Breaking news: the UKIP ‘earthquake’ is tearing asunder everything in its path. Or so our media would have us believe. But behind the headlines, what have the local elections taught us so far? The Pagefield team have taken a deep-dive to list our top five lessons learnt – which can be accessed here, to save the reader an overdose of local election euphoria.
So what else happened in a week where pretty much everything happened outside Westminster?
Miliband became a meme
Ed Miliband, Labour and their shiny-new American strategists are hoping that the party will have the upper hand when it comes to the ‘social media election’ next year. But this week they learnt that social media can quickly go against you and that for all the message discipline in the world, when it comes to the internet it is – as 3 Mobile demonstrated last year – the silly things that matter. The average punter is now more engaged with car crashes, catastrophes, and carnivals than polling, policy and parliament (yesterday’s turnout was again worryingly low). And with Vines like this, who could blame them? In an election which is set to be determined by the question, ‘which prime minister would you be least embarrassed by?’ Miliband is ripe for ridicule and the Tories won’t tire of using it to undermine his credibility.
Farage had a shocker. It didn’t matter
Nigel Farage’s ‘septimana horribilis’ started last Friday with that interview on LBC. After a relatively light grilling from Paxman on Tuesday’s Newsnight, the UKIP Carnival on Wednesday was another calamitous episode – with the reluctant steel drummers stealing the show. But Farage has that one thing coveted by most politicians but possessed by so few – a cloak made of Teflon. A week of all-out attack on UKIP by the ‘political elite’ and London media has served only to communicate the UKIP offer more widely. Farage has built a career of being against the ‘establishment’ and his enemies are increasing his chances of another promotion next year.
May’s day and George stays quiet
Elsewhere, Theresa May ‘stunned’ the Police Federation conference in Bournemouth when she said the legitimacy of British policing was in jeopardy and strong armed the Federation into adopting widespread reform. The silence of the previously boo-full crowd spoke volumes. May’s star seems to be rising but with Cameron’s post-2015 future looking increasingly unsure, is she peaking at the right time?
The Chancellor will be pleased that the Campaign Circus was in town this week. For anyone brave enough to peek outside the big top, you may have spotted that inflation rose for the first time in 10 months. The rise stalls hopes for a pick-up in real terms wages – a blow for Osborne and a boon for Miliband.
Rory Cronin
Consultant, Pagefield