Barack Obama rang Conservative headquarters on election night with a mistaken but reassuring message for Theresa May because Labour insiders had told him the party was expecting to lose seats, according to a new book about the election. The initial reaction to the exit poll, which is a large-scale survey of thousands of voters as they leave their polling stations, was disbelief. May’s other chief of staff, Nick Timothy, reportedly winked and told a colleague: “Don’t worry about that, it’s all fine. When the prime minister did finally arrive to give a morale-boosting speech to staff, it was a rehash of her already wearily familiar stump speech. Wilkins told Ross and McTague: “In the campaign, we basically just screwed the brand completely, hers and the party’s.

Source: The Guardian September 10, 2017 15:09 UTC