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Post by bjornhattan on Mar 22, 2021 1:16:39 GMT
You can't win a majority on the ultra-liberal inner cities either. You need more than that. Realistically Labour can either choose to focus more on social issues and minimise economics. That will go down well in affluent parts of the South East and perhaps the outer suburbs of a few of our other big cities. Or they can choose to focus on bread and butter economic issues and minimise the social stuff - it might cost them a few votes in Putney and Brighton but it'll work a treat in small towns (and not just northern ones - the road to a majority includes working class towns in the Midlands and South too). I'd argue you should be standing up for places like Hartlepool against the London elite, not abandoning them. Ask yourself this - would you rather Labour had more left authoritarians, or right wing liberals? Eventually this government will fall, whether in 2024, 2029, or later. But do you want the replacement to be a party for ordinary Britain or for the metropolitan elite? That's why I think Labour should back electoral reform and pacts to achieve it. I don't think a majority based on voters with diametrically opposed views can be sustained. I also think the idea that Labour are going to turn back a very clear trend is unlikely. It doesn't mean all those seats are gone forever but have a look at seats which were once marginal like Warwickshire North and Walsall North. I think they are unlikely to return to Labour. And the complacent view that the cities have nowhere else to go was exactly what used to be said about the red wall seats. For me - I wouldn't vote for any socially conservative party. I don't believe in big tent catch all parties and I won't be voting for either a left authoritarian or right wing liberal party. You're right that seats like Warwickshire North are probably gone, but there's a lot of traditional marginals which aren't really trending strongly either way which Labour will probably need to win back - and all of them are going to respond better to bread and butter issues than the woke social stuff. Carlisle, Keighley, Telford, Crawley, Ipswich, Gloucester, and a couple dozen more besides. These are ordinary places, who want ordinary governments who they feel are in touch. I don't even think Labour needs to be socially conservative to win them back - it just needs to be less about pronouns and more about daily issues. |
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Post by Merseymike on Mar 22, 2021 1:22:44 GMT
That's why I think Labour should back electoral reform and pacts to achieve it. I don't think a majority based on voters with diametrically opposed views can be sustained. I also think the idea that Labour are going to turn back a very clear trend is unlikely. It doesn't mean all those seats are gone forever but have a look at seats which were once marginal like Warwickshire North and Walsall North. I think they are unlikely to return to Labour. And the complacent view that the cities have nowhere else to go was exactly what used to be said about the red wall seats. For me - I wouldn't vote for any socially conservative party. I don't believe in big tent catch all parties and I won't be voting for either a left authoritarian or right wing liberal party. You're right that seats like Warwickshire North are probably gone, but there's a lot of traditional marginals which aren't really trending strongly either way which Labour will probably need to win back - and all of them are going to respond better to bread and butter issues than the woke social stuff. Carlisle, Keighley, Telford, Crawley, Ipswich, Gloucester, and a couple dozen more besides. These are ordinary places, who want ordinary governments who they feel are in touch. I don't even think Labour needs to be socially conservative to win them back - it just needs to be less about pronouns and more about daily issues. What is this pronoun stuff? I can't recall any Labour politicians talking about it over the past year. They have been very cautious indeed on just about everything and have hardly had anything to say even when Liz Truss was making controversial statements. Other than on Twitter, which I can almost guarantee will make precisely no impact, where is all this stuff about pronouns? Where are the speeches about it? Labour hasn't had much to say full stop. |
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bsjmcr
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Post by bsjmcr on Mar 22, 2021 1:22:54 GMT
I don't do Twitter, so am not aware of what goes on there. And I'm really not interested in the sort of party you propose. No, getting the Tories out is not my priority. I don't vote negatively, only positively, and what you describe sounds like old style social democracy, which is well past its sell by. There is no possibility of me voting for Starmer's Labour unless it pledges to support electoral reform and enters a pact to make it happen. We can agree on that then! Labour really doesn’t have anything to lose at this point. Along with real Lords reform. (Twitter has also been dominated today by a Times article on Hereditary Peers). I understand why Blair didn’t back PR, because back then they would have lost seats as a result, but there we are. I’m still amazed though that in 97 Labour comfortably won Brent North and Brentford, and Blyth Valley and Bassetlaw (my quest for alliteration and lack of London knowledge probably means there are better groupings of this ilk but oh well). Is it now too much to ask for next time around? |
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Post by Merseymike on Mar 22, 2021 1:32:05 GMT
Yes, I think it is. I don't think the current situation is anything like the mid-90's. The current government don't have the air of exhaustion which hung over the Tories. Labour were united -at a rather superficial level, but no internal warfare. And Blair's approach was right for the time -in hindsight it was content-lite but it captured the spirit of the age. Now - the problem is that there isn't one. The country is profoundly divided.
Also, I think you and many others grossly overestimate the impact of political Twitter. It's a rabbit hole where people are fed angry soundbites which they already agree with or respond to by trolling. Most people never look at it.
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Post by Deleted on Mar 22, 2021 2:14:24 GMT
I'm not convinced the "small town white working class" are that right-wing, actually. Certainly not in the North East. They're certainly socially conservative (though most social issues tend to bear little weight offline, despite all the noise they create online), but on economics they're centre-left. They don't want to pay more taxes themselves, but the residents of Spennymoor aren't crying out for a Singapore-on-Thames tax haven regime - in fact they want more funding for visible public services like health and the police. Which is why Labour are sensibly downplaying their candidate's Europhile leanings and emphasising the NHS above all else. There needs to be less focus on pronouns and more on poverty and tackling it. And no, it’s not bigoted or transphobic not to be willing to be engaged in this, but talking about ‘Mx’ on forms (there was an article about this last month) just causes unnecessary resentment from people who are literally struggling to put food on the table who must be wondering this is where the party’s priority appears to be? Absolutely go for social progress and equality, but do so ‘in the background’ and focus on what a government should be doing, and that is economic priorities that affect people, their pockets and their environment. As well as the NHS I’d like to see free school meals come to the fore again if they are serious about campaigning. With the ‘vaccine high’ it almost feels like everyone has forgotten about the FSM debacle. Given how ‘low’ the Tories went in their 2019 campaign (FactCheckUK, having D.Abbott on every leaflet even though she’s not a party leader, Corbyn the chicken), Labour has no option other than to “go low” as it were. Dominic Cummings and Dido Harding’s faces should be on every leaflet. For your first paragraph, I'm not sure the two are that contradictory; there should certainly be room for both within the party and in society. I completely agree about your last paragraph though |
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Post by edgbaston on Mar 22, 2021 5:14:24 GMT
You're right that seats like Warwickshire North are probably gone, but there's a lot of traditional marginals which aren't really trending strongly either way which Labour will probably need to win back - and all of them are going to respond better to bread and butter issues than the woke social stuff. Carlisle, Keighley, Telford, Crawley, Ipswich, Gloucester, and a couple dozen more besides. These are ordinary places, who want ordinary governments who they feel are in touch. I don't even think Labour needs to be socially conservative to win them back - it just needs to be less about pronouns and more about daily issues. What is this pronoun stuff? I can't recall any Labour politicians talking about it over the past year. They have been very cautious indeed on just about everything and have hardly had anything to say even when Liz Truss was making controversial statements. Other than on Twitter, which I can almost guarantee will make precisely no impact, where is all this stuff about pronouns? Where are the speeches about it? Labour hasn't had much to say full stop. k It’s projection. The right care far more about pronouns and political correctness than the left ever will and that’s the sad irony of the culture war. |
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sirbenjamin
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Post by sirbenjamin on Mar 22, 2021 9:50:28 GMT
It's more about voter distribution. Effectively we have polarised towards living in the same places as those who broadly agree with us. Labour's vote is very concentrated in the cities. Small town white working class voters are pretty right wing, small c-conservative, and now tribal affiliation has gone there isn't an obvious reason why they should vote Labour. I think there has certainly been a shift rightwards on socio-economic issues - the reluctance to pay more tax being the obvious example. The Thatcher settlement was never really challenged. Of course Labour should try and change hearts and minds but I just can't see the point in being another version of the Tories. I'm not convinced the "small town white working class" are that right-wing, actually. Certainly not in the North East. They're certainly socially conservative (though most social issues tend to bear little weight offline, despite all the noise they create online), but on economics they're centre-left. That would explain why the current government - left-wing and authoritarian - is popular with these voters then! People genuinely don't appear to know what right-wing is any more. About the only tactic of the left that has worked in recent years is sowing this confusion. |
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Post by Merseymike on Mar 22, 2021 10:11:38 GMT
I'm not convinced the "small town white working class" are that right-wing, actually. Certainly not in the North East. They're certainly socially conservative (though most social issues tend to bear little weight offline, despite all the noise they create online), but on economics they're centre-left. That would explain why the current government - left-wing and authoritarian - is popular with these voters then! People genuinely don't appear to know what right-wing is any more. About the only tactic of the left that has worked in recent years is sowing this confusion. Oh, I don't think a "left wing" which is purely about spending money and permanent avoidance of both structural change and prioritising is all that left either. Beneath all the bluster there's not that great a difference between the actual policies of both parties in Parliament. If Clapham hadn't happened Labour would have backed the policing bill. |
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Post by islington on Mar 22, 2021 10:41:24 GMT
On logging in I see that owing to other priorities (i.e., sleeping) I missed a terrific debate. I'd like to pick up on a few points. I can't agree with bsjmcr that "Labour really doesn’t have anything to lose at this point". On the contrary, it can get a whole lot worse for Labour if it fails to reconnect with its traditional voters. There is a whole swath of seats - Hartlepool among them but also places like Doncaster N, Normanton, Wentworth, Hemsworth and at least twenty others in the north and midlands - where Labour was probably saved from defeat in 2019 only by the intervention of the Brexit Party. On the other hand, bsjmcr also wrote the following, with which I agree 100%: "There needs to be less focus on pronouns and more on poverty and tackling it. And no, it’s not bigoted or transphobic not to be willing to be engaged in this, but talking about ‘Mx’ on forms (there was an article about this last month) just causes unnecessary resentment from people who are literally struggling to put food on the table who must be wondering this is where the party’s priority appears to be? Absolutely go for social progress and equality, but do so ‘in the background’ and focus on what a government should be doing, and that is economic priorities that affect people, their pockets and their environment.
"As well as the NHS I’d like to see free school meals come to the fore again if they are serious about campaigning. With the ‘vaccine high’ it almost feels like everyone has forgotten about the FSM debacle." This is important. Labour doesn't need to oppose things like transgender rights, proper respect and recognition for non-binary persons, &c (which is what I think we mean by the shorthand 'pronouns'). It can still support them (and for the record, let me add that I personally support them) but it should give them their appropriate level of salience, which is, roughly speaking, a couple of lines on page 58 of a 64-page election manifesto, the remainder of which, I suggest, should be about the increased funding for the NHS, free school meals, free higher education, proper social care, renationalizing rail and energy, better employment protection, more council housing, and all sorts of other policies that would have a practical impact of the lives of the people whose votes they need. I'd like to suggest to Merseymike that there's nothing I've suggested here that isn't left wing and I hope he'd be able to support it.
This is not a personal manifesto. I don't consider myself as being of the left and I am certainly not saying I support all these policies myself. But they would speak powerfully to large numbers of traditional Labour voters - enough, I think, to reverse at least some of Labour's losses in its traditional heartland and make it electorally credible without being distracted by the will-o'-the-wisp that is PR.
It has been said that a critical difference between the two main parties is that, whereas most Tories would have a pretty clear idea of why a lot of people vote Labour, most Labour people have absolutely no understanding of why anyone would vote Tory. And because they lack this understanding, they tend to attribute Tory voting to the worst possible factors - stupidity, selfishness, bigotry, greed, &c. Judging by conversations I've had with Labour-supporting acquaintances, many of them (not all of them) struggle to grasp the idea that it's possible for someone to be just as intelligent, just as honest, just as caring, and just as public-spirited as they are - and yet vote Tory.
This failure to grasp why people vote Tory is a problem the Labour Party (or much of it) has had for decades. What is new is that in recent years, it has been further exacerbated by an equal lack of understanding of why people vote Labour. I live and work in central London and I have a number of acquaintances, mostly quite young and many of them Labour supporters and activists, who are decidedly at the 'woke' end of the spectrum (I hope they wouldn't mind my saying that) and they lack any notion (one of them even admitted this) why voters in Mansfield or Bolsover would ever have voted Labour in the first place - and therefore, it does not surprise or trouble them that these voters have been lost (although I say again that it's not the voters that are lost, it's the Labour Party).
The implication of this kind of attitude is that 'the Tories are welcome this this kind of voter'. To which, of course, the Tory Party replies, "Thanks very much," and wins elections off the back of it.
This isn't just about the Labour Party. It also engages the national interest. Our political system requires a credible opposition: 'credible' in the sense of being capable of taking over the reins of government. And barring some massive political realignment (which I think highly unlikely), Labour is really the only show in town in this respect. So it is in the interests of all of us, whether we are Labour supporters or not, that Labour should function as a credible potential government and should be respected as such by friend and foe alike.
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Post by Merseymike on Mar 22, 2021 11:01:00 GMT
I fundamentally disagree with that analysis of where Labour should go - I think it's vital to have realignment and greater choice, and I don't think that an all embracing social democratic party is the way forward. I really don't want to prop up a fundamentally failing system and the creation of a "credible" opposition (translate: one that usually-Tory voters would be comfortable to vote for) is part of that enterprise. Labour need to recognise they can't win as that's the only way to kick-start the possibility of change. As I have said earlier and is simply factual, Labour have said hardly anything about the trans issue. There is an argument going on between radical feminists and a section of trans rights activists but largely outside the Labour party. Indeed, it appears to have made much more direct impact on the Greens and the SNP. I agree with edgbaston - it's both projection and a distraction. I agree that there is a lack of understanding as to why people vote Tory and a rather odd demonisation of what are, ultimately, political choices. |
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Post by jamie on Mar 22, 2021 11:29:14 GMT
I would caution against attributing things like gender pronouns to Labour’s cultural alienation from its former voters. Much more important are issues like immigration, crime, patriotism etc. As islington points out, the Brexit Party probably saved Labour quite a few seats by standing in 2019. Hartlepool may well be a preview of what happens when their voters abandon the Brexit Party in a national environment that is noticeably more Labour than 2019. Labour gain a bit more in seats where the Brexit Party stood than where they didn’t, but the Tories gain a lot more in the former than the latter. The net effect would be the difference between Labour and the Conservatives staying rather stagnant in 2017 Labour seats but moving quite a bit in Labour’s favour in 2017 Conservative seats. |
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Post by islington on Mar 22, 2021 12:38:15 GMT
I fundamentally disagree with that analysis of where Labour should go - I think it's vital to have realignment and greater choice, and I don't think that an all embracing social democratic party is the way forward. I really don't want to prop up a fundamentally failing system and the creation of a "credible" opposition (translate: one that usually-Tory voters would be comfortable to vote for) is part of that enterprise. Labour need to recognise they can't win as that's the only way to kick-start the possibility of change. As I have said earlier and is simply factual, Labour have said hardly anything about the trans issue. There is an argument going on between radical feminists and a section of trans rights activists but largely outside the Labour party. Indeed, it appears to have made much more direct impact on the Greens and the SNP. I agree with edgbaston - it's both projection and a distraction. I agree that there is a lack of understanding as to why people vote Tory and a rather odd demonisation of what are, ultimately, political choices. I completely respect the view taken by Merseymike in which he is far from being alone. But I disagree with it because I don't like where it is likely to lead: a Labour Party dominated by the concerns of the metropolitan elite with a bit of identity politics thrown in, whose appeal is largely confined to the big cities and a few other places where because of a large student population or for some other reason there is a receptive electorate; and a Tory Party that hoovers up votes practically everywhere else (not Scotland) and wins every GE at a canter.
Because, as I think Mike recognizes (and this is why he supports PR), under FPTP there simply aren't enough seats available for his sort of Labour Party to have any chance of a majority. Yes, it would probably pick up another few dozen seats in and around London and in a few other places; but at the same time, it would lose a far greater number of the hundred or so leave-voting seats that it held on to in 2019. My guess is that under the current voting system such a party would be doing exceptionally well to win as many as 180 seats, and 150 would be a more normal total. This is enough to block the emergence of any alternative major party but embarrassingly short of credibility as a potential government.
And there's another reason not to adopt this strategy, namely that it puts Labour in competition with the Greens and Lib Dems, who are already fishing in much the same water. This, of course, wouldn't matter so much if we had PR; but under FPTP, it's fatal. On the other hand, a policy of reaching out to traditional Labour voters (or 'Red Wall' voters, or 'white working class', or 'left authoritarians', whatever terminology you prefer) has the great merit that the Lib Dems and Greens are unlikely to get in the way and you only have to worry about competing with the Tories, which should be your main focus anyway.
Mike has referred to the geographic concentration of Labour support in big cities, where the party wins seats with wastefully huge majorities. I agree that this means that Labour's support is not very efficiently distributed but I'd argue that this is largely the party's own doing because it has chosen to disconnect itself from other areas where it can and should pick up more marginal seats. A return to what Mike calls 'an all-embracing social democratic party' would mean that the vote distribution issue would largely solve itself.
Regarding trans and non-binary (is it OK to use 'pronouns' as a handy shorthand for this?), I don't think the problem is so much Labour's embracing these issues (to the extent that it has); it's much more Labour's neglect of issues that are far more pressing for the bulk of its potential support. And the risk here is that the Tories will outflank them - to take one specific, I think there's a real possibility that no later than the next GE, and possibly much sooner, it will become Tory Party policy to renationalize the railways, and one of Labour's best foxes will have been shot. Likewise I can imagine circumstances in which if the Tories think it will play well in the seats they are trying to win they might increase welfare benefits or embark on large-scale council house building. You may object that for ideological reasons the Tories would never do these things; my answer is that this is a misunderstanding of the nature of the Tory Party, which has always been thoroughly mutable in policy terms and whose only real ideology is winning.
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Post by Merseymike on Mar 22, 2021 13:05:04 GMT
I have always supported PR because I think the two party duopoly is severely lacking - and with a different electoral system the party structures would, I think, be different. As it stands I won't be voting Labour. I don't want the sort of party you describe...
I do want a party with a much more specific agenda, not a "broad church". And that party should not get a majority unless it has a majority of votes...I'm not interested in making up an artificial majority for a catch-all party. Labour are currently so paralysed by the worry about who they might offend or not offend that they don't seem capable of saying anything at all.
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Post by Merseymike on Mar 22, 2021 13:12:56 GMT
I would caution against attributing things like gender pronouns to Labour’s cultural alienation from its former voters. Much more important are issues like immigration, crime, patriotism etc. Yes. And London Labour will never consent to the sort of policies on those issues which Hartlepool wants to hear. This is not a left-right thing either. London Labour is where Labour's "progressives" are stronger. Politically they don't hold the left authoritarian view at all - they may enter into arrangements to keep out the party's left but their politics is market-driven big government and socially progressive ideas. |
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Post by Deleted on Mar 22, 2021 13:13:05 GMT
I would caution against attributing things like gender pronouns to Labour’s cultural alienation from its former voters. Much more important are issues like immigration, crime, patriotism etc. As islington points out, the Brexit Party probably saved Labour quite a few seats by standing in 2019. Hartlepool may well be a preview of what happens when their voters abandon them in a national environment that is noticeably more Labour than 2019. Labour gain a bit more in seats where the Brexit Party stood than where they didn’t, but the Tories gain a lot in the former than the latter. The not effect would be the difference between Labour and the Conservatives staying rather stagnant in 2017 Labour seats but moving quite a bit in Labour’s favour in 2017 Conservative seats. I think that's a very good point. I don't know anybody who defected from Labour because they were too supportive of trans rights (I do know one or two considered it because they felt the party weren't supportive enough), it was mostly the patriotism and immigration issues (as well as that hardy perennial of election issues, "benefit scroungers") that cost us votes. You could possibly make an argument that people saw Labour as a Metropolitan, London-based middle-class party and that cost us votes and that perceived support for transgender rights fed into that image. However even then if you fix the image problem lots of other things will follow |
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The Bishop
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Post by The Bishop on Mar 22, 2021 13:32:53 GMT
I think we might agree who the Labour MP most "obsessed" about trans rights is - and, guess what, they're not actually a supporter!
On the more substantive point, polling late last year (when Tories and Labour were basically neck and neck) mostly agreed that the latter had made their most substantial gains since 2019 in seats they lost or nearly lost then. Even given the well known issues with subsamples, that surely can't be dismissed lightly.
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Post by bsjmcr on Mar 22, 2021 13:47:20 GMT
For your first paragraph, I'm not sure the two are that contradictory; there should certainly be room for both within the party and in society. I completely agree about your last paragraph though Absolutely (and some great points made by all above) , my point was I feel it is a matter of where priorities stand when campaigning, in manifestos ( islington hit the nail on the head) , etc - what actually resonates with everyday folk on the ground. And not to be too ‘authoritarian’ with it as that will trigger “PC gone mad headlines”. Without going off topic, Manchester University hasn’t had particularly good press the past year, which wasn’t helped by a recent ban of gendered words etc. I believe some university or the NUS banned clapping. Now, no political party has quite gone that far, but I cite the university examples because they are our future leaders! Merseymike may have a point with me being focussed in the Twittersphere with regards to pronouns, though I think there are examples of things that I’m sure escaped have the Twittersphere that don’t necessarily resonate with the sorts of places that need to be won back, whether that be statue-gate, the villification of Churchill, taking the knee, etc. ‘Virtue signalling’ in other words - not my words, as I know these are all good causes, for sure, but I’m concerned that there may a lot of people who do not buy what they see as ‘virtue signalling’ as they have other priorities. For example Biden may not have done quite as well if he was seen taking the knee, yet he got enough votes from people who are not racist, without having to do so. Many Democrats really had to work to hard distance themselves from the “Defund the police” slogan as it was. Having said that, as we can see now, the ‘culture wars’ can equally be just as easily a trap for the Government, who have nicely just fallen into, with their disproportionate sentences over statues. In the states, Fox News seems to be more obsessed with Dr Seuss than anyone else, I don’t recall anyone on the ‘left’ calling for his books to be cancelled, they’ve just created it themselves and blown it out of proportion. So it works both ways. Worryingly though JK Rowling and Rosie Duffield also seem to be garnering criticism but hopefully that stays within the Twittersphere. And this is why we need a centre ground. If it were possible to be centrist socially, then that would be me. While being economically-left. Nationalising the railways for example is a must in the North and I’m sure can be put across well, given the dire state of the trains - hopefully without the retort of “how do we afford it?”. Free broadband was perhaps going a bit too far but with home schooling the past year it now doesn’t look such a bad idea. There was a proposition above of the Tories going for nationalisation and that would be terrifying as nobody would ask them “how do we afford it?”, just as few challenged him over the new hospitals. There will always be a few odd working-class voters though who despise ‘the scroungers’ and automatically say to Labour “there isn’t a magic money tree”, and think FSM vouchers all go on fags etc - the Ben Bradley Brendan Clarke Smith sympathisers, and I absolutely deplore their views and no amount of convincing would bring them back and I’m not sure if I would like to engage with anyone as unsympathetic as that. I loathe any “pull the ladder up after them” mentality, be it born poor/working class folk who have done well and are now extreme fiscally conservative, or those who were once immigrants themselves/descended from them and are now fervently “send them back”, or want an “Australian style system” without having a clue what that is. @jamie is right about immigration though being a key factor more so than the social stuff but I guess it isn’t new that Labour has been perceived as being ‘soft’ on it. What if people ask about the migrants crossing the channel, I have no idea what Labour’s stance or policy is. I know it’s a tiny number in the grand scheme of things and we have to help them, but Patel’s “send them back” policy or sending them to islands may go down very well in many areas. |
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Post by bsjmcr on Mar 22, 2021 13:54:29 GMT
I think we might agree who the Labour MP most "obsessed" about trans rights is - and, guess what, they're not actually a supporter! On the more substantive point, polling late last year (when Tories and Labour were basically neck and neck) mostly agreed that the latter had made their most substantial gains since 2019 in seats they lost or nearly lost then. Even given the well known issues with subsamples, that surely can't be dismissed lightly. But that was late last year, thanks to the Tiers disaster, test and trace, Cummings, contract cronyism, being fairly fresh on the mind back then - all of which Labour needs to remind people any campaign on. But now there’s the vaccine bounce and now in particular the mess in Europe making us look good (vindicating the decision to vote leave as it were), to contend with. |
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Post by matureleft on Mar 22, 2021 13:57:22 GMT
Back on this old theme again.
First, we shouldn't underplay the effectiveness of the Tory campaign. The message was simple (misleadingly so, but that matters little) and clear. The majority of people were fed up over Brexit, either because they wanted it and it hadn't happened, or because they marginally favoured Remain but felt that the majority should prevail, or out of boredom and concern at the family discord it was causing. The Tories promised to cut through this and get it out of everyone's hair. They also produced a tame, centrist manifesto to go with it - little there to scare hesitant Labour voters. And Johnson was managed carefully to avoid gaffes.
Labour produced a shopping list of pledges that seemed absurd to many (of course subsequent events has showed how the magic money tree can be cropped for more than just Unionist sweeteners). There was no narrative. The Brexit message was too confusing to rival the Tory one. And there was a huge amount of background noise from defectors and even from Shadow Cabinet members. They had a leader who, fairly or not, was desperately soiled and who scared (mistakenly in my view - he couldn't be a real threat) Tory voters.
Then the Lib Dems ran a stinker of a campaign, removing almost all the threat to the Tories from discontented Remain voters.
Labour's result could easily have been worse. But I can't see these circumstances repeating.
The Tories have delivered their main promise and it's way too early for a proper appraisal on that in most voters' minds. They've been hit and miss on the virus. Lots of muddle and reversals but one key thing has worked. The misfortunes of the economy are blamed (mostly correctly at the moment) on the virus. If I'd been a Tory voter in 2019 I wouldn't have buyer's remorse yet. But there are some dark clouds, as there always must be. There is no clear economic and industrial strategy and with both Brexit and the permanent impact of the virus that's a problem. Continuing friction with the EU might play well in some tabloids but is likely to have an impact on pockets and choices. And "culture war" stuff doesn't work very well if the other side isn't playing and if more bread and butter stuff isn't working.
So strategically Labour are in an OK position. But they have done little to rebuild and rethink (as even Mandelson is now saying). And while the strategic environment may be ok, there's no obvious plan to exploit that (which includes working out the target voters to persuade). Instead focus has been on internal matters (admittedly addressing some problems with severe external implications - the leadership and anti-semitism). One year of what may be a short parliament has been spent.
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The Bishop
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Post by The Bishop on Mar 22, 2021 14:16:48 GMT
One year of what may be a short parliament has been spent. Possible, though I doubt it. Not least because the Tories will surely want the new Westminster boundaries in place first. |
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