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INTRODUCTION: POLICY PROMISES AND PITFALLS ........................................................ 2

CONSERVATIVES ............................................................................................................................. 3

Key Themes .......................................................................................................................................... 3

Key People ............................................................................................................................................ 4

LABOUR ............................................................................................................................................... 7

Key Themes .......................................................................................................................................... 7

Key People ............................................................................................................................................ 8

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Elections demand party platforms. Manifestos are crucial documents providing a prospectus of the

party’s plans, a pitch to the country, a vision for government - but also offering ample opportunity

for political pitfalls and traps.

The 2017 General Election poses a challenge compared to two years ago, in that at this point in the

political cycle, policy pledges came from party conference speeches or consultations. No one had a

document anywhere near ready when Prime Minister Theresa May called the snap poll.

Yet, with the campaign now well underway and the clock ticking down to polling day, both the

Conservatives and Labour have committed to producing their manifestos in a hurry.

For the Tories, the 2017 manifesto will be a tightly focused document reflecting the key themes of

Theresa May’s premiership so far: “strong and stable leadership” and helping the many, not just the

privileged few - a country, as her personal leadership campaign put it, “that works for everyone”.

The events of the last 12 months have guaranteed it will not be just a reheated version of the 2015

document, with the Lancaster House vision for Brexit paving the way for EU departure to take a

central role in the Conservative plan for government.

To this end, the task of compiling such a document will mostly fall to a key group of individuals

close to the Prime Minister and Number 10. These are people like Cabinet Office Minister Ben

Gummer, who are trusted ministerial operators and the almost omniscient Nick Timothy and Fiona

Hall, Ms May’s closest advisers.

Time has also necessitated Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour Party to fall back on an inner cadre of advisers.

Chief among these will be his Head of Policy Andrew Fisher, the man who many in the press have

been quick to point out will be closely involved in the initial draft of the manifesto.

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Alongside Mr Fisher will be Mr Corbyn’s Head of Strategy and Communications Seumas Milne,

whose unique media-inflected political energy runs through all aspects of the Labour Leader’s office.

They are the two involved in the process who will be closest to Mr Corbyn’s own views.

At a senior level, Labour’s Election Campaign Co-Chair Ian Lavery and Andrew Gwynne are also

likely to play a key role in the process. It was Mr Gwynne who gave one of the earliest public

statements that Labour’s manifesto would be published on 15 May.

However, Labour has the requirement of Clause V of its constitution to fulfill as part of the process.

This stipulates that, whilst in Opposition, the party’s manifesto must be agreed at a meeting

attending by the National Executive Committee, the Parliamentary Committee of the Parliamentary

Labour Party (‘PLP’), the Leaders of the Scottish and Welsh Labour Parties, and the Chair and three

vice Chairs of the NPF and eight Trade Union members of the TULO Contact Group.

This meeting will take place on 11 May and could well be the date when key divisions between the

leadership and the party, including on Trident, are forced into the open.

In this briefing, DeHavilland examines some of the key faces in the manifesto process who will be

responsible for articulating their leaders’ competing visions for government, for the Conservatives

and Labour.

With typical Tory aplomb, Prime Minister

Theresa May was swift to unveil the slogan that

would be carrying her party through the 2017

General Election campaign. “Strong and stable

leadership” has already been reiterated to an

extent that has led opponents to mock the

relentless character of Conservative messaging.

But the party will be confident in the capacity of

its reiteration tactic to win over minds in an era of media soundbites: notorious strategist Lynton

Crosby is once more delivering a strategy in the mould of his winning 2015 tactics. He is joined by

key digital experts Tom Edmonds and Craig Elder, also reprising their successful strategy from the

unexpected Cameron victory from two years ago.

This slogan foregrounding effective leadership qualities will aim to juxtapose the priministerial Ms

May with her radical opponent Jeremy Corbyn, portrayed as a bumbling agent of “chaos” and

overspending with a weak stance on Defence. Accordingly, the party may seek to preserve some of

the rhetorical flourishes of previous Tory policy designed to create a sense of economic responsibility

and strength - targets and red line promises on military spending, for example - although the

inconvenient realities of stretched Brexit budgets may mean a careful renegotiation of other

ultimately-unsustainable headline promises.

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In seeking to bring the fight to Labour on its

own territory and redefine themselves as the

“true” workers’ party, the Conservatives have

sought to emphasise their credentials on NHS

spending, while thinkers at the top have clearly

identified dissatisfaction with injustices in tax

and employment as ingredients in the malaise

that led the country narrowly to back Brexit - a

tension most recently embodied by anger over the collapse of BHS and subsequent disputes over

pensions liabilities. Thus, Ms May has already highlighted her plans to “protect workers’ pensions

from irresponsible bosses” - continuing a new protectionist tone also evident in policy proposals

such as an energy price cap, confirmed in April as a feature of the coming election manifesto by

Work and Pensions Secretary Damian Green.

A similar headline promise was famously a central feature of former Labour Leader Ed Miliband’s

2015 election platform, and was at the time rubbished by Cameron ministers who claimed it

represented a dangerous level of interventionism. Outlining their own version of the policy, which

will impact the two-thirds of households currently using Standard Variable Tariffs, he insisted that

“some people feel the energy companies have taken advantage of them”. In this surprising reversal

of the Cameron Government’s resistance to intervention in the market, one can glimpse the shape of

a new brand of Conservatism that seeks to appeal to voters’ protective instincts on key emotive

issues, though a broader commitment to market competition and relative deregulation remains a

hallmark of the party’s thinking across the policy board.

A key dimension of the party’s 2017 appeal to voters north of the Border will be a strong emphasis

on unionism. With Labour suffering heavy losses to the SNP in 2015, the Scottish Conservatives have

scrambled to occupy the position of key opposing voice under the popular and dynamic leadership

of Ruth Davidson. Hopes are high among activists that the party may be able to win a substantial

share of the 2017 vote by establishing itself as the de facto voice of those who support remaining part

of the UK.

Ben Gummer- Cabinet Office Minister

The Cabinet mastermind

Appointed Minister for the Cabinet Office and Paymaster General by Theresa

May in July 2016, 39-year-old Ben Gummer is the youngest member of the

Cabinet.

His responsibilities within the May Government have included ensuring that the

554 pledges made in the Conservatives’ 2015 Manifesto were implemented. In keeping with this brief

and that of his department, Mr Gummer’s role in the process will be to ensure that the ideas could be

swiftly actioned by a re-elected Tory administration.

The website ConservativeHome has compared Mr Gummer to a cross between his predecessors at the

Cabinet Office, Lord Francis Maude, who drove efficiency, and Oliver Letwin, who served as a

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troubleshooter for David Cameron. In the same piece, it was noted that he favours a technocratic and

hard-working approach, which has made him an asset to Theresa May.

Mr Gummer’s climb up the ministerial ladder has been remarkably rapid, given that he was elected

as MP for Ipswich in 2010. He is the son of former Cabinet minister Lord Deben and worked as the

operations director of Sancroft, a corporate responsibility consultancy set up by his father.

His ministerial career began as PPS to the then Conservative Party Co-Chair Lord Feldman in 2012,

serving several ministers until 2015. Mr Gummer’s went on to become Parliamentary Under-

Secretary at the Department of Health under the second Cameron Government.

George Freeman – Chair of the Downing Street Policy Board & Conservative Policy Forum

The Industrial Strategist

A former medical technologies entrepreneur and National Farmers’ Union

Parliamentary Officer, George Freeman has been tasked with developing

Prime Minister Theresa May’s Industrial Strategy as Chair of the Prime

Minister’s Policy Board. He was concurrently appointed Chair of the

Conservative Policy Forum, and was responsible for inviting party members

to make their own contributions towards policy development.

Mr Freeman, who served as Life Sciences Minister towards the end of the Cameron administration,

belongs to the moderate wing of his party. He was one of the founders of the 2020 Conservatives

group, which was set up to develop policies to stimulate an “opportunity society” and an

“innovation economy”.

He has also highlighted the importance of modern road, rail and broadband infrastructure to

unlocking a sustainable innovation economy in the East of England.

His strong interest in the rural economy, in conjunction with his party’s persistently high vote in

countryside areas, means the manifesto is sure to contain measures designed to appeal to voters

outside of an urban context, but his interest in the universities sector will ensure a focus on

perpetuating its success as the UK moves towards Brexit.

John Godfrey- Head of the Downing Street Policy Unit

Leader of the Brains Trust

Appointed Downing Street Policy Director in July 2016, John Godfrey and his

deputy Will Tanner are responsible for the Prime Minister’s personal brains

trust, the Downing Street Policy Unit.

A graduate of Oriel College, Oxford with a Law degree, Mr Godfrey worked

as part of a Japanese stockbroking firm before becoming a Home Office

Special Adviser until the Major Government. He unsuccessfully contested the Perth and Kinross by-

election in 1995, losing out to the SNP.

Mr Godfrey’s career in the City saw him work for Lehman Brothers, WestLB International (now VM

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Bank International), and then Legal & General (L&G) before joining Number 10. In his last role as

L&G’s Corporate Affairs Director, he called for better schooling in basic financial management,

automatic enrolment for workers in financial protection schemes, and caps on pension providers’

management fees.

Nick Timothy – Joint Chief of Staff to the Prime Minister

The Right-Hand Man

One of two longtime advisers who entered Downing Street with Theresa May,

Nick Timothy has played a crucial role in the Downing Street operation as Co-

Chief of Staff.

A graduate of the University of Sheffield, he joined the Conservative Research

Department (CRD) in 2001, working with his future boss, Ms May, in helping

prepare then Tory Leader Iain Duncan Smith for PMQs. Following a stint with the Association of

British Insurers, Mr Timothy returned to the CRD in 2007, becoming Deputy Director.

When the Conservatives re-entered government in 2010, Mr Timothy was appointed as a Special

Adviser to the Home Office. He worked closely with Fiona Hill over this period and was described

by the Financial Times as his boss’s “political brain”. He has considerable campaigning experience for

the party, advising in key seats like Thanet South during the 2015 General Election. Mr Timothy’s

role in such campaigns drew media attention in 2016 and 2017 as questions over the election

expenses were raised by Channel 4 News.

Having left the party in 2015 to work as Director of the New Schools Network, Mr Timothy returned

to work with Theresa May in July 2016. He is well known for his strong views on the benefits of

selective education, and even as early as 2015 was publicly calling for a new wave of academically

selective grammar schools – a policy later adopted by the May administration, though not without

significant controversy.

Fiona Hill – Joint Chief of Staff to the Prime Minister

The Media Maven

One of the Prime Minister’s closest advisers, Fiona Hill’s career with Theresa

May has not always been a smooth one. In 2014, she lost her job as a Home

Office SpAd after publishing a private letter from the then Home Secretary

to the then Education Secretary Michael Gove criticising the handling of

extremism in schools.

The exile was short lived as Ms Hill returned to Ms May’s side when she was appointed Prime

Minister in July 2016, serving as Joint Chief of Staff with Nick Timothy.

With a background in communications and the media, she was credited with softening Ms May’s

harsh public image during her time as Home Secretary. In addition, Ms Hill has worked on issues

close to her boss’s heart, like the Modern Slavery Act. Her stint at Centre for Social Justice in 2014-15

saw Ms Hill develop this agenda further.

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A former Sky News and Scotsman journalist, Ms Hill worked for then Conservative MP Andrew

Lansley in 2006 before a stint at the British Chambers of Commerce and then working with Chris

Grayling at the 2010 General Election.

Whilst Ms Hill will oversee media strategy during the election campaign from CCHQ, expect her

keen eye for messaging and her knack for working on issues close to the Prime Minister to be a

significant part of the manifesto process.

Chris Wilkins – Director of Strategy

The Wordsmith

Soon after her arrival in Downing Street last year, the Prime Minister

appointed Chris Wilkins, who had previously been Special Advisor to

then Education Secretary Nicky Morgan and Conservative Research

Department Director, as her Strategy Director.

Officially, Mr Wilkins role was to run the Downing Street planning grid,

coordinate Government policy, and manage announcements. However, he has unofficially become

one of the most crucial Special Advisors in the Downing Street team.

The Financial Times credited him as one of the three authors of the Prime Minister’s seminal

Lancaster House speech, alongside Nick Timothy and the Prime Minister herself.

Mr Wilkins, who has written speeches for every Conservative Leader since William Hague, was also

the author of Ms May’s famous, or infamous, 2002 speech to the Conservative Party Conference in

which she described the Conservatives as the “nasty party”.

The paper also cites remarks from ConservativeHome Editor Paul Goodman to the effect that both he

and Mr Timothy have a more “contra mundum” approach to politics than the senior figures in the

Cameron Government.

Under the leadership of Jeremy Corbyn, the 2017

Labour Manifesto looks set to feature a collection

of policies designed to appeal to voters alienated

by the policies of New Labour under Tony Blair,

presented under the slogan For the many, not the

few. The Financial Times has speculated that the

document will build on some of the

interventionist policies proposed by Ed Miliband

in 2015, but will “go further” by refusing to accept arguments for austerity in public services.

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The document is also likely to feature prominent populist promises of the Corbynite left on

renationalisation - chiefly of the railways, which have long been singled out by Labour left-wingers

for what leaders see as the dysfunctionality of the privatised system, but also in relation to the NHS,

which Mr Corbyn’s supporters believe has been effectively privatised during successive rounds of

structural reform in recent years.

Despite these left-wing hallmarks, however, the Labour policy platform bears some of the scars of

recent years in the form of promises echoing the Conservatives’ popular position on fiscal

responsibility. Sensitive to the weaponisation of spending promises by the political right, Shadow

Chancellor John McDonnell has offered to impose a fiscal rule that would ensure spending is

“brought into sensible balance” while permitting essential infrastructure investment.

The Telegraph reported on 22 April 2017 that senior advisers Steve Howell and Seumas Milne had

presented a number of possible attack lines to a meeting of Labour’s National Executive Committee,

including the claim that “the Tories are the real extremists”. However, this was vetoed by members

concerned over the slogan’s potential to highlight past controversy over Mr Corbyn’s own past

political associations. Other lines discussed reportedly included a claim that the Conservatives were,

in the paper’s words, “working for millionaires but Labour wants to make the country richer”.

Taking up the mantle as protector of public services in the face of Conservative austerity, the party

has already offered key promises on frontline police numbers. In addition, it has pledged to call a

halt to the controversial Sustainability and Transformation Plan (STP) process, a health service

efficiency initiative seen by its critics as a vehicle for unpopular cuts determined by local

commissioners. Instead, the party would oversee the creation of a new body, to be named “NHS

Excellence”, which would review STPs to ensure they could provide excellence, quality and safety,

and were not merely driven by a need to save money.

Another of the key pledges made by Labour so far is a commitment to the pensions triple lock,

alongside a promise to keep the Winter Fuel Allowance and free bus passes for pensioners. The

policies, which are clearly targeted at the older voters whose support will be so crucial in achieving

electoral success, seem to be aimed at trying to address the party’s unpopularity with this

demographic, a key weakness ahead of the General Election.

Ian Lavery – National Elections and Campaign Coordinator

The Staunch Left Winger

Labour MP Ian Lavery is a former miners’ leader who succeeded Arthur

Scargill in his high-profile union position and later carried his interest in

organised labour into Parliament as Chair of the Trade Union Group of MPs.

First elected in 2010, he has been consistently and prominently associated with the left of the party,

and was a supporter of the 2010 leadership bid made by current Shadow Chancellor John

McDonnell, before switching his support to Ed Miliband after Mr McDonnell was eliminated.

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He has dallied with senior roles in the party, including serving as PPS to former Deputy Leader

Harriet Harman, but resigned from this position after opposing the official Opposition line on prison

officers’ pensions during the passage of the Public Service Pensions Bill.

After being made a Shadow Minister under Jeremy Corbyn, in a role specifically addressing union

issues, Mr Lavery went on to win the role of joint National Elections and Campaign Coordinator

(with fellow Labour MP Andrew Gwynne) in February 2017. He is a notable supporter of rail

renationalisation and has condemned Conservative attitudes towards benefits.

Andrew Gwynne – National Elections and Campaign Coordinator

The Tireless Campaigner

The other half of Labour’s team of joint National Elections and Campaign

Coordinators, Denton and Reddish MP Andrew Gwynne was a frequent

participant in the lower echelons of leadership during Ed Miliband’s time at

the helm of Labour.

Elected to Tameside County Council at a record young age, Mr Gwynne

worked as a researcher for former Labour MP Andrew Bennett before

inheriting his Denton and Reddish constituency in 2005. He served as PPS to Ed Balls and supported

his leadership campaign in 2010 before going on to take the role of Shadow Transport Minister

under Mr Miliband.

Mr Gwynne is an unusual figure within senior Labour circles at present, given his ideological

differences with Jeremy Corbyn. He resigned as Shadow Health Minister in June 2016 as part of an

unsuccessful attempt to oust the Labour Leader, but was later brought back to the front bench as

Shadow Minister Without Portfolio in October of the same year.

Despite his scepticism towards the leadership of Mr Corbyn, Mr Gwynne shows a dedication to

organised labour, one of its key political priorities, as a member of Unite and the GMB. He is also a

member of Christians on the Left, the rebranded Christian Socialist Movement.

He has a recent record of success as an election coordinator, and played a high-profile role in the

effort to fight off a Conservative challenge in the 2016 Oldham West and Royton by-election,

confounding his opponents’ claim to have taken up the mantle of representing workers by securing

an expanded majority.

On 1 May 2017, Mr Gwynne penned an article on LabourList commemorating the 20th anniversary

of the New Labour election victory, in which he outlined what he saw as a series of policy victories

including devolution, the National Minimum Wage and school and hospital building programmes.

Seeking to draw a direct line between the candidacies of Tony Blair in 1997 and Jeremy Corbyn in

2017, he claimed that “the challenge facing Labour is the same today as it was two decades ago. To

pick our public services up off their knees and to rebuild Britain so that instead of a country run for

the richest, it’s one in which all of us can lead richer lives”.

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Andrew Fisher – Head of Policy

The Anti-Austerity Author

A relatively obscure former official at the PCS union, Andrew Fisher has been

described by the New Statesman as Jeremy Corbyn’s Head of Policy. He joined

the Labour Leader’s team after working on his successful 2015 party leadership

campaign.

Mr Fisher is a staunch opponent of austerity and has attacked the tone of Labour’s previous

leadership on economic issues, criticising what he saw as the “miserable austerity-lite economic

policies” of former Shadow Chancellor Ed Balls.

He has written for the Centre for Labour and Social Studies on the importance of organised labour in

ensuring adequate public sector pay and condemning the “ideological” character of Coalition cuts,

and has dubbed social security rights “an integral part of our humanity, or at least of our

citizenship”.

On 22 April, the Financial Times reported that Mr Fisher had previously suggested nationalising all

high street banks and ending private land ownership. He proposed the ideas as part of a 2014 book

entitled The Failed Experiment: And How to Build an Economy That Works, in which he also suggested

imposing a ban on compulsory redundancies at profitable firms, as well as calling for an end to tax

havens.

He faced controversy during the last General Election campaign after he was seen to have supported

an alternate candidate for the radical leftist party Class War. However, the paper also accepted that

such a radical policy platform was unlikely to be taken up in the 2017 Labour Manifesto given the

input of other thinkers.

Seumas Milne – Director of Strategy and Communications

The Crusading Commentator

A former journalist at the Guardian and Economist, Seumas Milne has been

described as Labour Leader Jeremy Corbyn’s “right-hand man”. He was

appointed to the role of Executive Director of Strategy and Communications

in October 2015, shortly after Mr Corbyn’s election to the leadership role.

In this role, he has chiefly been responsible for overseeing focus groups and

private polling, although he is said to be personally “unwavering on every issue”, offering staunch

support for Mr Corbyn’s oft-controversial principles, including his opposition to nuclear weapons.

Mr Milne is an outspoken opponent of austerity, arguing in 2015 that “most of the public” oppose

both spending cuts and privatisations, and that Mr Corbyn’s then-candidacy for the Labour

leadership represented an alternative to “austerity and endless war”.

He has been described as being “on the far left of the Labour Party”, but figures such as Owen Jones

have attacked media portrayals of his politics as smears. He has also been described in the New

Statesman as a longstanding friend of former Ed Miliband, but reportedly expressed his

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disappointment about the former Labour Leader’s lack of enthusiasm for a left-wing programme of

policy proposals.

Mr Milne is seen to have been responsible for an increasingly pointed economic critique of the

current Government, supporting Mr Corbyn’s rhetorical attacks on ministers’ offshore personal

finances and demanding a reversal of cuts to Capital Gains Tax.

In 2009, as part of a Guardian opinion feature entitled Ten ideas for Labour’s next manifesto, Mr Milne

contributed a short piece advocating a commitment to building “at least 100,000 new council homes

a year”, as well as providing repairs and taking over homes facing repossession and buying homes

unsold by private developers. He argued that such ambition on housing was a clear way to meet the

needs of Labour’s “alienated core supporters”.

Steve Howell – Deputy Director of Strategy and Communications

The Professional Strategist

Steve Howell was appointed Deputy Director of Strategy and

Communications for the Labour Party in February 2017 after taking an

indefinite leave of absence from his role as Chief Executive of Freshwater, the

lobbying agency he founded in 1997.

Formerly a news reporter for the BBC in Wales, Mr Howell also edited the

Newport edition of the South Wales Argus. He also wrote the novel Over the

Line in 2015, on the subject of doping in sports.

Spectator columnist Steerpike has suggested that Mr Howell sits on the left of the party, outlining his

experience with Straight Left magazine in the 1980s. Steerpike cites remarks from Standpoint

magazine stating that the Straight Left was “a hard-line anti-reformist pro-Soviet faction within the

Communist Party”. In his youth, he also set up the Young Communist League alongside Lord

Mandelson, who went on to be a prominent ally of Tony Blair.

Niall Sookoo – Executive Campaigns Director

The Union Communicator

Having previously worked for Jeremy Corbyn for a brief period, “veteran”

Unite communications officer Niall Sookoo was brought back into the

Labour Leader’s Office in February 2017 after the Copeland by-election

defeat.

His remit of Campaigns Director means he is responsible, along with

Andrew Gwynne and Ian Lavery, for helping tighten up the party’s election messaging. Mr Sookoo’s

role will focus on ensuring that Labour’s key campaign themes of tackling the “rigged” system and

spending for the future are reflected in the manifesto. He is perhaps best known for appearing in a

video with the Labour Leader in June 2016, in which he was seen to physically pull Mr Corbyn away

from journalists questioning him over the future of his leadership in the wake of the EU Referendum

result.

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This briefing is an example of the in-depth political information DeHavilland will be providing

throughout the 2017 General Election campaign.

Follow every aspect, from candidate choices to policy promises, with our essential bulletins and

timely analysis.

To find out how DeHavilland’s definitive political intelligence can help you get the most out of the

election period, contact our team today.

Just visit https://www1.dehavilland.co.uk/contact-us or call +44 (0) 203 033 3870.