'They never started': inside Tory European election campaign

There is no party manifesto. No launch event. No speech by the leader. Barely any money is being spent. And officials are struggling to find enough activists to even stuff envelopes, let alone knock on doors. This is the Conservative Party’s European election effort – an all but invisible campaign that will probably lead to their worst showing in a nationwide election in at least a century. Inside Conservative campaign headquarters, the strategy is that minimum exertion will give Theresa May an excuse for doing so badly after the results of the polls come in on 26 May. Centrally, the party is resigned to losing half their MEPs, and possibly coming fifth. The candidates picked by the party are a mixed bag from both the leave and remain wings. Many of them are not even bothering to tweet or update their websites about the European elections, let alone engage in pounding the streets.