“You campaign in poetry and govern in prose”
I’ve heard that phrase repeated so many times I’ve never stopped to think whether it is a useful prism but right now, I think it might be – both for an assessment of Labour’s first, squandered – sorry, hundred days, and the Conservative leadership election.
Or as AA Milne might have put it – now we are two.
We are all aware of Sir Keir Stanza’s pre-election poetic epic: “Changing Britain”.
It contained such seemingly attractive odes as “How I changed my party”, “In service of Working People” and “Fourteen years of Tory chaos”. Although I think we can all accept “My father was a toolmaker” was not his best – and repeating it on every page was a mistake.
However, it all seemed to land mellifluously with an electorate who’d long stopped reading Conservative prose and just wanted that book to end.
So, Labour ended up in Government, and suddenly their words lost rhyme, and reason – even those Sir Keir has tried repeating every Wednesday at the dispatch box. His attempt at post-election poetry bombed as “22 billion black hole” was critically mauled.
Governing prose it had to be – and it wasn’t pretty. Not least seeing the embarrassing children reading “The Lying. Waheed and the wardrobe” to a shocked public. Sir Keir’s response was quite the spectacle. It was all very Swiftian – just Taylor not Jonathan.
Since then Labour have dished up a more depressing and turgid style which has not only failed to land, but acted as its own literary critic. It’s wiped the gloss off the high tone verse they wooed the country with, with all the vim of paint stripper. Their own reviews show it wasn’t good.
You see, “I changed my party” sounds rather hollow with the old politics of envy reeking from every word of Bridget “Birthday party” Phillipson’s haiku tweet about private schools – which said much about her politics and very little about the reality of private schools.
It felt jarring with Zarah Sultana’s discordant intervention in a debate marking the 7th of October massacres, castigating her own leader over Gaza which seemed redolent of the protest songs of the Corbyn era. No wonder he sounded cross, she was a reminder of no change at all.
And it felt utterly hollow, set against the seemingly unwanted words about P&O from his Transport Secretary Louise Haigh. The petulant tone reminded one of the best versification from the vaults of student politics.
“Who are the cowboys now?” might have been the last line. There is every sign the Labour party hasn’t changed that much at all – however much the front bench tries to spin it.
I’ve had cause to claim the adenoidal yet lilting tones of “In the service of Working people” are undone when the monotone prose of the Chancellor gives away this isn’t, in fact, all people who work. Despite poetic promises they wouldn’t be taxed, it seems prophetic that they will be.
And though “fourteen years of Tory chaos” was a hit pre-July, the Labour prose novella that followed was aptly dubbed “Shifty shades of Gray” or as some have called it “McSweeny Todd: the demon barber of Downing Street”.
For what the words are worth, the Labour soul soaring sought for by replacing “Daffodils” with red roses, has fallen flat.
Now as our columnist Peter Franklin writes today no Conservative should see this awful start for the people who would “Change Britain” as a reason the Tories are back – or anything like. Labour’s woes are more a bonus than a Tory revival. There are still mountains to climb, and Conservative campaign poetry is, in many areas, still to be written.
And when the Conservatives do come to craft their lines, they’d be smart to heed those of the former Tory-Bard-of-Brussels, and another ConHome columnist, Lord Hannan, who has recited his own wise warning – be careful what you promise.
Lord knows it’s a lesson Labour didn’t seem to learn.
Which brings me to the literary dynamic of the leadership contest. We finally have a difference emerging between the final two.
Robert Jenrick knows his own poetry at Conference did not land the way he’d hoped, but now he’s in the final ballot, he’s offering members policy, plans, people, and dare I say it, prose. He’s outlining what he’d do, what he’s for, and who he wants, in far more detail than his rival. It’s not that rousing, but it might be compelling. He said last weekend he hates empty rhetoric so he’s filling his with detail.
Kemi Badenoch seems to be appealing to the heart and soul of Conservatives. It’s about who they are and who they can be again. It’s a form of verse that as our surveys have consistently shown lands well with Conservative members who want reminding of these things, and someone who can sing that song. Like all poetry its weakness is – sometimes you aren’t completely sure what it means – but you like the sound all the same.
Those well versed in Tory leadership fights will know there could be darker balladry and grittier composition to come – but whilst Labour dismantles their early paeans with stuttering sentences, Badenoch and Jenrick could see the battle of poetry and prose as the deciding dividing lines of their immediate futures.