Isaac Levido, the man charged with delivering Rishi Sunak a highly unlikely and historic fifth Conservative election victory this year, is said by friends to be obsessed with Wout van Aert, a Belgian cyclist sometimes labelled “a beast”.
Van Aert is a race winner in his own right, but in the Tour de France he acts as a “domestique de luxe”, half killing himself to protect his leaders and drag the team through the mountains. The Australian political strategist expects similar Tory discipline and graft as he tries to get Sunak over the line.
Not that the 40-year-old election campaign director has seen it so far. Last year he told Conservative MPs that unless they stuck to his simple campaign themes and stopped their infighting, the “narrow path” to election victory for Sunak would lead off a precipice.
Levido has been heard by colleagues to describe the Tory travails as “a psychodrama”. On Monday he will address Conservative MPs at the House of Commons to discuss the latest polling and deliver a sharp reminder to them to stop fighting each other and get with his plan.
“The path is now a bit narrower and a bit steeper,” the softly spoken Levido told Tory officials with measured understatement at the start of this month, as he took up residence at Conservative HQ at the start of election year. Sunak’s party currently trails Labour by 18 points.
At the start of last year Levido urged Sunak to adopt a simple strategy: identify five clear priorities, show you are delivering on them and then — at the election — ask the voters whether they want to risk that progress by switching to Labour. “Better the devil you know,” is how the Levido plan is described by Pat McFadden, Labour’s campaign chief.
But 2023 saw Tory feuds over issues including migration and panic as little or no progress was made on the five priorities, which focused on what Levido thinks voters actually care about: the economy, NHS and migration. Sunak ended up veering away from the central message, notably making the derided claim at the Tory conference that he represented “change” — despite the fact his party had been in power for more than 13 years.
Sunak’s allies insist that Levido was consulted on a strategy that they admit “evolved” — but was not junked — during 2023. But the arrival of Levido at the start of his fourth Tory election campaign coincided with a return to his Plan A.
Essentially, Levido’s message is the same one that won John Major an unlikely Tory victory in 1992, when he warned against Labour trampling on the “green shoots” of economic recovery.
“Isaac brings with him an incredible amount of focus, discipline and rigour,” said Lee Cain, founder of the Charlesbye PR firm. who worked with Levido on Boris Johnson’s highly successful 2019 campaign. “He’s relentless. He doesn’t scream or lose his temper. There’s a quiet confidence about him.”
In the run-up to polling day — which Sunak says he expects to call in the second half of 2024 — Levido likes to convene his core team at 5.40am, before morning news bulletins start, and does not knock off until late in the evening. “That’s what you have to do to win,” he tells colleagues.
Levido recognises that election campaigns involve senior people doing menial jobs so he tries to lighten the mood, blasting the official “campaign tune” from a speaker on his desk in the morning: in 2019 it was Europe’s “The Final Countdown”, in 2015 Queen’s “One Vision”. In 2019 Levido presented a stuffed kiwi toy to star campaigners; in 2015 it was an echidna.
“He’s a smart strategist,” says John McTernan, a Labour campaign adviser and former political director to Tony Blair. “He fights to win. He’s a really good pollster and understands focus groups. But look at what he’s working with: it’s ‘bricks without straw’ territory.”
Levido was born in Maitland, New South Wales, in a family obsessed with politics and sport: he grew up playing football, rugby league and cricket — a passion he shares with Sunak, who he first met as a Tory candidate 10 years ago.
He initially worked as an accountant, but moved into political consultancy. He met Sir Lynton Crosby, another Australian adviser to successive Tory politicians in 2013, and joined his CTF company, where he also met his wife, Mimi Randolph.
Crosby took Levido under his wing and into Conservative HQ ahead of David Cameron’s 2015 election campaign, which Cameron surprisingly won. Crosby believed, like Levido, that voters above all want stability and economic security: Cameron fought the campaign by relentlessly talking about his “long-term economic plan”.
Levido became adept at coming up with taut campaigning slogans, including devising — with colleagues — Johnson’s “Get Brexit Done” message; he was also brought in to advise Johnson during the Covid-19 crisis where he is credited with “Stay at Home, Protect the NHS and Save Lives”.
After Johnson became prime minister in July 2019, he considered making Levido his head of strategy but instead ended up giving the job to the controversial Dominic Cummings. But Cummings was keen to keep Levido on board, promising to put him in charge of the election campaign that followed in December that year.
Shortly after Johnson’s election win, Levido founded the advisory company Fleetwood Strategy — whose clients include Airbnb, Balfour Beatty and Palantir — leading to Labour allegations about him mixing Tory campaign advice with commercial advantage for his clients.
Ahead of his move into CCHQ this month, Levido set up a new political consultancy named after Sancrox, a small village near where he grew up in New South Wales, while Fleetwood conducts only corporate work. Levido has, for now, severed his links with Fleetwood but is expected to return.
Levido remains convinced the Tories can win. He cites the large number of undecided voters, but he has warned Tory MPs: “If when people do finally look at us, they see us at each other’s throats, they will look the other way.” There are few signs of Tory fratricidal tendencies abating.
Tory veterans of Johnson’s 2019 campaign note that the then-prime minister, noted for his chaotic style, showed surprising discipline in sticking to Levido’s plan. They are not so sure that Sunak will be willing to conform with what one party strategist calls Levido’s “reductive” style of campaign, with its simple and repetitive messaging.
Last year the prime minister’s team talked about “letting Rishi be Rishi”, as he embarked on his own priorities, including scaling back net zero plans, scrapping the HS2 high-speed rail line and reforming A-level examinations.
In November Sunak halfheartedly came up with five new “long-term decisions” he wanted to pursue, adding sustainable energy and world-class education to the list. Little has been heard of this plan since. “I’ve given up trying to work out what the strategy is,” said one cabinet minister. But amid signs that Britain’s economy may be turning, Levido’s original plan is back in fashion.
One veteran Tory adviser called Levido “one of the best campaigners around”, adding: “The question is whether Rishi will give Isaac licence to run the campaign as he sees fit? Will he be able to work with Isaac? Frankly, they don’t have a better option.”
