Abstract
The Conservatives ‘won’ the election in terms of gaining the largest vote share than in 2015 yet ‘lost’ the critical number of seats that deprived the party of an overall majority. This chapter explores why this happened, focusing on what is seen as a flawed presidential style strategy. If the snap election was a considerable shock what also came as a revelation was the Conservatives’ unpreparedness to exploit the advantage of making this surprise move to consolidate their position in advance of the Brexit talks. The chapter also considers the various aspects of the party’s campaign including messaging, digital strategy and local organization—together with the related controversies about each of these topics.
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Ridge-Newman, A. (2019). ‘Strong and Stable’ to ‘Weak and Wobbly’: The Conservative Election Campaign. In: Wring, D., Mortimore, R., Atkinson, S. (eds) Political Communication in Britain. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-00822-2_9
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