Brilliant analysis of Labour's election prospects

So good i've just put it word for word


http://www.labourlist.org/we-must-answer-the-question---or-we-lose?utm_source=taomail&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=113525+Thanks+Rowan%2C+but+no+thanks+%2F+Should+Labour+back+a+35+hour+week%3F+%2F+Of+%27Trots%27+and+%27Tories%27+%28LL626%29&tmtid=113525-13777-13777-162-12-832-91113


We must answer the question - or we lose

The Paul Richards column

One of the more important meetings of the shadow cabinet took place on Tuesday, when Liam Byrne presented the early findings of the ‘listening exercise’ which presages the review of Labour’s policies ordered by Ed Miliband. Over 20,000 submissions have been received, and six thousand people have taken part in 70-odd meetings. Lest you think I am abusing my privileged position as a part-time shadow cabinet factotum to reveal secrets, it was all in the Guardian on Wednesday.

The findings of the listening exercise would be surprising only to anyone whose sole exposure to politics is via a think-tank, pressure group or political party. Anyone with on nodding terms with the electorate would recognise the top-lines as an accurate representation of majority British opinion: tough on crime (and to hell with the causes), a preference for money to be spent in the UK’s roads and schools before those of India or Nigeria, a crackdown on benefit cheats and lazy arses who don’t want to work, and a strong desire to see the NHS and school system work properly. Add in a little mild xenophobia towards the continental Europeans and a visceral loathing of MPs and bankers, and you’ve pretty much got an accurate snap-shot of the opinions of the people we need to vote Labour at the next election. The shadow cabinet didn’t need 20,000 submissions to find that out; they could have spent the evening in a pub in Hemel Hempstead, Crawley or Dartford chatting to the regulars.

The challenge for a socialist party seeking the votes of a non-socialist electorate has been the same down the ages. It is about persuading non-Labour people that their self-interest is served by voting Labour. It may be that we didn’t come into Labour politics to help affluent voters in Essex; it may be that we came into politics to end homelessness, tackle poverty, end the scandal of poor children being written off before even going to school. But the truth is that unless affluent people back us in vast numbers, we can offer the poorest people nothing except charity. When Labour has recognised the true nature of the electorate, electoral success has never been far behind; when Labour has mythologised the electorate, or projected its own desires onto them, it has failed miserably.

In 1978, Eric Hobsbawm famously warned that Labour must reach out to a changing electorate:

"the future of Labour and advance of socialism depends on mobilising people who remember the date of the Beatles’ break-up, and not the date of the Saltley pickets; of people who have never read Tribune and who do not give a damn about the deputy leadership of the Labour Party."

He was ignored. Labour instead chose to follow the path of bitter internal strife over meaningless slogans and bonkers policies, personified by Tony Benn and Ken Livingstone. Benn’s bid to be deputy leader of the Labour Party was backed by, amongst others, the Posadists who believed socialism would be brought to earth by aliens (because only socialism could deliver the higher stages of development required for interplanetary travel). I was reminded of those far-off times this week with the launch of something describing itself as ‘GEER’ which is ‘all about putting the third way behind us, by renewing our focus on Gender, Environment, Equality and Race’ which is another way of saying ‘putting our electoral success behind us, and focusing on things we care about, but the voters don’t.’ It’s probably too early to judge ‘GEER’ but I’m going to anyway: if Labour listens to the advice implicit within GEER’s mission statement, that we can win with some kind of rainbow coalition of oppressed minorities and people interested in recycling, then we will cease to exist as a major political party within a decade.

I don’t believe Labour will lurch to the left. The far greater danger is not that we become wholly out of touch with the electorate, but that we become slightly out of touch with the electorate. I enjoy, but do not share, the ranty excesses of my old friend Dan Hodges who wants to divide the party up into flat-earthers and round-earthers (the former being anyone who disagrees with his Chicken Licken analysis of Labour’s prospects). No, the greater danger for Labour is to fall into the various policy traps being laid by Cameron ahead of the election: to be on the wrong side of the public’s attitude towards NHS reform, tackling Islamist extremism, reforming parliament, or providing council houses for people on £100k. On each issue, Labour must be pitch perfect, not slightly discordant. Like the difference between madness and genius, or ugliness and beauty, the calibration between Labour being in or out of touch is tiny but vital.

Liam Byrne’s presentation on Tuesday made clear that Labour’s defeat in 2010 was not some minor or temporary falling-out between Labour and the electorate. It was a massive rejection of the party, its policies and its leaders. As we write our programme for the next Labour government, we should remember that the voters won’t ask about the environment or foreign aid at the 2015 election. They will ask a far more searching question ‘what’s in it for me?’ That’s the question that requires a compelling answer. Without it, we lose.

BBC - Nick Robinson's Newslog: Election date 2010‏

What I don't like about these is the focus on a single individual.
We elect parties, not individuals. I'd like to see an economic debate with the chancellor and his shadows, on Home Affairs with the relevant people etc. etc.

Brown to unveil Labour's election themes‏

Bloody ell, even I'm getting bored of the election already.
I plan to have a hangover Saturday so I'll let this pass me by most likely.
But then I'm doing lots of other stuff so I'm sure we'll survive

Tim Bell calls general election TV debates 'pointless'‏

I think he may have a point. If we're going to do it at all then the whole cabinet and their shadows should be involved. We don't have a presidential system, we have parties. If people want a presidential system (I would be in favour if the president replaced the monarch) then that's a whole other issue.
As it is, we are far too focused on one individual as leader. Hardly surprising if they then take all the power for themselves is it?

run up to the election

Apparently Labour are putting an election into place including Mandy and Ali Campbell.

One thing that struck me is "Labour sources are aware that Brown may have a mastery of policy details, but the policy-light George Bush could still defeat his policy-heavy opponent Al Gore through a folksy lightness of touch."
That relates to a book i read called The Political Brain by Drew Western and could make the difference in the campaign for the exact reason outlined above.
Let's hope they learn the right lessons.

General Election Possibilities

As ever, there is talk about all the possible combinations relating to the election.

" The polling evidence suggests that the anti-Government vote will split so many ways, to the benefit of the Greens, UKIP and the repugnant BNP, that the Tories will not win sufficient seats in the North.

And there's another reason for the Tory concerns. They're still not ruling out the possibility of Brown stepping aside, or being forced out of office by Lord Mandelson, and an interim leader leading Labour into the election.

The tearoom talk, evidently, is of Alan Johnson, the Hull MP, becoming Prime Minister and running the country until polling day – while Harriet Harman, Labour's deputy leader, runs the election campaign."

The bit about anti-Government vote is interesting. It shows how much the Tories still have to make up in order to get a vote for them rather than a vote against Labour.

I still have a feeling Gordy might get forced out just before the election, though I think the election date should be fixed.

From this Guardian, a vote on the thread.
There are lots of this i agree with, but not the voting Tory bit of course.
I believe in Labour, and i don't think they're all that bad. Better than the Tories when it's a straight fight between the two no matter what. They don't always do as i'd like but i believe in them

"It didn't need much to nudge me to vote Tory after the disaster of Nulabour.
After a lifelong commitment to Labour I expected not even vote at all, at the next election.
But three things impressed me.

Scrapping ID cards and the Nulab surveillance society.

Changing the tax system to make it actually worthwhile for the poorest to take work, if they find it.

The general tone of allowing people responsibility for their own lives. Not treating adults like children and not treating children like adults.

I'll still have to see these policy commitments confirmed in the next few months before I believe them. We'll see...."

Tories - it's just a jump to the right, and then a jump to the right

and then a jump to the right, and then a jump to the riiiiight.
Tory party policy at the moment.
It's amazing the transition that we're seeing in them. There are too many to list, but this recent attack on benefit claimants is just the latest example

"the system makes it hard for people to earn more at work than they get in benefits. "
so the remedy is to improve the pay of those worst off? No, cut benefits. It's pretty damn stupid

Labour and Tory plans for spending and the election

Jonathan Freedland argues that the election battles lines are drawn, with 'the many' and 'the few' having their champions decked out in their colours.
Cameron, he argues, has jumped on the band-wagon of MPs expenses to say how much he'll slash everything which helps politicians and ID cards, ID cards, ID cards.

"Proof of that came when reporters asked Cameron to offer more substantial cuts to the national budget than demanding honourable members pay full price for their custard creams. "ID cards", came the answer. Good for him. The identity card scheme is indeed a waste of money and should be scrapped. What else? "ID cards." And? "ID cards." Three times he offered up the same lamb for sacrifice. Which suggests that, for all the macho promises of frankness, he can't think of any other cuts – or none he's willing to admit in public."

Freedland argues that focusing on the size of the debt is a red herring, which i agree with. The size of the current debt is not something that needs a 'slash and burn' approach to sort, it should be gently wound down over time.

investment in young people and keeping people in jobs is worth while and will reep rewards in the future.

perhaps the most telling is the comparison between Labour's desire to keep inheritance tax and tax credits at the current level, while the Tories would reduce these:

"Labour will wield the axe with an eye on protecting the neediest. But look at the Tories. For all his talk of belt-tightening, Cameron has not promised to revoke his proposed change to inheritance tax – raising the threshold to £1m, thereby helping 3,000 of the richest estates each year. Yet tax credits, which boost the incomes of the lowest paid, are firmly in the Tories' sights. There are grounds here for Labour to replay one of its oldest tunes: that they are for the many, while the Tories are for the few."

Reasons to be cheerful

Rather than doing a big long rant about how crap the Tories are, temping though it is, I like to occasionally look to the brighter side of things.
Steve Richards has spoken of the moment of calm between expenses and the election outcome, and how the economic measures (fiscal stimulus etc.) might just have done the job.
House prices are rising, Labour's hit bottom, the economy is steadying as a result of government action, government bonds are flying off the shelves like hot cakes, Cameron is still largely singing from Labour's hymn sheet,

On the Tories: "So far only a few Conservatives MPs have expressed in private their anger that Cameron claimed the maximum allowance to help pay for his country home while he has told others who claimed less that they had acted in ways that were unacceptable"

The Tories economic plans would mean serious disaster for some people, often those least likely to vote Tory, with their opposition to Northern Rock being taken over, fiscal stimulus, borrowing.... Sorry, Tory-bashing again.