The UK campaign trail’s highlights, lowlights – and washouts

Good morning.

We’ve finally come to the end of the road.

Six weeks of campaigning is, mercifully, over. The polls are about to open and millions of voters across the UK will be setting out to cast their ballot in the general election.

Labour is projected to win big – though, true to form, the opposition have been cautioning people against putting all their faith in the polls, and frantically trying to manage expectations. The Conservatives, on the other hand, have spent the last month warning the public of a “one-party socialist state” induced by a Labour “supermajority”.

With the help of the Guardian’s senior political correspondent, Peter Walker, today’s newsletter charts the memorable moments of each party’s campaign and how successful they have been in trying to get their respective messages across. That’s right after the headlines.

Five big stories

In depth: Six weeks of sky-high stunts, political blunders and cautious campaigning

Conservatives

Rishi Sunak’s surprise election announcement was a sign of what was to come for the Conservative party. The prime minister emerged from No 10, sans umbrella, as it poured with rain outside. As he attempted to set out his case to the country, he became progressively more drenched.

The headlines wrote themselves: Drowning Street. Washout. Drown and out. All plastered over photos of a sodden Sunak. “That’s not the kind of optics that you need,” Peter says – especially at the start of an election campaign. There was no doubt that the party had an uphill battle.

Despite trying to hammer home their central message (LABOUR WILL TAX YOU!), the moments everyone has remembered are actually Sunak’s self-inflicted gaffes. A defining moment of the campaign that dogged the prime minister for weeks – a lifetime in a six-week campaign – was his decision to leave the D-day commemorations early to get back to London for an ITV interview. “In focus groups, when people were asked what they noticed, they remembered the rain announcement and D-day,” Peter says. There was no explaining it away and even though the prime minister apologised, “it looked pretty bad”. Another political headache for the beleaguered prime minister was the betting scandal, initially revealed by the Guardian, which followed Sunak everywhere he went.

A material roadblock to an effective on-the-ground campaign has been that much infrastructure is not there any more. A local party official effectively told Peter a few weeks ago that there was no one to campaign in their marginal seat. “They have lost many, many local councillors over the last few elections that would have been door-knocking for them,” he says. “There’s hardly anyone left”.

The Conservative campaign has also been surprisingly defensive, particularly in the last few weeks. Sunak has visited what would normally be considered ultra-safe seats – earlier this week he went to Witney, in Oxfordshire, which used to be David Cameron’s seat and was where the Conservatives won with a majority of 15,000 in 2019. “You don’t go to these seats as prime minister unless you’re really scared and doing very badly,” Peter says.

Since mid-June, the core message of the campaign has been to implore the public to stop a Labour “supermajority”. It does seem to be getting some traction, but this tactic is a remarkable acceptance of defeat. “It was always going to be hard, but it has probably gone even worse than they feared,” Peter says.

Labour

Before Sunak even called the election, Labour were in campaign mode. They had released a pledge card that highlighted their stances on the big issues and were ready for a fight, even with a big lead in the polls.

It has been a risk-averse and cautious campaign. “As you would expect, they’ve been very disciplined,” Peter says. “I’ve seen Starmer on the road quite often, and he’s not given many answers that we didn’t already know. He’s always played it safe.” Even with this approach, the party had early pitfalls that has been hard to shake off. The row over whether Diane Abbott, Faiza Shaheen and others should be able to stand as Labour MPs led to accusations of racism and factionalism, and exposed the ruthless political machine that Starmer has cultivated. And many voters, particularly black and left-wing ones, did not like what they saw.

Even with this messy episode, Labour’s lead has not contracted very much. “The biggest issue they faced is this overwhelming expectation that they’re going to win by miles, so they have been hammering home this message that it’s not automatic and urging the public to get out and vote,” Peter says.

Lib Dems

It will be hard to think about the 2024 general election campaign without thinking of Ed Davey, the leader of the Lib Dems and the self-appointed fun guy of the election. A day has not gone by without Davey jumping into a body of water or hurtling down a slide. When Peter interviewed him a few days ago on the Lib Dem campaign bus, he noticed an array of drying swimming trunks.

Their argument is that they need attention to get the Lib Dem message across. “He thinks that if he tries to make a point wearing a suit at a lectern, no one listens, but if he does it falling over on a paddleboard, they do,” Peter says. But they have had to be careful not to overdo it. “They’ve walked that tightrope quite well, it seems. But it only works because they’ve coupled it with this very, very disciplined campaigning structure,” Peter adds. They have also balanced Davey’s extracurricular activities with truly moving testimonials and policy pledges on social care – an issue that is important to many voters.

The Lib Dems have been building on the momentum they achieved in 2019 when they received a significant number of votes and came in second place in many areas, despite only scoring 11 MPs. “This time it’s possible they might actually get the same number of votes, or even fewer, but get five or six times the number of MPs,” says Peter.

SNP and Plaid Cymru

The Scottish National Party has a similar problem to the Conservatives. As an incumbent government that has faced numerous scandals they have had to fight a defensive election. The SNP and Plaid Cymru have been using a similar strategy to the Tories, which is to say that Labour are going to get a landslide – so get as many of us in as you can to kind of try to push against them. The tactic does not seem to have moved the dial very much for them.

Nigel Farage’s announcement that he was standing to be an MP and taking over as leader of Reform UK upended the campaign, particularly for the Conservative party. “He just sucks up political bandwidth with his drama – it has an effect on everyone,” says Peter. Farage was riding high for a while, with the insurgent party surging in the polls by focusing on the Conservatives’ record on immigration.

In the last week or so, the tables have turned for Farage, after an avalanche of allegations of racism and homophobia among Reform UK candidates and volunteers. It is not clear yet how this will affect votes, but Farage has tried to distance himself from the allegations and deflect them, accusing reporters and the Conservative party of conspiring to malign him and Reform UK.

Greens

The Green party has led a relentless campaign. Last year they announced their intention to focus on four target seats: Bristol Central, Brighton Pavilion, North Herefordshire and Waveney Valley. They have thrown everything they have and then some on these seats. With little mention of the climate crisis by the two main parties, the Greens argued that they were the party needed to pressure Labour to act more urgently on the environment.

The campaign in the newly formed constituency of Bristol Central, where Labour’s Thangam Debbonaire – the shadow culture secretary – is standing, in particular has garnered significant attention as the Green’s co-leader Carla Denyer has left Debbonaire fighting for her political life.

“There is still a lot of uncertainty and flux. I think on Friday morning, there will be quite a lot of surprises, perhaps not on macro scale, in terms of the overall numbers,” says Peter, “but there’s still a lot that we don’t know.”

What else we’ve been reading

Lanre Bakare spoke to the makers of a new musical about children in care (picture above), which sensitively incorporates its subjects’ life experiences. Hannah J Davies, deputy editor, newsletters

Maanvi Singh’s dispatch from the Arizona-Mexico border, where residents are becoming increasingly tired of being treated like a political football, adds important context to the border crisis debate in the US. One resident told Singh: “The politicians are creating the mayhem.” Nimo

In case you needed some more food for thought today, Jonn Elledge has taken a look at (almost) all of the Tory policies that have defined the last 14 years. Hannah

Hurricane Beryl has destroyed homes and killed at least seven people in the Caribbean so far. Natricia Duncan’s report sheds light on the damage and the causes behind this unseasonably early hurricane. Nimo

Another week, another epic fraud saga from the New Yorker (£), this time about the oil magnate that wasn’t. Hannah

Sport

Tour de France | Mark Cavendish became the most prolific stage winner in the history of the Tour de France, taking his 35th victory with a typically instinctive sprint finish in Saint-Vulbas.

Wimbledon | Former British number one Emma Raducanu sailed past Elise Mertens, beating her 6-1, 6-2. World number one Jannik Sinner survived an all-Italian Centre Court dogfight against Matteo Berrettini to book his place in the third round; Emma Navarro has eliminated former No 1 Naomi Osaka in the third round. The 19th-seeded Navarro won 6-4, 6-1 at Centre Court. Defending champion Carlos Alcaraz overcame an uneven first set to defeat Aleksandar Vukic of Australia.

Euros | Phil Foden has defended Gareth Southgate’s tactics and insisted ­England’s players should shoulder more of the blame for the team’s underwhelming performances at Euro 2024.

The front pages

The papers are consumed with polling day coverage. The Guardian’s headline is “Starmer hails ‘new age of hope’ as Britain votes in historic election”. The Sun backs Labour after years of critical coverage with “As Britain goes to the polls, it’s … time for a new manager”. But the Express remains firmly behind the conservatives with “Vote Tory” under a paragraph explaining their view. The Mirror resembles a campaign poster with “Vote for change, Vote Labour”. In the Mail, “Vote Farage, get them …” over a picture of Keir Starmer and Angela Rayner, as it warns against protest votes for Reform delivering a big Labour majority.

More news focused headlines in other papers, with the Telegraph saying “Homeowners face council tax raid under Labour” and the Times “Labour set for ‘biggest majority since 1832’”.

And in the Financial Times, US politics is the name of the game with “Biden under mounting pressure to quit as doubts rise among supporters”.

Today in Focus

Cartoon of the day | Ben Jennings

The Upside

A bit of good news to remind you that the world’s not all bad

Attended by 200,000 people each year and supported internationally, the annual Miners’ Gala in Durham lays claim to being the world’s largest celebration of working-class culture. This year’s event – which will be held in the north-east cathedral city on 13 July – is particularly poignant, as it marks 40 years since the miners’ strike, when workers clashed with Thatcher’s government, their eventual defeat leaving many social and economic issues in its wake. Says former miner David Temple: “Human beings need community and the Big Meeting is the heart and the spirit of the Durham coalfield. It’s bigger than Christmas.”

Murton Heritage Society founder Geordie Maitland emphasises the importance of younger people getting involved. “It’s our past but we can pass that on,” he says. “Anybody under 35 won’t remember the pits, but we need to make sure they still learn those traditions from parents, relatives and the community. It’s about everybody getting together and celebrating our existence.”

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