New British Prime Minister Liz Truss — the choice of 180,000-odd Tory party members — is unlikely to be too different in political tactics from Boris Johnson.
Truss lavished praise on her predecessor in her first speech as PM, saying Johnson was “admired from Kyiv to Carlisle” (likely the first time those cities have ever been linked). She also shares some advisers with him. Mark Fullbrook, who ran Johnson’s 2019 campaign, is advising Truss. Fullbrook is one of the many associates, colleagues and protegés of Lynton Crosby who have helped the Tories to repeated election success over the past decade — and helped the Liberals here in Australia.
Central to that success is a playbook of tried and tested campaign tactics. The main elements of it are:
- Micro-targeted pork-barrelling for marginal seats
- Culture war campaigns
- Coordination with News Corp
- Demonisation of opponents and their policies.
There’s also the famous “dead cat” tactic strongly associated with Johnson — and literally copied by Scott Morrison when he repeated Johnson’s tackling of a child during the 2022 election campaign.
Truss became an enthusiastic culture warrior in her campaign to be prime minister, targeting trans people (including saying trans women weren’t women) and promising to double down on the relocation of asylum seekers to Rwanda. She also channels Tony Abbott and Joe Hockey when she laments that windfarms were “one of the most depressing sights” in the UK.
The right-wing playbook plainly failed in Australia in 2022, although that may be more a result of the sheer toxicity of Morrison than innate failings of the tactics. But the developers of the playbook have been smart students of election losses as well as wins and have constantly worked to refine their tactics after each election, win or lose; in the case of the latter, the task becomes to minimise the party’s time out of office.
The lessons of Australia in 2022 will be examined for application to the UK election in 2024 — assuming Truss will lead the Tories into that campaign, which is not necessarily a given. Johnson may believe he has a second stint as PM ahead of him (after all, Churchill served twice!) and Truss’ defeated opponent Rishi Sunak is more popular with parliamentary colleagues than her.
Truss will also have to get through the new winter of discontent as the UK faces inflation of up to 22%, fuelled by energy price spikes that will see UK households facing energy bill increases of 500% compared with pre-pandemic prices. She has promised an energy relief package within a week of becoming PM, so there’ll be little or no honeymoon if the package fails to convince UK voters.
Labour holds a double-digit lead over the Tories according to most polls and perceptions of Truss are declining the more voters see of her.
But the team backing her knows of a conservative leader from Australia who replaced a PM and defied predictions of defeat to pull off a miracle win — all with the help of its playbook.
