Hearts and Minds: The Battle for the Conservative Party from Thatcher to the Present by Oliver Letwin & Oliver Letwin

Author:Oliver Letwin & Oliver Letwin [Letwin, Oliver]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
ISBN: 9781785903120
Publisher: Biteback Publishing
Published: 2017-10-02T04:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 6

NEGOTIATING THE COALITION

As the future of my own seat was in some doubt, I spent the final couple of days of the campaign firmly located in West Dorset drumming up what support I could. The media were still predicting my demise. Because I have followed a set routine of canvassing in particular places day by day in election after election, I am pretty well able to compare the response in a particular street or village with the response from the same place at the same point in previous campaigns – and, over almost a quarter of a century, that has proved a reasonably reliable guide to the eventual result. On this occasion, the responses I was getting on the doorsteps in the last hours of campaigning led me to suppose that I would in fact be likely to scrape by, despite the media speculation. But of course one inevitably doubts the veracity of one’s own canvassing; there is a terrible temptation amongst canvassers to display optimism bias, no matter how much the candidate tries to persuade everyone to avoid this; and the candidate himself or herself is equally prone (if not, indeed, more prone) to suffer from false optimism.

So I arrived at the count in a state of considerable uncertainty. I could see the TV cameras set up to record the moment of my defeat. And I could see the expected large piles of Liberal Democrat votes from Dorchester (which always gets counted first, and has traditionally had an in-built Liberal Democrat majority). As on so many previous occasions, I contemplated the possibilities of a different life outside politics, and reflected rather sadly on the thought that I might never, after all that had passed, find my way back to Downing Street. And there was also, as on each previous occasion, the sense that losing the seat would somehow reflect on me personally. Of course, one knows that none of this (win or lose) actually has much to do with the candidate: the country is, very sensibly, making a decision largely about a government rather than about an individual MP. But, however much one knows this as a matter of psephological theory, it’s difficult fully to believe it at the emotional level.

However, by around two o’clock in the morning, the situation was improving – as I had hoped (though not confidently expected) it would. The Conservatives in the villages had turned out as my doorstep canvassing had led me to believe they might, and the blue piles on the tables at the centre of the hall were growing significantly larger. It was with very considerable satisfaction that I saw the TV crews begin to pack up their gear: clearly, they had concluded that they were not going to get the decapitation that alone justified their presence. But, even at this stage, I imagined that the result would be close. It was not until right at the end that I was able to believe that my (admittedly small) majority had doubled.

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