The British General Election of 2015: Philip Cowley and Dennis Kavanagh: 'Let’s have a look at where it all went so wrong for Labour', book review

The 2015 general election was the first since 1983 in which I played no role whatsoever at national level.

It was rather a lonely sensation but understandable: at the heart of Ed Miliband’s being was a desire to bury New Labour and, as a result, he and his team held the view that I was motivated by an equal desire to see them fail. In fact, my love of Labour is greater than Ed’s dislike of New Labour but, from within the bunker, that was obviously not clear.

Philip Cowley and Dennis Kavanagh’s British General Election of 2015 reveals that quite a lot was unclear, to the Tory team as well as Labour’s. Most unclear of all was the expected result. For months before the campaign began, both thought they were likely to lose. Once under way, neither side thought an outright win was possible.

The leaders were hardly to blame for their delusion. The country’s premier pollsters and commentators believed that Britain’s electorate had become so fragmented, so disillusioned with the established parties, that the era of one party, majority government was over.

In fact, it was the “fragmented” prospect of a Labour government propped up by the SNP that drove them back into the hands of the Tories with an overall majority. Which only goes to show that voter behaviour is more rational and predictable than the analysts sometimes imagine.

During the five years of the coalition the voters never really took to the Conservatives and were not remotely excited about having them back in power. They thought that austerity was inevitable because the deficit and the level of borrowing were too high. They felt let down by Labour’s management of the public finances and they believed that the Tories had a plan for recovery.

But with the right personality in charge, and the right combination of fair and credible policies, Labour could have replaced the Tories in 2015. Since the financial crisis, the country has been more left- than right- leaning. But they are not “left” on any terms and the terms offered by Ed Miliband were not acceptable.

It was not that he was too radical or left wing; if anything his vague policies and insipid gesture politics simply left the voters not knowing what he was. The problem was not too much detail and not enough vision – as far as the voters were concerned he was not offering enough of either. Nor was it that he was too anti-business; the public are not in love with big business but they do expect a prospective prime minister to understand the fundamentals of the market economy.

These are not my conclusions – they are the private findings of Labour’s own pollsters. And with a bit more professionalism and political skill – and a little less vainglorious “project” – these problems could all have been put right.

It required the sort of concerted, disciplined, strategic policy making and communications that Cameron and Osborne excelled in. The quality of the Tory election team, including their external Australian and American advisers, would also have been handy for Labour.

Cowley and Kavanagh are right in their observation that while Labour was spending scarce cash on American-imported “message development”, the Conservatives were investing in detailed voter profiling and highly targeted message delivery.

And while Labour was bombarding the electorate with emails demanding cash to “end austerity, alleviate poverty and save the NHS”, the Tory digital team was racing ahead on Facebook and other social media with crafted arguments targeted at voters who were going to determine the election’s outcome.

Labour has more to learn than anyone else from this thorough and detailed account of what happened in 2015. What a shame that it will need to wait for a very different set of leaders to do so.

The British General Election of 2015, by Philip Cowley and Dennis Kavanagh. Palgrave Macmillan £29.99