When defeated on the field of political battle, you not only ask what you have done wrong but what your opponent has done right; especially when it’s a fourth defeat and a big one.
Pots of ink have already been spilled over the shortcomings of Labour and its election campaign. But far less attention is being paid to the extraordinary adaptive capabilities of the Conservatives. Principal amongst these has been ‘political shapeshifting’ - to rapidly change their personae to appeal to critical parts of the electorate. In the space of a few months the Tories moved from being divided party polling less than 10 per cent in May 2019 to a united and different type of political organism that won a General Election with 45 per cent of the vote. This is unprecedented.
While many were being lulled by the all too apparent personal failings of Johnson, he was ruthlessly working to cohere the Right bloc. But Johnson’s shapeshifting is much more than an act of deception; it has been a carefully devised strategy that took pitiless advantage of the failings of both the Centre Right and the Left during 2019.
