General election 2019: Floods dominate the agenda

The Conservatives were buoyed by concessions made by Nigel Farage and the Brexit party yesterday. Today, they have been working hard to keep their campaign afloat in key battleground constituencies in the midlands and the north.

Heavy downpours which began last week have left areas across Yorkshire, Derbyshire, and the Midlands affected by serious flooding. The Environment Agency has put “danger to life” flood warnings in five locations in and around Doncaster alone. Homes have been inundated, and people in some of the worst affected areas such as Fishlake have been forced to rely upon candles after their electricity supplies were wiped out by the floods.

These areas happen to be where several crucial Conservative-Labour marginal seats are located, and which the Tories believe will be the key not only to Downing Street but also to a Westminster majority. Unsurprisingly, the Labour and Liberal Democrat opposition to the government have seized upon the opportunity to criticise the government for an inadequate response to the deluge.

Jo Swinson has called for “long-term policy changes”, and pledged £5bn to be invested into a fund to improve the UK’s flood defences over the next parliament.

Jeremy Corbyn described the government’s response as “woeful” in a speech delivered at a campaign rally in Blackpool today. Speaking to his party activists, Corbyn said that “If this had happened in Surrey, not Yorkshire or the east Midlands” then a state of “national emergency would have been declared”. After his speech, Corbyn travelled to the Don Valley in South Yorkshire with local MP, Labour’s Caroline Flint, to visit those effected by the floods.

This was well received by local paper from nearby Rotherham.

Labour are seeking to turn this to their advantage. Corbyn and Labour will be attempting to use recent events to present the Tories as negligent and out of touch in order to stem their advance in Labour’s traditional heartlands. Research by John Curtice, the UK’s leading pollster, has shown that in seats such as Derby North and Rother Valley, a swing to the Conservatives of around 5% will be enough to allow Johnson and co. to win a healthy chunk of seats currently held by Labour.

Corbyn has also attempted to link the floods with two issues in particular which Labour think that they can capitalise on during the campaign – climate change and austerity. In his speech in Blackpool, Corbyn said that “under the Tories, frontline flood response and Environmental Agency staff have been slashed by a fifth, and fire and rescue staff by nearly a quarter…We are in a climate and environmental emergency. Funding flood defences and emergency responders is a priority.”

Labour might be onto something – shifting the gravity of the debate in these areas towards a discussion of public spending could serve to move the debate in these areas more towards a discussion of government negligence and away from the question of Brexit. Local people who have been interviewed have understandably been devastated by the events. One woman, Pam Webb, a local business owner, when interviewed by the BBC, regretted that “I’ve lost my home and my business and my livelihood that I’ve worked so hard for.”

If Labour can dent a swing towards the Conservatives enough in these areas and if they can shed just enough doubt upon whether the Prime Minister has these communities’ best intentions at heart, they might just be able to save some vital seats. Boris Johnson has met allegations that he has shown a blasé disregard for those affected by the floods with an activist approach, calling a Cobra committee to discuss the matter.

Still, Labour’s emphasis upon perceived negligence in government investment for flood protections may strike a chord along with another policy announced by Corbyn in Blackpool today – that Labour would invest £3 billion in a plan to offer adults in England free access to education in order to provide them with the skills to find new work opportunities.

Then again, whatever damage today’s events could potentially do to the Conservatives in the region, there is a wider picture to consider. Labour’s spending plans may, in the long-run, play into one of the Conservatives’ campaigning strategies, which is to target Labour’s spending policies as reckless and expensive. Today, for instance, Sajid Javid said that, by the calculations conducted by him at the Treasury, Labour would have to raise taxes by £2,400 a year for every taxpayer in order to fund their spending plans.

The accuracy of this calculation has been disputed, but it is undoubtedly intended tap into what recent polling tells us about how voters are likely to view the relative offerings provided by the rival pitches of McDonnel and Sajid Javid. For instance, Matthew Smith from the polling company, YouGov, has highlighted that, while Corbynomics enjoys much support on questions such as high taxation and railway nationalisation, voters do not trust Labour to run the economy and deliver upon their spending promises.

Simply because a majority in the country may agree with Labour’s diagnosis of the problems faced in the country, it does not necessarily follow that they will be willing to vote for Corbyn’s proposed cures. The last week has been a truly terrible experience for those affected by the floods – people have lost lives, and more have lost their livelihoods. It will no doubt affect local people for years to come. However, time will tell whether or not this will adversely affect the main parties’ campaigns in the polls.