UK election: Thatcher legacy is ditched as bygone battles resurface

When Theresa May called a snap election seven weeks ago — something she promised never to do — pollsters and pundits forecast she would win in a landslide, crush the Labour Party and deliver a hammer blow to Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership.

May was hailed by some as the new Margaret Thatcher. In truth, May is not a neoliberal Cold War ideologue with unshakeable convictions and a combative approach. She is a reversion to pre-1970s Toryism. “There is more to life than individualism and self-interest,” she said. May is no Iron Lady.

The Tories have run a terrible campaign. May’s presidential-style bid for re-election has not offered a compelling reason to vote Conservative. She refused to debate Corbyn head-to-head. Hopes of winning a majority of up to 150 seats have turned to fears of a hung parliament or a surprise Labour victory.

In contrast, Labour has run an effective campaign that has seen it and Corbyn’s prospects improve. The party has skewed dramatically to the retrograde discredited left but it nevertheless has a clear message and policies. Corbyn has surprised on the stump and his ideas have gained traction, particularly with younger voters. But will they turn out for Labour?

The latest Islamic terrorist attack could be a turning point, though. In a strident and compelling speech announcing a stronger stance against terror, May warned there was “far too much tolerance of extremism” that Britain needed to be “more robust in stamping out”.

It was right in tone and just in policy but loaded with politics. May, of course, should highlight Corbyn’s ill-judged comments on terrorist groups and his soft stance on national security. Too often the far-left Labour leader has been on the wrong side of history. With London under attack, Corbyn’s past sympathies for Hamas, Hezbollah and the IRA are front and centre.

The New Labour moderates who despair at the state of their party may well feel vindicated if May wins resoundingly.

But if Corbyn-led Labour wins a haul of seats or, heaven forbid, government, it will be nigh on impossible to eject him. A new breakaway centrist party remains a possibility.

While May is the superior choice for voters, there is little enthusiasm for giving the Tories their third successive election victory. Her promises of “strong and stable” leadership and a mandate to strengthen her hand in negotiations with Brussels have not had the impact she hoped they would. May’s rush to the polls may have been judged to be too brazen by voters.

The Conservative manifesto shows how far the party has departed from Thatcher. As The Economist has noted, it promises price controls on energy, more council-funded homes and an interventionist industry policy. It is a retreat from economic liberalism. The one policy that did show courage — reforming long-term social care — was dubbed a “dementia tax” and resulted in a humiliating U-turn in the face of pensioner anger.

The presidential-style campaign, with few mentions of the party brand, has not helped May. She was not that well known before becoming prime minister a year ago, nor is her personality commanding attention like a Thatcher. Deciding not to debate Corbyn — whom Thatcher would have ground into mincemeat — one-on-one has made her look weak and evasive.

In Theresa May (Biteback), journalist Rosa Prince finds a leader who is deeply committed to public service, self-controlled, tough and ambitious, with strength of character. Yet May’s promise of a “different kind of conservatism” has not resonated because voters don’t really know who she is. Even May’s biographer calls her “enigmatic”. Again, she is no Thatcher.

The campaign has not ended Corbyn’s hope of being prime minister but bolstered it. The one-time fringe politician and notable peacenik has performed better at campaign events and in interviews than he has in parliament. His pledge that Labour will deliver “for the many, not the few” has cleverly framed his policies.

Yet he, too, offers a regression to a bygone era that, it was thought, had been dispatched to history’s dustbin by Tony Blair and Gordon Brown.

The opposition is promising a big-taxing, big-spending program of redistribution, re-regulation and renationalisation with a populist nod to nativism. Corbyn will scrap university tuition fees, perhaps even erasing student debt, costing billions.

Many Labour MPs can hardly stomach him. His senior frontbench colleagues, shadow chancellor John McDonnell, and shadow home secretary Diane Abbott, are deadweight in the party’s saddlebags. McDonnell is a self-declared Marxist while Abbott has stumbled through interview after interview.

In the wake of the latest terrorist attack some wanted the election postponed. But although elections were suspended during World War II, there can be no stronger statement of determination to defeat terrorism than to hold an election that is, of its essence, an act of democratic free will.

It defies prediction. Few believe that May can win a stunning victory like Thatcher over Mich­ael Foot in 1983, nor Blair over John Major in 1997. But pollsters’ predictions often go awry. Neil Kinnock (1992) and Ed Miliband (2015) were favoured to move into No 10. They also got Brexit wrong.

But with the election seemingly too close to call and convulsed by terrorism, the big question is whether voters have already discounted Corbyn’s gaffe-laden past and will return Labour to power anyway, or whether they believe May finally has shown the strength and purpose she promised and will place their trust in the Conservatives for another term.