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Even though this week has included close to two full days without much campaigning because of D-Day celebrations, the tone of this election has changed entirely.
There were three key moments this week, all of which have contributed to this shift. First, Nigel Farage entered the race, declaring in an angry speech that he intends to lead a “revolt” in the course of contesting the Essex seat of Clacton. Then came a debate between the two main party leaders in which the prime minister attempted to make a misleading figure about Labour tax policy go viral. And finally, the prime minister left D-Day events early so that he could do a TV interview, despite surely having been able to see how that would play into Farage's hands.
These interlinked developments can be understood as part of the ongoing tussle between honest politics and populism. Matthew Flinders thinks that Rishi Sunak’s attempts to replicate Farage’s tactics have backfired badly for him. But his loss is not everyone else’s gain. In fact, when an election takes a turn of this kind. Flinders warns, we all lose.
The one silver lining is perhaps the revised approach the media took when dealing with Sunak’s tactics — questioning what he was up to rather than taking his headline figures as fact. This, suggests Stephen Cushion, is an important step in the fight against disinformation that has plagued global politics in recent years.
The emerging field of neuropolitics is another part of the populist puzzle. Savvy politicians are already looking at fMRI scans to see what happens in your brain when they talk to you in certain ways. In a fascinating article, you’ll learn that British leaders have been activating your anterior cingulate cortex this week – whether they’ve meant to or not.
It’s an established fact that our feelings about the economy are important when we are deciding how to vote. It stands to reason, therefore, that good economic news would benefit Rishi Sunak. And yet the easing of inflation has done nothing to improve his polling. Why is that? The answer, says Paul Whiteley, can be found by looking back at how every election over the past century has played out. When it comes to economic ups and downs, our memories, it seems, are a little longer than the past two weeks.
Next week, we hope to see a turn to more serious discussions of what the parties are offering as they start to publish their manifestos.
Before that, we’ll close this week with a seven-way debate between parties — including several we’ve hardly had a chance to hear from yet, such as the Liberal Democrats and Greens. There’s the potential for chaos, of course, but here’s why the event is actually worth tuning into.
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