Why the Tories didn’t win

Courtesy of John Rentoul, Tim Bale, professor of politics at the University of Sussex, offers this appraisal of the 2010 election:

‘For all the talk in opposition of decontaminating the Tory brand, of making the party more tolerant and inclusive and less ‘nasty’, the key task facing Cameron when he took over in late 2005 was reassuring voters that the Conservatives could be trusted on welfare and public services.  All the market research suggested that this was the sine qua non — a necessary if not a sufficient condition — of a return to office. When the global financial crisis hit and Britain’s budget deficit ballooned, however, this task remained unfinished and work on it practically ceased.  Gambling on the fact that they would be given brownie points for honesty, and believing that, as the most likely next government, they should start softening up the public for inevitable spending reductions, the Tories switched from reassurance to rhetoric about the age of austerity.