Good afternoon. On the last day of campaigning, it’s time to reflect back on the most notable moments of the last six weeks, for a special awards newsletter which we are calling the Election Editionies. I’m sure it will become a thing.
A small note on our election day plans – there’ll be no Election Edition at 5pm as normal, and instead you’ll get a super, special exit poll edition as soon after 10pm as is humanly possible, with reaction to the likely results and a handy companion guide for how to follow the rest of the night. If you’re planning to go to bed, sign up for First Edition here, where Nimo Omer and I will be rounding up what’s just happened at 7am. And on Friday, you’ll receive your last Election Edition of this cycle (don’t cry) at 5pm. And then we can all get some sleep.
But first, the awards. Read on for the winners, and also Rishi Sunak’s thrilling favourite meal.
What happened today
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Turnout | Cabinet minister Mel Stride has said that Labour is headed for “the largest majority any party has ever achieved”, prompting accusations from Labour that the Conservatives are trying to suppress voter turnout.
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Rishi Sunak | The prime minister has confided to members of his inner circle that he is fearful of losing his Yorkshire constituency at the general election, the Guardian has been told. Sunak has a majority of more than 27,000.
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Endorsements | The Sun has backed Labour, saying that “by dragging his party back to the centre ground of British politics for the first time since Tony Blair was in No10, Sir Keir has won the right to take charge”. The tabloid last backed Labour in 2005.
Analysis: Most irritable politician, worst meme and more election prizes
Least imaginative reworking of the original Star Trek set
ITV’s backdrop to the first debate (above), somehow both lurid and completely anodyne, which in fairness did turn out to be appropriate, and very much made it look like either leader might abruptly be beamed up. Set phasers to stunningly unenlightening!
Least helpful football metaphor
In an election absolutely stuffed with them, this surely belongs to Michael Gove: “I’m a Scotland fan, so you wait until the final whistle. Sometimes it looks as though the odds are against you, but you keep on fighting.” Scotland finished bottom of their group at the Euros, with a goal difference of minus five and one point; their manager Steve Clarke drew “stark criticism for what is perceived as an overly negative approach,” the Guardian reported.
Most unjustly irritable politician
Rishi Sunak. Please direct your weapons-grade tetch at whoever forced you to become prime minister and then call this election!
Most overexcited social media polling announcement
A crowded field, in which various pollsters attempted to drum up the kind of anticipation that is more properly aimed at the Radio 1 chart show in about 1995, mostly through the use of triple flashing red light emojis. But let’s go with YouGov, and “MRP ALERT / YouGov will be releasing our second MRP of the election campaign today at 5pm – set your watches!” on 19 June. Really not a good riposte to the (largely unfair) claim that pollsters think they’re the main characters and love it when they get a spicy set of numbers.
Most unpleasant physical space
All spin rooms anywhere, according to everyone who has ever been in one. A personal highlight of the campaign, though: watching a colleague texting from one of them on TV and then receiving a message reading “I MASSIVELY HATE SPIN ROOMS” a few seconds later.
Least successful meme
The above one put out by the Conservatives showing a roulette wheel and the caption “if you bet on Labour, you can never win”. Did good numbers, to be fair – 1.4m views – but unfortunately also put TORIES and GAMBLING next to each other in people’s mindset at a deeply inopportune moment, and was unceremoniously deleted.
Most dubious “journalist”
Isabel Oakeshott, partner of Nigel Farage predecessor and Reform moneyman Richard Tice, who has fearlessly led the way in reporting that the racist exposed by Channel 4 was actually a paid actor, and the candidates who have now abandoned the party were actually Tory plants. I am using the traditional meaning of “report”, which is “declare without supporting evidence”. Feel free to clock off at 6pm.
Most transparent and risk-free attempt to provide future self with unearned air of prophetic wisdom
Another crowded field, but let’s hand it to James O’Brien, who tweeted on 21 June: “I don’t think the Labour majority is going to be anything like as big as the bulk of polling suggests. There, I’ve said it. Feel better now.” As political commentator John Oxley observed: “Smart thing to say, because if you look right you’ve beaten the herd, and if you are wrong no one will remember. But in absence of an argument it’s just a hunch.”
Most disingenuous email subject line
“Not great”, a message to supporters from Labour HQ said on Sunday, ahead of an email moaning that “our fundraising has not picked up as much as we had hoped at this point”. Missing context: Labour raised £8.6m in the first three weeks of the campaign. The Tories raised £1.2m.
Most overexposed technological advance
Ring doorbells, which mean that owners are now in severe danger of getting a video message from a former prime minister. That said, they do also afford the opportunity to yell “GO HOME” at Theresa May from the comfort of your desk.
Worst representation of local campaign outlook
A fine British leafleting tradition, but the winner this time is the Green party in Hyndburn, which pushed dodgy graphics to their natural conclusion by simply removing any numbers from an image showing them nearly neck and neck with Labour, and citing “our latest local polling”, which turns out to be canvassing returns, a notoriously useless measure of opinion. You may wish to know that Survation’s MRP poll from 15 June has Labour on 53%, the Tories on 28%, and the Greens on 4%.
Most obnoxious question from a member of the public
Goes to Robert Blackstock, who you will remember chucked some template insults at Sunak and Starmer and then asked them if they were “really the best we’ve got”, to wild applause. Obviously the two leaders have fully internalised the “never tell the voters they’re wrong” mantra, and competed only over who could acquiesce most feebly to his characterisation of them as a pair of halfwits.
Most implausibly feigned surprise at the consequences of dancing with the devil
The performance art project that is the series of front pages and editorials from the Daily Mail panicking over the danger to Conservative survival posed by Reform UK, including the article headlined: “Nigel Farage? Be careful what you wish for”. We’re all looking for the guy who did this!
Stakhanovite Tory who deserves a peerage if anyone does
Loyal, dogged, willing to say almost anything in your defence when all your other so-called friends have deserted you: we all need a Mel Stride in our lives, honestly.
Most heinous ad
Hard to compete with the Conservative one aimed explicitly at older people which portrayed Labour as an armed group threatening the lives of your family and conjuring wartime tropes of surrender, really.
Most exciting vision of the future
Goes to Steve Baker, hoping to be re-elected in Wycombe but facing an uphill battle, who said he’d like to spend more time “Skydiving, motorcycling, fast-catamaran sailing” if he loses. Wait, is this code for “defecting to the Lib Dems”?
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Word most shorn of meaning by overuse
Supermajority. Does it mean big majority? Massive majority? Majority that grants greater power to the government than a smaller majority? Majority in a cape? Nobody really knows, but “majority larger than is acceptable to the median Reform/Tory switcher’ appears to be the working definition, and that will have to do.
Least magnetic celebrity endorsements
The comfortable winners are Holly Valance, Neighbours alum and Marie Antoinetteish wife of billionaire property developer Nick Candy, and furious SAS hard man Ant Middleton, dropped by Channel 4 for various predictable reasons. Both are backing Reform. The Tories avoided this one by ingeniously not publicising any celebrity endorsements at all.
Most emblematic catchphrase
Keir Starmer: “Ordinary hope”.
Weirdest image that nonetheless seems to capture something of the general vibe
This one.
What’s at stake
Zadie Smith writes today for the Guardian on the appetite for change:
Housing. Education. Healthcare. That’s what people talk about. Young people who have to pack up all their stuff every few months to move from one overpriced fleapit to another. Desperate, frazzled, working-class parents stunned to realise their rich counterparts now think it reasonable to “game the state system for a year or two” so it looks better on their kids’ university applications. People who know people who have died waiting for ambulances. People whose relatives died of Covid while Boris Johnson was partying. People queueing for my own local food bank, whom I recognise, whom I went to school with. Adults moving back into their childhood bedrooms, or out of town, or on to the streets.
As far as I can tell, the people I meet when I’m out and about span the political spectrum from radical leftists to small-C conservatives. But whether they want to burn it all down or try to preserve and improve Britain’s rich cultural and institutional history, not one of them cares to live another month being “governed” (in this context, scare quotes are essential) by this particular group of high-rolling chancers, who do not seem to have a thought in their heads besides their own and their donors’ enrichment …
… I’m afraid the papers aren’t going to swing it for you this time, guys. People have eyes. People have children. People pay rent. People go to the shops. People get sick. People go to work. The damage you have done is everywhere and in plain sight. All you have succeeded in achieving this time round is keeping the environment off the agenda entirely, a truly shameful elision in which both of the main parties have colluded.
But look outside: here comes the sun. The very intense sun.
State of the race
Voting intention over time: Latest average of all polls over a moving 10-day period, showing Great Britain voting intention
Guardian graphic. Source: Polling companies listed by the British Polling Council. Polls exclude “don’t knows”. Last updated 3 July 2024.
Quote of the day
My favourite meal, generally, is sandwiches.
Rishi Sunak after being asked whether he has a special meal planned for tomorrow night. He went on to say that on polling day, he traditionally has a “special election pie”
Number of the day
99%
Degree of certainty claimed by pollsters Survation that Labour will win more seats than 1997, when they won 418.
Dubious photo opportunity of the day
Larry ponders his future. Born in 2007, he was adopted by Downing Street staff in 2011 and became chief mouser shortly afterwards, meaning he has only worked under a Conservative government. Cats, of course, are Tories.
Read more
Listen to this
Today in Focus | Marina Hyde and John Crace on the 2024 election campaign
The Guardian columnist and parliamentary sketchwriter reflect on the highs and lows of the race
What’s on the grid
Tomorrow | It’s the election!
Tomorrow, 10pm | Polls close, and the exit poll is published, giving the first indication of the likely shape of the result. Hold on to your hats. And remember Election Edition will land in your inbox at 10.30pm to hold your hand through the rest of the night.