Dominic Wring - Political Communication in Britain: Campaigning, Media and Polling in the 2019 General Election

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This book analyses the 2019 election through expert contributions from both practitioners and academics. It is the eleventh in a series of electoral post-mortems, one of which has appeared after every UK General Election since 1979. The inaugural Political Communications was the first volume to offer insights from strategists belonging to the different parties alongside some of those responsible for reporting the campaign. The book also featured chapters by pollsters and scholars, analysing what is now widely regarded as one of the most important elections, given it resulted in the first of four consecutive Conservative victories and a decisive shift in British politics with the arrival of Margaret Thatcher in Downing Street. The Tory victory in 1979, like the one forty years later, marked the end of an extraordinary period of political drama. Both elections had followed parliaments in which minority governments had attempted to maintain some semblance of authority in the House of Commons and beyond. In less fraught circumstances, the respective Prime Ministers involved might have been able to continue to govern, but the respective crises were so serious that MPs ultimately agreed the best course of action would be go to the country.

The UKs relationship with the then European Economic Community was a relatively marginal concern in 1979, given the election was a few years on from the first historic referendum in 1975 to confirm British membership. By 2019, following the further national vote of 2016, the issue had become the single most prominent topic of debate. When Boris Johnson took a calculated risk by pressing for the General Election having only become Prime Minister a few months before, he would make Getting Brexit Done his mission and core campaign slogan . Regardless of the merits of the policy, it was one that was readily understandable to a public now conversant with this issue. This book explores this central aspect of the election and how the opposition parties tried to alter the campaign narrative. The volume, like its predecessors, also considers how the media reported and pollsters analysed the election.

The editorial team would like to thank our contributors for their chapters. The extraordinary circumstances of 2020 have presented multiple work challenges for everybody, including those engaged in collaborative projects such as this volume. We greatly appreciate the patience and forbearance of colleagues involved. We would like to thank Ambra Finotello and her colleagues at Palgrave for their continuing support for the series. Hemapriya Eswanth and Karthika Purushothaman have provided invaluable help in editing the book. We would also like to thank Ben Page, Sir Robert Worcester, Aynsley Taylor, Gideon Skinner, Sara Gundry and the Marketing & Communications team at Ipsos MORI. We are grateful for the support of Ele Belfiore and Cristian Vaccari of Loughborough University and Chris Eudon and his colleagues at Loughborough University London. Special thanks go to Jo Sheriff and Til Wring for their patience and always wise counsel.