It’s unusual for our largest two parties to advocate tactical voting, but David Cameron is calling for the constituents of Rochester and Strood to vote tactically come next Thursday’s by-election.
In what sounds like a rather desperate plea, Cameron told the Kent Messenger:
It is a two horse race; those [Conservative and Ukip] are the only two real choices and the more we can get people to focus on who is the right person for the job, with the issues that people are caring about, the more people we can get voting for Kelly . . .
I would say to people who have previously voted Labour, Liberal, Green or anything, that if you want a strong local candidate and don’t want some Ukip boost and all the uncertainty and instability that leads to, then Kelly is the choice . . .
I think there will be lots of Labour supporters in Rochester and Strood who don’t want to see Ukip with their divisiveness and their message succeed here.
If you want a strong local candidate, then Kelly can be your tribute – she can be someone who stands up for the area.
But it is unlikely such an appeal will work in this by-election, and not just because Lord Ashcroft’s latest polling this week put Ukip 12 points ahead.
Constituents feel a lack of identity caused by globalisation and the area’s ailing, and lost, industries. Many associate this with Margaret Thatcher’s closure of Chatham Dockyard 30 years ago. This is a crucial factor in left-leaning voters being unwilling to vote Tory, even just tactically.
When I visited Rochester a couple of weeks ago, I picked up a great deal of discontent with the Conservatives among both Labour and Tory voters. One middle-aged man, who had been trained in his youth to work on the dockyard, before it was closed and he was forced to make money any way he could, told me he would vote Ukip to keep the Tories out:
I’ve always lived here, and was educated to work on the dockyard as a young man. Then a woman called Margaret Thatcher closed it down. So I’m going to be voting for Reckless, just to give David Cameron a bloody nose. I’m red to the core, but would rather keep the Tories out.
I heard a similar anger at the Conservatives for betraying the community when doorknocking around a residential Labour ward just outside Rochester town centre. There is a general feeling of post-industrial decline in Rochester and Strood, due partly to the closure of the dockyard, which put thousands of people out of work, but also due to the suffering steelworks industry in the nearby Isle of Sheppey, where one large firm only recently came out of administration.
A pensioner and erstwhile Conservative loyalist who I spoke to in the constituency told me he found Labour more impressive than the Tories, saying “even Labour’s got some ideas” for his hometown. He worked as a procedural engineer here, until, he says, “the car industry here fell apart”. He decried the Conservatives having “dominated” Medway for so long with no opposition, adding, “so Ukip getting a strong hold would be a good thing.”
If Labour and Tory voters alike have stronger reasons to vote Ukip than for the Conservatives, it looks like Cameron’s appeal for tactical voting will be in vain.
Content from our partners
Related
