Prof Jennifer Lees-Marshment
Professor of Political Marketing and Management at The University of Dundee.
Email: JLeesmarshment001@dundee.ac.uk
UK Election 2024
Section 4: Parties and the campaign
34. A changed but over-staged Labour Party and the political marketing weaknesses behind Starmer’s win (Prof Jennifer Lees-Marshment)
35. To leaflet or not to leaflet? The question of election leafleting in Sunderland Central (Prof Angela Smith, Dr Mike Pearce)
36. Beyond ‘my dad was a toolmaker’: what it’s really like to be working class in parliament (Dr Vladimir Bortun)
37. The unforced errors of foolish men: gender, race and the calculus of harm (Prof Karen Ross)
38. Election 2024 and rise of Reform UK: the beginning of the end of the Conservatives? (Dr Anthony Ridge-Newman)
39. The Weakening of the Blue Wall (Prof Pete Dorey)
40. The Conservative party, 1832-2024: an obituary (Dr Mark Garnett)
41. Bouncing back: the Liberal Democrat campaign (Prof Peter Sloman)
42. The Greens: riding two horses (Prof Neil Carter, Dr Mitya Pearson)
43. Party organisations and the campaign (Dr Danny Rye)
44. Local campaign messaging at the 2024 General Election (Dr Siim Trumm, Prof Caitlin Milazzo)
45. The value of getting personal: reflecting upon the role of personal branding in the General Election (Dr Jenny Lloyd)
46. Which constituencies were visited by each party leader and what this told us about their campaigns (Dr Hannah Bunting, Joely Santa Cruz)
47. The culture wars and the 2024 General Election campaign (Prof John Steel)
48. “Rishi’s D-Day Disaster”: authority, leadership and British military commemoration (Dr Natalie Jester)
49. Party election broadcasts: the quest for authenticity (Dr Vincent Campbell)
Everyone who understands political marketing properly knows that the campaign is the least important. Instead it’s the years running up to the election when parties need to do their market research and create a product that responds to voter wants, ensure it is achievable, and wrap a positive brand around that forges a close connection between leader and the voters.
There’s no doubt that Labour understood most of this in 2024. Just as Tony Blair created New Labour in 1997, Keir Starmer created Changed Labour. They offered 5 missions, which broadly responded to voters top concerns. Just before the campaign started, they identified 6 First Steps for Change: deliver economic stability, cut NHS waiting times, set up Great British Energy, crack down on antisocial behaviour, recruit 6500 new teachers and added one on immigration – ‘launch a new Border Security Command’ – to respond to voters’ rising concern. They refused to be drawn on promising the earth, with Starmer noting he was not going to offer any gimmicks. They repeated that they were a Changed Labour Party.
But what was not good political marketing was Starmer’s inability to communicate what he would do in government. He would repeatedly highlight what the Conservatives did wrong instead of outlining Labour’s plans. Even in the campaign, when journalists – and voters in TV audiences – asked him directly to say what he would do, he would default to attacking the Tories. Failing to say what Labour would do in government seemed at best inauthentic and at worst as if he might be hiding something.
Additionally, Starmer’s brand had none of the stardust of the Blair era. He was over-staged, and had a dry and unemotional way of speaking. His likeability was low – YouGov polling showed that as of June 2024, just 31% thought he was likeable, only 5% higher than Sunak. Worse still, 44% disliked him. Higher ratings than Sunak, but not very high for an incoming Prime Minister.
Whilst there is no doubt voters were completely dissatisfied with the Conservatives for failed delivery and incompetence, Labour’s failure to focus on their own political product created increasing voter frustration. Turnout in the election was lower than normal, reflecting the lack of satisfaction with either major party. Any swing in the vote to Labour was more in Scotland than the rest of the UK, and arguably reflected dissatisfaction with the devolved SNP government rather than positive support for Scottish Labour.
Does this matter? Changed Labour has after all got the keys to Number 10 and Starmer is now Prime Minister.
Well it does, because the election result does not mean there is strong support for their specific policies because the Labour campaign failed to talk about them, and votes mostly reflect dissatisfaction with the Conservatives and SNP. Additionally, Starmer’s lack of popularity levels most new leaders have means he has no support to draw on when his proposals meet blockages in parliament and public consultation, as they inevitably will. Labour also failed to create quick wins they can deliver quickly to build up voter trust. Whilst the First steps sound nice they lack specifics, are vague, and will take time to achieve. They were also barely mentioned in the election campaign, so it is doubtful voters are even that aware of them.
There is one possible hope. That Starmer’s quiet and serious nature suits being Prime Minister more than opposition, and will, over time, develop a positive brand relationship with voters who come to desire more substance than style from their politicians. In the first weeks of being in power, new brand narratives hung around a government of service and national renewal were repeated by the Prime Minister and his ministers. This may position Starmer’s Changed Labour Party as a Committed Government, working slowly and surely, to improve life in Britain.
But voters still want delivery, and not just policies or promises but specifically outcomes that positively impact their lives. They still want houses to live in, a health service to make them well when they get ill, and money to buy food at the supermarket. Recent overseas Labour leaders such as Jacinda Ardern in New Zealand who had much more positive brands to begin with, suffered massive drops in popularity after winning landslides as they failed to build the houses they promised. And the default position of what the Tories did wrong is only going to work for a short time – if at all.
Never mind Changed Labour, in government it will be Challenged Labour. In opposition, the core political marketing task is to design a political product that responds to voters’ needs. But in government the core task is to deliver that political product and actually improve people’s lives. That isn’t something that can be staged. It just has to be done.
