One of the big misconceptions in British politics is that we are most obsessed with the Americans. Granted, the number of parliamentary staffers with the title “chief of staff” even if they’re working for a backbench MP points to the West Wing effect. But the country that really sets the tone in Westminster these days is Australia.
It’s not just matters of security, like the Aukus submarine deal, or trade that interest both parties here about our antipodean ally. It’s winning elections. The Tories were first at it, importing the strategist Lynton Crosby, who among other things masterminded David Cameron’s surprise 2015 majority, followed by his right-hand man Isaac Levido, credited with the success of Boris Johnson’s 2019 campaign. Both have worked on successive campaigns in Australia, for the centre-right Liberal party, and the UK.
They are seen to bring a required focus — and bluntness — to campaigning. From the “dead cat” distraction strategy to running a focused “barnacles off the boat” campaign, the tricks of the British trade are often made in Australia. Rishi Sunak is due to continue this tradition, with Levido (who helped the prime minister to define his five priorities for 2023) expected to run a 2024 election campaign. The irony is that Sir Keir Starmer thinks his own path to victory can also be found in Australia.
Last year Scott Morrison was thrown out after nearly ten years of the conservative Liberal party in power. His government looked exhausted and was accused of resorting to culture wars in the campaign. A weary Australian public was turned off and Labor’s bland-but-amiable leader, Anthony Albanese, sailed in with a safety-first campaign that focused on the economy. Starmer praised this on social media as “a positive campaign” that ended “almost a decade of stale Conservative rule”. A lesson in the need for a change.
Since then Labour has not stopped taking notes. Last month Paul Erickson, national secretary of the Australian Labor Party, Zoomed into Labour HQ to offer advice on winning from the centre — having already previously addressed the shadow cabinet. A senior Labour source has described the parallels between UK and Australian politics as “amazing”. The shadow education secretary, Bridget Phillipson, recently went down under on a fact-finding mission, citing the Australian party’s promise of high-quality childcare as “a key part of how they won”.
Yet if Starmer is learning Aussie rules, the Tories can see his tactics. It was quite clear Starmer was all set to pledge more childcare, including it in his five missions for a Labour government. So the Tories gazumped him in this week’s budget, promising that every working parent of under-fives would have access to thirty hours of free childcare a week by 2025. A distant deadline, to be sure, but Conservative MPs think it will be harder for Labour to attack them on the issue. “It’s generous. Labour could go further — but it would be very expensive,” a minister says.
In the Corbyn era, Labour would simply have relied on extra borrowing to outbid the Tories. But Rachel Reeves, the shadow chancellor, is sensitive to this and is instead fond of “switch” spends. Any shadow minister demanding funds is asked what they would cut to pay for it. Labour could go to the polls offering to hire more police or spend more on climate change — but both have the potential to be very costly. One shadow cabinet member worries that Labour will have a tougher time at the election as they are trying to balance two potentially conflicting messages: that it’s time for a change but that change is not risky.
What’s more, there is one advantage Australian Labor had that Starmer cannot replicate: running against a tired and unpopular prime minister. After its victory, Albanese’s party published an assessment of why it won: “Although several factors contributed to the outcome, the unpopularity of Scott Morrison and his government was the most significant.” His vulnerabilities ranged from personal traits such as “political dissembling and an inclination to mislead and lie, commonly blaming others to avoid responsibility”, and a “failure to understand and empathise with the experience of women”.
Not so long ago Starmer had such a bogeyman to define himself against, but no more. “Sunak is the strongest weapon the Tories have,” sighs one senior shadow cabinet member. “We can attack the policies, but not really the man.” The Tories are led by a smooth-talking, almost comically polite teetotaller more likely to be criticised for drinking too much sugar than being mired in debauchery and scandal.
This changes the calculation. One of the current criticisms of Sunak is that he is popular with some voters who will never actually vote Tory — Remainers who like his manner but won’t forgive Brexit. But the flipside is that it could make anti-Tory tactical voting — a big factor in Australia, where independent “Teal” candidates campaigning on climate change dented the Liberal vote — less likely.
On the recent Tory MP awayday in Windsor the guest speaker was the former England cricket captain Andrew Strauss, who beat Australia in the Ashes. Levido gave his post-mortem of Morrison’s defeat — a campaign he ran: the problems were fixable, he said, but the Liberal party left it too late. “The moral of the story was Scott Morrison’s party exhibited traits of the Tory party last year,” one attendee recalls. “Infighting, mistakes over lockdown and a sense of looking inward not outward.” By the time Morrison’s party realised this they didn’t have enough time to fix it. Levido’s message to the Tories: refrain from infighting and regicide, stay united, and there’s time.
But not too much time. In No 10, after a good few weeks for Sunak, a spring election next year is viewed as appealing. The Office for Budget Responsibility expects inflation to fall to less than 1 per cent in May next year, below the Bank of England’s target and well past Sunak’s pledge. The plan is to have Sunak front and centre. “We’re not asking for a fifth term for a Tory government,” a senior government source says. “We’re looking for the first proper term of a Rishi government.”
It’s still a big ask — voters won’t quickly forget the dysfunction of the past year, and delivering Sunak’s promises will be crucial to any chance of improving the party’s fortunes. But there’s reason to think the lessons from Australia offer as much hope for the Tories as Labour. It’s whether Tory MPs choose to take them.
Katy Balls is political editor of The Spectator
