Three magic words: how Boris Johnson achieved a record victory in the election

The elections to the British parliament on Thursday became the triumph of the Conservative Party and Prime Minister Boris Johnson - the conservatives received the strongest majority since the time of Margaret Thatcher, and the prime minister - an almost unlimited mandate to hold their Brexit decisions. Now the British media are analyzing how Johnson’s team managed to achieve a record result. The Bell tells the main thing about the British Prime Minister’s election campaign-from plush kiwi and “boomer-memes” to hide and seeks from journalists in the refrigerator.

What's happened

In the parliamentary elections in Britain on Thursday, the conservative party won a crushing victory-it gained 43.6% of the vote and received 365 seats in a 650-scale house of communities. This is the best result of the party since 1987, when Margaret Thatcher was led to the elections, and the best result in the parliamentary elections since 1997, when the Labor Tony Blara received 417 seats. The rivals, the Labor, received only 202 places, and the leader of the party Jeremy Korbin already announced the night after the election that in early 2020 it would resign.

In the summer, when Boris Johnson first spoke about early elections, this idea seemed extremely risky - in 2017, when the same elections in the hope of expanding his mandate were announced by his predecessor Teresa May, the case ended , from which the May cabinet could not recover. On December 11, on the eve of the elections, the surveys have already predicted the confident victory of the conservatives, but not so convincing - sociologists gave them 339 seats.

Political technologists

Johnson’s election headquarters was headed by the 35-year-old Australian political strategist Isaac Levido. Despite her age, for Levido it was already the fifth large election campaign in Britain, among which were both successful (for example, two victories of Boris Johnson in the mayor of London), and the catastrophic defeat of Teresa May 2017. The most influential adviser to Johnson Dominic Cummings, who became famous for the 2016 Brexit campaign, retreated from working at the headquarters. “The house intervened a couple of times, but he knew that Isaac was the main one,” the FT functionary of the conservative party said in November.

Boris Johnson and Isaac Levido. Photo: Zuma/TASS

The Daily Mail, who, not without the inherent tabloid intonations, tells in detail about all the members of the Johnson team, notes the wide age range of the headquarters. His most experienced member was the 69-year-old political consultant Ed Lister, who worked under Johnson Vice-mayor London. The youngest are the founders of the SMM agency TG, New Zealands Sean Topem (28 years old) and Ben Gerin (24) responsible for social networks.

The working regime of the headquarters was extremely tough: the first daily planning of the headquarters leadership was held at 5:30 in the morning, and Levido himself left work after midnight. The motivational techniques of the head of Johnson’s headquarters were somewhat old-fashioned: as Bloomberg says , to raise the fighting spirit of Levido’s employees twisted the hit of the 80s “The Final Countdown”, and on the last day switched to the song “One More Day” from the English musical “rejected”. The best employee was awarded a passing prize daily, and the most distinguished Levido gave a plush bird Kiwi, who took root at the headquarters thanks to the New Zealand SMM-lords.

Work on mistakes

The main task of Johnson’s headquarters was not to repeat the failure of Teresa May 2017. The main reasons for its defeat were a blurry political agenda, a too complicated election program and failed work in social networks. This time, political technologists were able to correct errors.

Young New Zealanders were hired on the social networks, who focused on the viral “boomer-memes”-rather straightforward pictures intended for voters older than 50. SMM-shows did not even have to rack their heads over the content-exactly a year ago they conducted a successful campaign against local Labor in Australia.

https://twitter.com/conservatives/status/1203059708220841984

The election program was actually formulated in three words. Isaac Levido instructed the prime minister not to say anything superfluous and not to deviate from the main slogan: “Get Brexit Done” (“Complete Brexit”). It was chosen for sure: Brexit supporters are already for Johnson, and opponents are so tired of the four -year process that they just want to finish everything faster. “I feel sick at the mention of Brexit. Let the parliament already finish it all, otherwise it will be a few more years spent, ” said The Washington Post Programmer Kevin Wilson, who voted against Brexit at the 2016 referendum, but on Thursday he voted for Johnson.

Johnson painted the words “Get Brexit Done” with a cream on his own baked donuts, prepared pies in the “Get Brexit Done” apron, during a visit to the factory destroyed the foam wall behind the wheel of a bulldozer with the inscription “Get Brexit Done” on the bucket on the eve of the election, and wrote more than 20 tweets the day before, which contained this one phrase.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=an6rjbde6za

The Labor, on the contrary, fell victim to the uncertainty of their position on Brexit. Jeremy Corbin first refused to clearly formulate the party’s attitude to the continuation of Brexit and tried to focus the campaign on social policy. A few weeks later, he announced that the Laborists would support the new referendum with the possibility of canceling Brexit, but did not announce what position the party itself would support.

As a result, Johnson won a decisive victory, even contrary to the numerous PR-drafts in the campaign, which began with the scandalous statement by the leader of the conservatives in parliament that the victims of the fire of the fire could “use common sense” to get out and ended in the flight of Boris Johnson in the refrigerator from the leading acute political show under the swelling press secretary. However, the last episode was in line with the Soviets of Isaac Levido, who strongly recommended the chef to avoid sharp interviews.