Several gaping inaccuracies were noted.
The Conservative peer and president of the Conservative Democratic Organisation (CDO) Lord Cruddas made a bragging claim that Johnson won the largest general election majority in 44 years. The comment has been proven incorrect on multiple fronts.
The Tory peer had made the claim on Twitter on June 11, which had read: “Fact, @borisjohnson has never lost a campaign or election. 2019 General Election biggest majority in over 44 years. 2016 Brexit referendum and two London mayoral elections. He is a winning machine who can connect to voters. Hasta La vista!”
But the fact-checking charity Full Fact pointed out a number of flaws in the comment. Firstly, Johnson had first stood for parliament in 1997 after being selected as the Tory candidate for the Clwyd South seat in North Wales. He had lost to Labour candidate Martyn Jones, by around 14,000 votes.
Then the claim that it was the Tories’ biggest majority in 44 years was proven inaccurate. In 2019, Johnson won the general election with an 80-seat majority, the biggest margin since Thatcher’s win in 1987 with a 102-seat majority, which was just 36 years ago. Not only that but Labour’s majority in the 1997 general election was larger still, at 179 seats. Even in the 2011 election, Labour won by 167 seats, more than double Boris Johnson had achieved in 2019.
In response to being contacted by Full Fact who informed the peer of the incorrect claims, Cruddas issued a correction on Twitter, writing:
“Correction! Boris came second in his first attempt to join parliament in 1997. In addition, his majority of 80 was the largest Conservative majority in 36 years ago, since Lady Thatcher’s victory in 1987. But he’s still a winning machine!”
Full Fact’s verdict of Lord Cruddas’ claims was:
“Incorrect. The Conservatives had larger majorities in 1983 and 1987 while Labour had larger majorities in 1997 and 2001.”
While the original tweet might have been a genuine oversight on Lord Cruddas’ behalf, given his well-established support of Boris Johnson, it comes as little surprise.
Cruddas is a banker, businessman and major Tory Party donor, who was nominated for a peerage in December 2020, despite the Lords Appointments Commission being opposed due to an historic allegation that Cruddas had offered ‘access’ to David Cameron in exchange for donations to the Party.
In 2007, Cruddas was named the richest man in City of London by the Sunday Times Rich List, with an estimated fortune of £860m. Cruddas served as Conservative Party treasurer from June 2011 to March 2012. He was also a member and major donor to the Vote Leave campaign.
Cruddas formed the Johnson-backing CDO in late 2022 in response to fury at the installation of Rishi Sunak as leader. The group is now backed by several senior MPs including former home secretary Priti Patel.
The Johnson backers recently made seven key demands for Sunak to ‘take back control’ of the party. Their top demand is for the party chairman to be elected directly by Conservative members. The group also want a new rule which will enable a vote by 60 percent of members to change the party rules and constitution. Additionally, the CDO is demanding that party bosses relinquish their ‘iron grip’ on candidate selection and have minimum involvement allowing constituency parties to decide.
Gabrielle Pickard-Whitehead is a contributing editor to Left Foot Forward
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