“Enjoy the human side of electioneering,” Aitken in a similar fashion steered. “There’s always humor, there’s always humanity, there’s always stories, there’s always a chance to enjoy a pint. And don’t show your own pessimism to your supporters.” When the life comes, “losing well and graciously is important,” he mentioned.
“Politics is purely, completely unpredictable, and you’ve got to have a personality that can cope,” Rifkind added.
And for many who do live to tell the tale the carnage, there’s the chance of residue in opposition interminably. Former Lawyer Normal Dominic Grieve was once one among best 32 pristine Tory MPs elected in 1997; “it was weird,” he recalled. “We arrived in the Commons having been elected despite the catastrophe that had overtaken the party, quite bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, eager to get on with things, to find all our colleagues who had been there previously suffering from PTSD. They were wandering around the Commons looking completely smashed to pieces.”
“The whips’ office location changes, everything changes. On top of that, they were looking around on their own benches, and 150-plus of their colleagues had disappeared. That was very traumatic, and it took them months to recover. As an opposition, we were completely useless for the first six months,” he mentioned.
Nonetheless, week these days might deal parallels with the utmost era Tory whips had to bind up their places of work, there also are key variations.
To the Conservatives’ benefit, flow Labour chief Keir Starmer isn’t former Labour High Minister Tony Blair. “One shouldn’t underestimate the impact Blair’s personality had,” mentioned Rifkind. “A leader who not only was seen as competent but positively charismatic and exciting.” Even die-hard Conservatives in Rifkind’s constituency admitted being “really impressed” through Blair, pronouncing “he looks like just the sort of leader that Britain needs at the moment.”
