gave Hancock the kiss of death by accepting his apology for breaching social distancing rules, going on to say that he 'considered the matter closed'. Hancock swiftly resigned shortly after.
The former chancellor, Sajid Javid, has been named as Hancock’s successor, in an appointment Jonathan Ashworth, shadow secretary of state for health and social care, warned was akin to “putting the fox in charge of the chicken coop”. However, Javid has already shown that he’s no shrinking violet when it comes to standing up to Johnson, following his resignation as chancellor in 2020, after what he saw as unwarranted interference from the prime minister in the team he was constructing. In a cabinet currently full of compliant ministers, Javid should provide some of the internal scrutiny that the general public has been crying out for.
It may be premature, but it seems as though this could be the lightning rod event that ties together the elements of ‘Tory sleaze’, that has been plaguing the government for the last year, with little impact on the party’s popularity thus far. These include: the £200,000 refurbishment of Boris Johnson’s number eleven flat, the £100,000 grant awarded to a cyber-firm owned by Boris Johnson's ‘friend’ Jennifer Arcuri, the move by the housing secretary, Robert Jenrick MP, to approve a Tory donor’s £1bn property development plan- going over the heads of Tower Hamlets council and also helping the donor avoid a £45m levy payable to London’s poorest borough and £10bn COVID-19 related contracts being awarded without competitive tenders, many of which went to Conservative party donors, including the former landlord of Mr Hancock's local pub the Cock Inn.
This incident, however, seems to wrap them all into a nice, media-friendly bundle, with questions surrounding the nature of Ms Coladangelo’s appointment, the potential use of a personal email account to conduct government business, the unwarranted parliamentary pass given to Ms Coladangelo and the leak of the CCTV footage, all remaining. The scandalous nature of this whole affair should also give the story more air time, ensuring that it remains firmly in the public consciousness for the next few weeks, at the very least. Unfortunately, it may also have another effect, further damaging the confidence and trust of the general public when it comes to the lockdown and social distancing guidance, with many finding it hard to stomach the ‘do as I say, not as I do’ mantra coming from Hancock and the government as a whole.
Blue wall battering
Unlike the Hartlepool and upcoming Batley and Spen by-elections, the by-election in Chesham and Amersham hardly received any prior media fan-fare. Unfortunately for media pundits, they missed out on a staggering result, where the Liberal Democrats overturned a majority of 16,000 on a 25-point swing to win a seat, which had been Conservative since its inception in 1974. Ed Davey, the leader of the Liberal Democrats, was quick to herald this result as a sign that the Conservatives’ traditional ‘blue wall’, wasn’t as safe as they first thought. This result highlighted some real challenges for the Conservatives in many of their home counties’ seats, built around anger towards the construction of HS2, the proposed planning reform, the feeling that these areas are being taken for granted by a Conservative party obsessed with reinforcing its relatively new ‘red wall’ seats and the potential impact of a ‘progressive alliance’.
On this last point, while nothing was formally agreed between the Liberal Democrats and Labour, former Labour voters readily lent their support to the Liberal Democrat candidate in a bid to give the Conservative party a black-eye, which saw the Labour vote shrink from 7,166 in 2019 to 622 in 2021. If such an agreement could be formalised across the country with Liberal Democrats, Labour and potentially the Green Party making way for one another in areas that they could look to capitalise on, this could have a dramatic impact on the chances of the Conservative Party, who are at risk of losing 23 seats in the south or east of England if the Liberal Democrats repeat their performance in Chesham & Amersham at a general election. Time will tell if such an agreement can be reached between the left-leaning parties, but with the Batley and Spen by-election coming up, it may be that these sorts of arrangements will be required, if they have any hope of beating the Tories.
Delta danger
COVID rates still continue to climb in the UK, with 15,000 cases a day recorded over the last few days. Research conducted in the UK, where the Delta variant now accounts for 99% of new COVID cases, suggests it is about 60% more transmissible than the Alpha variant, which previously dominated. It may also be linked to a greater risk of hospitalisation and is somewhat more resistant to vaccines, particularly after one dose. However, Sajid Javid is set to confirm that step four of lockdown easing will take place on Monday 19 July – in line with the four-week delay from the original target- 21 June - and while cases are nowhere near their November 2020 peak, hospitalisations are slowly increasing and some hospitals have been forced to declare major incidents in the last week, because of the swelling numbers of patients. The battle to double vaccinate broad swathes of the general public is on and according to the Office for National Statistics, around two in three adults have been fully vaccinated. This should be strengthened by the “grab a jab” campaign, which is urging anyone 18 or older in England to get vaccinated this weekend.
A look ahead
This week, all eyes will be on the Batley and Spen by-election, which could provide the Conservative party with some much-needed breathing space, and potentially bring an early end to Keir Starmer’s time as leader (though there doesn’t appear to be any consensus on who could succeed him). George Galloway, campaigning to win the seat for the Worker’s Party of Britain, has been loudly proclaiming that it Labour doesn’t win the seat, then it will be “curtains for Starmer.” Needless to say, the dominant position that the Conservative party found itself in early this year, has been well and truly knocked. However, given Labour’s own perilous position, it’s not yet clear if this will truly affect Johnson and the Conservative party in the long run, and for the moment it seems like they can only hurt themselves, rather than being dealt any damage by a weakened opposition.