The fall of the house of Goldsmith
A confession: about six months ago, I was an idealist. I thought politicians got too hard a time; that they were fundamentally good, honest people. I didn’t understand the widespread ‘dissatisfaction with politics’. I thought the public was overly negative and cynical.
It was in this spirit that late last year I signed up to help Zac Goldsmith campaign to be the next Mayor of London. I’d long been a fan of Zac. I thought he was sensible, principled, energetic — and quite handsome. I’d followed his campaigns on direct democracy closely, and I liked his ideas about devolved planning. So I decided to dip my toe into party politics for the first time.
Now, much of my previous idealism has vanished. Zac Goldsmith’s divisive campaign was a brutal wake up call. From early on, the religion of Labour’s candidate (and now Mayor), Sadiq Khan, played a central role in Tory messaging. Crude letters were distributed to those with Indian, Sri Lankan or Tamil sounding surnames, accusing Khan of wanting to tax their family jewellery. Voters were frequently reminded that while Zac met Narendra Modi when he visited the UK, Khan, a Muslim, did not.
The racial politics did not stop there. In the last months of the campaign, any positive message was cast aside as the focus turned to Khan’s alleged links with anti-Semites, radicals, and hate preachers. The electorate was invited to see Khan as a terrorist apologist, in the pocket of Islamists. Implicit in all of this seemed to be an attempt to tie the word ‘Muslim’ to ‘extremist’.
This scaremongering shocked every journalist who was once, like me, starry eyed about Goldsmith. Peter Oborne called the campaign the ‘most repulsive’ he had seen as a political reporter. More so than even the Bermondsey by-election of 1983, and the shameful General Election campaign in Smethwick in 1964.
Once, I mentioned the furore over the racial profiling of Tamils to one of the more senior people I sat near at CCHQ. Yet instead of being frustrated or disappointed by the coverage, he explained to me that the controversy was a good thing. The message was getting out there; all publicity is good publicity, etc.
What nonsense this turned out to be.
Goldsmith always faced an uphill battle in London, especially after the capital was painted red last May. But his opposition was fundamentally flawed from the start. Labour embraced Corbyn, rejected Jowell, and chose an aggressively bland candidate in Khan. They then shot themselves in both feet a week before the election with a row over anti-Semitism that saw the former Labour mayor hiding in a disabled toilet and defending Hitler’s early years.
Zac may have been yet another white, male Etonian — a difficult starting point when inequality is thought worse than poverty — but he was not doomed to failure. Many voters who were instinctively anti-Conservative could have been won over by a positive campaign; one emphasising his green credentials, his belief in direct democracy, his plans for house building. Yet his operation focused on fear and forced even lifelong Conservatives into the arms of Khan.
Fear is a powerful motivating factor and, in politics, it can work. Fear of an SNP-Labour axis in Downing Street turned fence-sitters into reluctant Tories last May. It was fear of the alternative that pushed a lacklustre No campaign to victory in Scotland, and the same fear will prove crucial in persuading sceptical Brits to stay in the EU.
But fear only works if there is something to be afraid of. London — the most multicultural, international city in the country — is not afraid of Muslims. And it is certainly not afraid when the Muslim in question is a centrist human rights lawyer who voted for same-sex marriage. Unsurprisingly, London is not afraid of Sadiq Khan.
The Conservative Party’s innate desire for power is a good thing. It means that — with notable exceptions — it is rarely torn apart by the factionalism so common in Labour. But the brutal electoral tactics it deploys to this end can leave a bitter taste in the mouth.
In truth, it doesn’t really matter that Zac can’t hold a pint, knows bugger all about Bollywood or football, and may be the ‘Croydon Cat Killer’. All are unfortunate but forgivable flaws. Running a campaign that draws ready (and ideologically coherent) support from the likes of Katie Hopkins is harder to excuse.
So I stopped popping into CCHQ a couple of months ago. This wasn’t a high-minded, principled departure; I had a dissertation to write and exams to prepare for. But I’m glad I did. It has been dismaying to watch an ostensibly modern, liberal Tory brought low in a campaign that will become a byword for dog-whistle politics. As Baroness Warsi put it, this is not the Zac Goldsmith I know.
Fundamentally, I still think Zac is a good, decent man. I’d like to believe that he’s unhappy with the campaign to which his name was attached. But there is no denying that his messaging appealed to the basest instincts of the electorate, and he went along with it. He lost resoundingly — and he deserved to.
A slightly edited version of this article was published on the Independent’s website here.
