General election: The Conservative candidates ditching the Tory brand

Published

3 months ago

June 14, 2024

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How bad is the Conservative brand?

Bad enough for dozens of its own candidates to avoid using it, according to research from Sky’s Online Campaign Team and Who Targets Me.

We looked at the adverts published on Facebook and Instagram by 521 Labour and Conservative candidates from 1 May until 12 June.

Of these, 376 adverts contained official branding (logos and colours), 104 had some form of partial branding, and 41 had no branding at all.

And the vast majority of those with no branding – 38 – were Conservative.

Of the 80 Conservative candidates who had partial branding, 59 (73%) only mentioned the party in the funding disclosure – where they were legally obliged to do so. They did not mention the party anywhere else in the text of the advert, or on the visuals if the advert was an image (no videos were watched).

Of the 19 Labour candidates, all mentioned the party in the written text above the advert, as well as in the funding declaration.

Most Labour candidates’ adverts are plastered in party branding.

But for a number of Conservatives, it’s hard to tell at a glance that they’re Conservatives.

That includes several prominent figures, including veterans’ ministers Johnny Mercer, defence secretary Grant Shapps, and former Conservative leader Sir Iain Duncan Smith.

The online adverts are the quantifiable aspect of a trend that, anecdotally, appears to be the case on the ground too.

Johnny Mercer completely avoids Conservative branding in his election leaflets. The reverse page mentions the party in small text and in brackets as part of the funding disclosure, where candidates are, again, legally obliged to.

And Andrea Jenkyns, first elected as a Conservative MP in 2015 and a former minister, does at least paint her leaflet in true blue.

But the first picture is of her posing with the leader of another party entirely – Nigel Farage.

It’s an unconventional strategy.

Speaking on Friday morning, Treasury minister Bim Afolami refused to be drawn on it.

“All candidates are fighting their own seats,” he told Sky News. “I am not going to comment on Andrea or anyone else, it’s up to her how she wants to appeal to her electorate.”

It is, however, worth stressing that the majority of Conservative candidates are using party branding.

But a significant number think they’re better off without it.

Or better off with Nigel Farage.

Note: Sky’s Online Campaign Team examined the branding on all political adverts from the main parties. Of the top advertising spenders, only 16 of them were either Lib Dem, Green, Reform or Sinn Fein. All were fully branded, except for one advert by Michelle O’Neill, vice president of Sinn Fein, which was partly branded.

The Data and Forensics team is a multi-skilled unit dedicated to providing transparent journalism from Sky News. We gather, analyse and visualise data to tell data-driven stories. We combine traditional reporting skills with advanced analysis of satellite images, social media and other open source information. Through multimedia storytelling we aim to better explain the world while also showing how our journalism is done.

Politics

Lisa Nandy says Sir Keir Starmer ‘very sensible’ to accept football tickets worth thousands

Published

10 hours ago

September 21, 2024

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Lisa Nandy says Sir Keir Starmer 'very sensible' to accept football tickets worth thousands

Lisa Nandy has said Sir Keir Starmer’s decision to accept thousands of pounds worth of football tickets was “very sensible”.

The minister for culture, media and sport also said she had never accepted free clothes from a donor.

Speaking to Sky News at the start of the Labour Party conference today, the MP for Wigan said: “The problem that has arisen since [Sir Keir] became leader of the opposition and then prime minister is that for him to sit in the stands would require a huge security detail, would be disruptive for other people and it would cost the taxpayer a lot of money.

“So I think he’s taken a very sensible decision that’s not the right and appropriate thing to do, and it’s right to accept that he has to go and sit in a different area.

“But I know that he’d much rather be sitting in the stands cheering people on with the usual crowd that he’s been going to the football with for years.”

Ms Nandy also said while she has not accepted free clothes – joking “I think you can probably see that I choose my own clothes sadly” – she doesn’t “make any judgements about what other members of parliament do”.

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She said: “The only judgement I would make is if they’re breaking the rules, so they’re trying to hide what they’re doing. That’s when problems arise.

“Because the point of being open and transparent is that people can see where the relationships are, and they can then judge for themselves whether there’s been any undue influence.”

She asserted there had not been an undue influence in gifts accepted by senior Labour figures, adding: “We don’t want the news and the commentary to be dominated by conversations about clothes.

“We rightly have a system, I think, where the taxpayer doesn’t fund these things. We don’t claim on expenses for them. And so MPs will always take donations, will always take gifts in kind.

“MPs of all political parties have historically done that and that is the system that we have.”

She added: “I don’t think there’s any suggestion here that Keir Starmer has broken any rules. I don’t think there’s any suggestion that he’s done anything wrong.

“We expect our politicians to be well turned out, we expect them to be people who go out and represent us at different events and represent the country at different events and are clothed appropriately.

“But the point is that when we accept donations for that or for anything else, that we declare them and we’re open and transparent about them.”

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Sir Keir, Angela Rayner and Rachel Reeves said yesterday they will no longer accept donations in the future to pay for clothes.

The announcement followed criticism of Sir Keir’s gifts from donors, which included clothing worth £16,200 and multiple pairs of glasses worth £2,485, according to the MPs’ register of interests.

The register shows Ms Rayner has accepted clothing donations to the value of £2,230.

Sky News also revealed the scale of Sir Keir’s donations this week as part of our Westminster Accounts investigation.

Sir Keir was found to have received substantially more gifts and freebies than any other MP – his total in gifts, benefits, and hospitality topped £100,000 since December 2019.