The Campaign Company specialises in social research and behaviour change. This is your guide to what we’ve been reading. Here’s what’s coming up this week:
Hello and welcome to the TCC Weekly – the Friday bulletin for people who know their Toblerone Bar from their Toblerone Line.
Today we look, in our politics section, at the prospects for a Farage style right-wing party. We ask if such an idea would destroy or reboot the populist right.
And of course, there’s the Black Friday bargain bucket that is Charlie’s Attic. This week’s includes a range of tips for understanding the cost-of-living crisis, including the Centre For Cities’ index of which conurbations will be hit worst.
Threats from the right
We recently read this analysis, by the New Statesman’s Ben Walker, of the threat posed to the Tories by a right populist party. The analysis was prompted by hints from Nigel Farage that he may be ready to return to frontline politics. Walker concludes that “immigration is far less prominent than during Ukip’s heyday. As a consequence, a new right-wing party is unlikely to enjoy the same fanfare and momentum as in the past… We’re not living in 2015 anymore.”
Meanwhile, analyst Ben Ansell published this recent Substack article, which argues that the Tories are in a “death spiral”. This is based on a polling deep dive, which reveals that, once you split for education and age, the Conservatives are only leading with one group: over fifties without a degree.
Ansell writes that: “Boris Johnson created a phenomenon electoral coalition. But it has withered and all that’s left is retirees. There are many, many retirees out there so the Conservatives are not entirely doomed. But it’s not the ideal basis for a future electoral strategy.” He adds that the Tory Party “lacks a coalition large enough to win elections today and, even worse, faces wipe-out in a decade unless it changes.”
(We must also give a brief nod here to Godfather of the Weekly Chris Clarke. His own recent article asked if the Tories had painted themselves into a corner, with their pursuit of a political realignment).
Were Nigel Farage to reboot the Ukip or Reform (aka former Brexit) Party model, it seems likely that its best chances of success would come through appealing to over-50s without a degree (which comprised the original ‘Kipper’ base). In other words, it would come through poaching the only demographic The Tories can now rely upon.
This would potentially force a rear-guard action from the Conservative Party, which may well repel other voter groups – painting them further into the same corner. After years of success as a right-wing agitator, you can unfortunately never completely bet against Farage. But we wonder if his return, rather than rejuvenating right populism, could be the nail in the coffin for it.
HOT OFF THE PRESS: Farage has just announced that the Reform Party would stand candidates in all seats at the next General Election. And the Daily Express’ weekly tracker poll suggests this could be the ‘death of the Tories’.
And finally this week, Charlie’s Attic, where political tectonic plates rub up against each other every Friday:
Read this YouGov polling on super-market switching thanks to the cost-of-living.
Get nostalgic for high stakes 1950s science kits. Then bump into the 2020s with this Guinness Book of Records entry for the youngest ever nuclear physicist.
Tuck into a new instalment of Greggs Vs Pret post-Brexit mapping. And if you still can’t get enough then get stuck into this map of European Castles (Belgium, take a bow).
