I don’t wish to alarm anyone, but the signs suggest that general election season is upon us. The Labour leader, Keir Starmer, is interviewed in the March edition of British Vogue alongside a photoshoot with his wife, Victoria. On Monday, Rishi Sunak took part in the People’s Forum: a Q&A on GB News that was a mix of party political broadcast and angry conspiracy theory. It follows his interview with Piers Morgan last week for TalkTV and an appearance on the This Morning sofa.
This is what we might call the “getting to know you” stage of the campaign, invariably made up of: introducing a spouse and, or, children to the public; rolling out a backstory to explain why you got into politics; and showing you are a real person with hobbies and interests, including insisting that you really do enjoy football, actually. It is effectively the swimsuit portion of the election campaign. Superficial and with minimal dignity.
This is nothing new in itself. Who among us could forget Theresa May’s “boy jobs and girl jobs”, or Ed Miliband admitting he’s (not quite) a pool shark. And yet this election stands out in the way that the two main parties are saddled with leaders who have so far struggled to connect with voters and who, apparently, have few natural skills that enable them to do so.
Both Starmer and Sunak are widely perceived as technocrats. The Labour leader, beset by policy U-turns, creates an image of being inauthentic and lacking in values; meanwhile, the prime minister – alternately petulant and arrogant – somehow manages to appear uncomfortable talking to the public and the press. In many ways, the blandness of the party leaders is a metaphor for the uninspiring output of the parties themselves, both of which appear to be in a race for who can deliver least. Welcome to the election for management consultants, where a good suit and focus-group-approved slogans fill in for charisma and principles.
Party insiders are not oblivious to this. Starmer’s team has long been utilising his personal history – his mother’s chronic illness, being first in his family to go to university – to soften his robotic tone. Unlike Sunak, Starmer will feel he has less need for a PR drive. With Labour ahead in the polls – and two byelections this week alongside a backlash over Labour’s Gaza stance – his greatest play now seems to be invisibility. His messy handling of the Rochdale byelection, however, has put him in the spotlight for all the wrong reasons.
Sunak, on the other hand, has put out a series of increasingly awkward skits and photocalls to suggest he is variously a family man, fiscally sound, or a Bit Of A Laugh. Last week, the prime minister was pictured looking dynamic in front of a flipchart – an idea that was practically made for meme mockery (you increasingly get the impression Sunak’s comms team don’t actually like him).
With the Conservatives weighed down with 14 years of baggage, strategists appear to be adopting an early “the leader, not the party” campaign focus. Sunak has already begun touring the country in a bid to meet and “woo” voters. And yet the prime minister is more liability than lifeline: easily framed as an out-of-touch billionaire whose wife’s financial affairs are making headlines even before the manifestos are printed. Calls by Kwasi Kwarteng and the Mail on Sunday to bring out the “electoral force” known as Boris Johnson for the campaign may be unhinged, but they reflect the level of panic in the Tory camp. The days of Dishy Rishi seem like a lifetime ago.
In Sunak’s case, it isn’t simply a matter of a candidate with a stilted personality, but one who doesn’t hold up to scrutiny or pressure. The standout moment of his Piers Morgan interview – in which Sunak agreed to a £1,000 bet to deport refugees to Rwanda in time for the election – was notable not simply because it was offensively crass, but for just how easily the prime minister could be egged into morally bankrupt behaviour (and that he didn’t even have the political instinct to avoid it). It is reminiscent of the clip leaked during his first leadership bid, in which he bragged to a group of Tory faithfuls that he’d taken money from deprived urban areas in order to give it to wealthier places. Much like his cruel transgender jibe while Brianna Ghey’s mother was visiting parliament, these moments have the uncomfortable air of watching someone’s mask slipping. At his worst, Sunak comes across as a private school pupil who would bully the scholarship kid to impress a bigger boy.
It all means we enter the election cycle with two men ill-equipped in different ways. The personal aspects of campaigning neither are nor should be vital to winning – this is Westminster, not Love Island – but they do help casual voters connect with the policies on offer. That these policies are – at least so far – absent only compounds the vacuum. During a period of deep-seated social and economic decay, it is not too much to ask that the would-be prime ministers inspire a belief that they will change people’s lives for the better.
Similarly, the main party leaders often define the tone of an election campaign (albeit with the help or hindrance of the dominant rightwing press). At a time when faith in politics is rock bottom and misinformation on social media is rife, leadership traits such as honesty, integrity and warmth are not commodities to dismiss.
In the coming months, Sunak and Starmer will attempt to “show voters who they are”. Whether the country will like what it sees is another matter entirely.
Frances Ryan is a Guardian columnist
See the full feature in the March issue of British Vogue, available now via digital download and on newsstands
