What Happened in the British Election Campaign This Week. From the Publication of Election Manifestos to Robots and Haribos

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LONDON (AP) — Britain’s election campaign has passed the halfway point and the main political parties have finally released their plans to govern if they win on July 4.

Beyond the carefully choreographed events, there is always a potential disruptor lurking. Just ask Conservative Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, who has had to apologise repeatedly for leaving the 80th D-Day commemoration in northern France on 6 June before the most important international event.

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“Events, my boy, events,” said Sunak’s predecessor in the early 1960s, Harold Macmillan, when asked what the biggest challenge facing politicians was.

With less than three weeks left until the election, all candidates must expect unexpected “events” that can disrupt a campaign schedule for days.

Here are some things we learned last week:

Words and pictures

Most major political parties published their election manifestos last week.

Few voters will ever read the documents, but the message from the two major parties is already clear.

Sunak’s Conservatives are making tax the focus of their election campaign, arguing that a new Labour government would cost households more than £2,000 ($2,500) per capita.

Labour leader Keir Starmer rejects this accusation – he even calls it a lie – and says his government will restore stability after years of economic and political turmoil.

The Institute for Fiscal Studies think tank is often consulted on tax and spending issues. Its conclusion is that, given the dire state of public finances, the two main parties are fighting a “conspiracy of silence” about the difficulties they face after the election.

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This war of words will undoubtedly continue until election day. In the battle of images, the two parties pursued different approaches in their election manifestos.

While there was no picture of Sunak in the Conservative Party document, Starmer appeared 33 times in the Labour Party manifesto, including once with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky at the international D-Day event – ​​yes, the one that Sunak left early.

No rest for the godless

The British election campaign is grueling for politicians. Here, there and seemingly everywhere. And all at once.

The two main contenders for the post-election prime ministerial post faced each other – indirectly – at their second campaign rally on Wednesday in Grimsby, a fishing village in eastern England that traditionally voted Labour until 2019, when the Conservatives won a large majority under the then leadership of Boris Johnson.

Sunak and Starmer were questioned individually by Beth Rigby, Sky News’ political editor, and then faced questions from an audience of candid locals.

The two escaped more or less unharmed.

Starmer was laughed at after a viewer accused him of being a “political robot” and was briefly speechless. Sunak, on the other hand, revealed details of his “appalling” high-sugar diet during the election campaign. Allegedly “huge” amounts of Twix chocolate bars and Haribo sweets.

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Hopefully he packed some of it for the G7 leaders’ summit at a luxury resort in the southern Italian region of Puglia, where he ended the week and no doubt recovered somewhat from the intensity of the election campaign.

Causing a sensation

There is one man who has made his mark in this election campaign in a very different way. That is Ed Davey, the leader of the centrist Liberal Democrats, who have traditionally been the third largest party in British politics. However, after forming a coalition government with the Conservatives from 2010 to 2015, their fortunes declined and the party fell to fourth place.

Davey is clearly targeting many of the constituencies that the Conservatives hold in many parts of the country, such as the south-west of England and rural communities around London. He hopes to gain Labour votes in these constituencies to oust the Conservative candidate.

However, with the two major parties receiving so much airtime on television, Davey has decided to make his political arguments in a different way.

Often in a wetsuit.

One day he’ll be jumping into the water to raise awareness of the “sewage scandal” plaguing Britain’s rivers and coastlines, the next he’ll be climbing an obstacle course to promote the importance of open space and exercise.

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Oh, and after he unveiled the Liberal Democrat manifesto on Monday, he went on a rollercoaster ride. Election campaigning is like a rollercoaster ride, he said.

Only time will tell whether his antics will help his party’s cause.

But he is definitely attracting attention.

Permanent surveys

The results will be available in three weeks. The left-leaning Labour Party remains the favourite to win the most seats in the 650-seat House of Commons. Although the major pollsters give different figures, all show a double-digit lead for Labour, with relatively little change since Sunak announced the general election on May 22.

“The current stable picture suits Labour just fine,” said Rob Ford, professor of political science at the University of Manchester. “But a stable election campaign increases the pressure on Rishi Sunak and the Conservatives, who are now facing a historic defeat.”

Some leading Conservative politicians believe this is the most likely outcome, with Defence Secretary Grant Shapps even warning against a two-thirds Labour majority in Parliament.

If trends are correct, the Conservatives also face a challenge from the right, namely from the Reform UK party, currently led by Nigel Farage, one of the main protagonists in the country’s vote to leave the European Union in 2016.

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