You win some, you lose some. This week, both Labour and the Tories will reckon they’ve struck lucky with the timings of their manifesto launches – though for very different reasons. It’s always hard to know which is the best launch slot. To go first and set the agenda, with the anxiety that everyone will have soon forgotten what you are about. Or to go late and risk your manifesto lingering in the memory for all the wrong reasons. This year, both the main parties – if the Tories can still be called that – will reckon they judged it perfectly. For the Conservatives, this may just be the only thing going right in this campaign. That was, until Craig Williams’s stunning 5/1 bet. Who would have guessed that Rishi Sunak would call a July election on a Wednesday afternoon in May at 5pm just three days after placing the bet? That had to be worth £100 of anyone’s money. Especially Craig’s. Though you would have thought that such a gifted political clairvoyant might also have warned the prime minister that it would be a spectacularly bad idea. Hey ho. Might as well cash in while he still can. Things Can Only Get Betting. The Tories launched their manifesto at Silverstone. The kindest thing that can be said about this collection of empty promises was that it was dead on arrival. Not even David Cameron, who was given a peerage on the condition he said nice things about Sunak, has felt able to be complimentary about it. As it turns out, everyone has now forgotten the Tory list of pledges. Yesterday’s recycling. An irrelevance that was never going to happen anyway. Something new has come along to take its place. The Labour manifesto. And Keir Starmer and his party will be happy to talk about it for weeks and months to come. No disasters. No idiot pratfalls. This was a launch that went about as well as anyone could hope. Coherent. A philosophical subtext. And clear measures to improve people’s lives. For ages, Labour has been saying it is a serious party again. Now it actually looks as if its leaders believe it. Where the Tories had to remove chairs to disguise the empty spaces at their launch, it was standing room only in the vast atrium of the Co-op headquarters in Manchester. Half-an-hour before the start and there were already hundreds of people looking on from the balconies above. There was a buzz in the hall that had been absent from the other launches – the attraction of being tantalisingly close to real power. With minutes to go, copies of the manifesto were handed out. Photos of Keir Starmer on almost every page – shades of Boris Johnson in 2019. Even one of Keir with Volodymyr Zelenskiy in Normandy. Another reason for Sunak to kick himself for coming back early. Next, the shadow cabinet trooped in to huge whoops and cheers – surely a first – and took their places stage left. They smiled and waved. Unlike their Tory counterparts, they hadn’t been dragged away from their unwinnable constituencies for the day. They could afford their time in the sun. Finally, we were ready to start. First up was Angela Rayner. She kept it short and sweet. Hope. Change. Hope. Change. Hope. Change. You can probably spot a theme here. When even Angela remains relentlessly on message, you know the election is in the bag. Just try not to look as if it’s a done deal.
Hard to do when your next speaker is Richard Walker, the CEO of Iceland. A political weather vane, Dicky hates not being on the winning side. Not so long ago, he was on the candidates list for the Tory party, happy to endorse Johnson and the lockdown parties. For him to switch, you know it’s game over for the Conservatives. Anyway, Walker whispered sweet nothings. A knighthood is probably in the bag. You can’t say he hasn’t worked for it. Then came various party members. Daniel, living in a bedsit with his wife and children. Nathaniel, a cancer patient who will never know for sure if the long wait for chemotherapy has cost him his life. Holly, an 18-year-old A-level student voting for the first time. She didn’t say if she was thrilled at the idea of doing national service. But I think we can assume not. A short video of Keir doing Keir-like things – kissing babies, raising the dead – on the campaign trail to a heavy metal soundtrack and then we got the man himself. Cue another prolonged ovation. He didn’t disappoint. Well, not much. Let’s face it, Starmer is never going to be an electric performer; the sort of speaker who can carry you along on a tide of emotion. You can’t conjure charisma out of nothing. But this was very definitely Keir doing Keir’s best version of himself. A man at one with himself. Someone who has elevated himself from shouting on the sidelines to genuine prime minister material. Ready to assume the responsibility of the office. Longing to get on with the job. The next three weeks can’t pass quickly enough for him. He spoke with clarity and conviction. Passion, you are never going to get. A few minutes in, there was a brief interruption from a young woman, protesting that Labour had given up on her generation. It wasn’t clear what more she expected. Not so long ago, Starmer might have been unnerved by this. Now, he just brushed the distraction aside. “We used to be a party of protest,” he said. “But I have changed the party.” All the room applauded. There were no big revelations in the speech. Keir was at pains to point out that he wasn’t in the business of panic-selling election bribes like the Tories. If you wanted pantomime, there was always Clacton.
Everything in the manifesto had long since been costed. The tax rises and offers had long since been priced in. Instead, what we got was more of a mood board. Yes, things were shit now – 14 years of Tory government had seen to that – but things could be so much better. Immerse yourself in Labour’s warm bath. Allow yourself a ray of positivity. Things could change. Don’t worry about a thing. The days of wealth and plenty were coming back. Economic growth would spark a British renaissance. Meet him in a land of hope and dreams. OK, growth was doing a lot of heavy lifting here. Some were saying it was unachievable and that spending cuts were unavoidable. But at least it was a clear pitch. Something by which the party could later be judged. It was soon apparent Starmer wasn’t the only one who thought he was a prime minister-in-waiting. Most of the media did, too. They deferred to him in a way that they no longer do with Sunak. Yesterday’s man. Keir is the man of the present. GB News wondered how we would cope under a one-party socialist state. To which there was only one answer. A lot better than under a Tory rabble. Guardian Newsroom: Election results special: On Friday 5 July, from 7.30pm to 9pm BST, join Hugh Muir, Gaby Hinsliff, John Crace, Jonathan Freedland and Zoe Williams for unrivalled analysis of the general election results. Book tickets here or at theguardian.live