Gimmicks galore at Labour’s ‘attack the Tories’ event
Inside the Labour event there are pretend ‘Tories’ and they have been baking. There are plates of cupcakes with ‘Tories secret plan’ embossed with icing. One journalist quipped that he had tried one “and there was nothing in it”.
Then, more ‘Tories’, who were actually two young Labour activists – probably future cabinet ministers – handing out brown envelopes claiming to contain the “Tory Secret Plans”.
Inside, the plan seemed so secret that the notebook we were given was blank – we wondered if Labour written out the Tories ‘secret plan’ in invisible ink? However it turns out you can read the gimmick in digital form here.
And outside the Labour gimmicks were met with Tory gimmicks – six or so Tory Nicola Surgeons waving placards promising to prop up a minority Labour government, increase taxes and take us on a tour of Dante’s circles of hell. (I may have made that last one up).
With just over a week to go the gimmicks mask some desperate politics. Conservatives are now promising to legislate not to raise income tax, VAT or national insurance before 2020. While Labour have gone on the offensive over the Tories failure to specify their cuts to the welfare budget.
So far neither of the parties have much impressed the Institute for Fiscal Studies, nor, according to the polls, the public, and with 8 days to go, it’s going to take more than cupcakes and Nicola Sturgeon masks to break through.
