Here we go, the transcript from last week’s Political Currency episode talking about vote share. Excuse the grammar/spellings - it’s AI generated.
“I've got a rather surprising answer when I've asked that question, which is, well, we don't actually need that many people to win, which is the opposite of where I would be thinking at this point in the cycle.
The answer you get from the Tory High Command at the moment is, you don't actually need any more, like 35, 36, 37 percent, or let alone 41, 42 percent to win a general election.
They're currently polling less than 20 percent.
Right. They're currently polling 17 percent, and the Labour Party on 20 percent. So both parties right down.
But Margaret Thatcher used to get into the 40s, and Tony Blair did, and David Cameron got into the high 30s. But they're saying, well, if we are in a multi-party democracy now, if reform is here to stay and the Liberal Democrats are stronger, and maybe Corbyn's party and the Greens are going to be around, you don't need 40 percent or even 35 percent. And you know, Labour got the biggest majority, one of the biggest majorities in its history last year on 33 percent of vote, which was barely more than Jeremy Corbyn got when he was heavily beaten by Boris Johnson.
What they're saying is we can win on a high 20s share of the vote. We can be more targeted in our appeal. We can essentially be more right-wing, is what they tell me.
They say that is true to Kemi Badenoch's instincts, who's a more right-wing leader than the Tory party has had in recent years. Many of the leaders of recent years.
But doesn't that mean they write off all those Tory, Liberal, Democrat, marginal seats?
Well, I think that it has three bigger disadvantages, this approach. First of all, you are massively narrowing your options. You're not entirely sure if this strategy doesn't land, you haven't got anywhere else to go.
You're narrowing your options in a hung parliament of who you can deal with. If it is a multi-party system, then you want to be building alliances and building potential voter coalitions, because that is a feature of European democracy. And you fundamentally are displaying right at the beginning of things, a bit of a lack of ambition.
A multi-party system appears to have emerged in the last few years. There's no reason why you can't put it back in its box and aim at least to be the strong conservative party that hoovers up and marginalises the new forces that have emerged.”
From Political Currency: Has Kemi Badenoch saved herself?, 9 Oct 2025
https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/political-currency/id1706536336?i=1000731011742&r=1067