36 2GM Saturday August 1 2020 | the timesNewsSaturday interview
have to make decisions with limited
information under the complete
awareness that there is a significant
degree of likelihood that you might
get this wrong. A decision has to be
made.” Mr Levido says that for all the
criticism of the government, the
Conservatives have retained their
lead in the polls.R
eflecting on the initial
stages of the crisis, he says:
“The public had done a
huge job in pulling
together, in staying at
home and following guidance. And
they also were giving the government
still to a large extent a huge amount
of slack. They see they’re doing the
best they can. Making decisions
minute by minute. To be frank what
was frustrating was when all these
parts of the country were pulling
together a lot of the press office and
government’s energy was having to
deal with the media who at a time
when everyone was pulling together
was trying to pull everything apart.”
So how did an antipodean, born
more than 10,000 miles away, become
such a key figure in the Conservative
Party?
Mr Levido’s interest in politics was
spurred by his father, a lawyer and
Liberal councillor in his home town.
“We just had a lot of books aroundIsaac Levido says that he and others inOf course mistakes were made,
The pandemic is a chance to create a new social
contract and tackle inequality, the Tory election
strategist Isaac Levido tells Steven Swinford
A
fter helping to mastermind
the Conservative Party’s
landslide election victory,
Isaac Levido was looking
to the future. He took a
brief trip to Australia and returned to
London intent on capitalising on his
success by setting up his own strategic
communications agency. Instead, thecoronavirus intervened. On Thursday,
March 19, he was called into Downing
Street for discussions about a role
shaping the government’s
communications strategy.
On the day that Mr Johnson put
the country into lockdown, Mr Levido
started work in No 10. “They were
drinking from the firehose,” he says.“It was a completely unprecedented
situation. What they needed to do
was project some confidence that
things were going to be OK when
people were incredibly worried.”
Mr Levido, 36, who hails from the
“sleepy surf village” of Port
Macquarie in New South Wales,
once again found himself playing a
pivotal role in British political life.
The Australian strategist has worked
for the Tories on three general
election campaigns — David
Cameron’s success in securing a
majority in 2015, Theresa May’sdisastrous campaign in 2017 and Mr
Johnson’s 80-seat victory. Even
Dominic Cummings defers to him
when it comes to elections.
However, by the time of his return
to No 10, the Conservatives’ election
success just over three months earlier
felt like a distant memory as the
pandemic gripped Britain. For the
second time in a year, Mr Levido
helped to come up with a slogan that
would resonate with the British
people — Stay at Home, Protect the
NHS, Save Lives.
“The reason why it was so
effective is because it was basically
shorthand for the government
strategy,” he says. “We identified in
the early stage of the crisis that
people didn’t know enough about
what was going on and why they
were being asked to do things. It’s
not like a political campaign where
you don’t actually publicly say what
your strategy is. It needed to
communicate consistently to people
that the reason we’re asking people to
stay home was because the NHS only
has so many doctors, nurses and
equipment.”
The success of the slogan was such
that some ministers are concerned
that it still resonates, long after the
messaging was dropped and as town
centres are dying. Was it too
successful? “People will base their
behaviours on their own
interpretation of the balance of risk
and reward. Yes it was an effective
message. [But] part of the reason
people kept staying at home, were not
necessarily going out, every single
person wasn’t following the new
easements, was because people
were still seeing lots of people dying
on the news.”
Mr Levido was in Downing Street
when the prime minister was taken to
hospital with coronavirus, and when
he went into intensive care. “It caught
everyone by surprise, it was a
demonstration of how quickly the
virus can take hold,” he said.
“I was in No 10. Pretty much the
whole building found out at the same
time as the rest of the country. I was
really worried. In addition to being
the leader of the country, he’s a great
man and I like to think of him as a
friend.”
Mr Levido was one of the few
people working in No 10 who did not
contract coronavirus, as far as he is
aware. With both the prime minister
and Dominic Cummings, his most
senior adviser, incapacitated the role
of those who remained in No 10
became even more important.
“There was a job to get on with,” he
says. “There were a number of people
who really, really stepped up to the
plate at that time and kept things
ticking along while the PM was away.
Dom Raab was the first secretary, so
he was officially in the chair, but a
number of others were working very
closely together.”
Did the news that Mr Cummings
had taken a 500-mile round trip to
Durham at the height of lockdown
make his job harder? “That situation
was explained at great length by Dom
at the time. I don’t think anything else
I can say will add to the acres that
have been said about it.”
The virus exposed failings across
government, from the delay in
implementing the lockdown and
shortages in PPE to the decision to
abandon mass testing and the deaths
of more than 45,000 people.
Does he accept that mistakes were
made? “I would point you to the PM’s
comments that of course there will
have been mistakes made,” Mr Levido
says. “The nature of leadership is you