Alan Johnson elected Labour leader in 2010

[Deleted]

What if Alan Johnson became Leader of the Opposition in 2010? 

[🏴‍☠️ Neath West 🏴‍☠️]

It would be more interesting to ask this question about 2007.

[msc]

He never showed the desire or the aptitude for the job, so I can't seen him doing much better than Ed Miliband did, to be honest.

[wallington]

I doubt it would have made much difference, if any, on the 2015 election result.

[willpower3]

Personality matters. Johnson is an everyman (like the other Johnson, but from a humblier background). He couldn't have been dismissed as an inept geek and the SNP puppet attacks wouldn't have stuck. He'd likely also have seen bigger leads and better local election results. Labour minority or small Labour majority.

[Deleted]

Feb 26, 2022 19:20:39 GMT willpower3 said:

Personality matters. Johnson is an everyman (like the other Johnson, but from a humblier background). He couldn't have been dismissed as an inept geek and the SNP puppet attacks wouldn't have stuck. He'd likely also have seen bigger leads and better local election results. Labour minority or small Labour majority.

But a big thing which hampered Labour 2010-15 was the perception that it had mismanaged the finances and was too profligate. I don’t think Alan Johnson would have been able to change that.

[The Bishop]

Alan Johnson is also - by his own admission, even - lazy and not a details man.

And the personal problems that affected him in 2010-11 presumably still happen here.

Overall, not convinced he makes it to a 2015 GE all things considered.

[Deleted]

Feb 27, 2022 10:58:09 GMT The Bishop said:

Johnson is also - by his own admission, even - lazy and not a details man.

Hmm. Who else might this description fit? 

[The Bishop]

Well yes, its not just the surname they have in common

[matureleft]

Alan Johnson is a practical guy, as most traditional trade union leaders were. He is interested in solutions. He has an appealing personality and an interesting back story. With a strong team around him, to which he might be willing to defer, he’d have been a reasonable leader. He’s neither radical nor is he attracted to radical thinking. So one wouldn’t expect him to front new directions.

[tonyhill]

Yes, but in 2010 Labour had been in power for 13 years. They were tired, they needed new ideas, they needed a re-think of what they were for, what a left of centre party in the UK offered for the future. Milliband didn't bother to do this, and I can't see that Johnson would have had the energy or brains to do it either. Even Starmer isn't doing it, but at least he is possibly going to be the beneficiary of "oppositions don't win elections, governments lose them".

But just as with the thread about what Hague should have done in 1997, not even Nelson Mandela would have won an election for Labour in 2015.

[Merseymike]

Feb 27, 2022 17:54:28 GMT tonyhill said:

Yes, but in 2010 Labour had been in power for 13 years. They were tired, they needed new ideas, they needed a re-think of what they were for, what a left of centre party in the UK offered for the future. Milliband didn't bother to do this, and I can't see that Johnson would have had the energy or brains to do it either. Even Starmer isn't doing it, but at least he is possibly going to be the beneficiary of "oppositions don't win elections, governments lose them".

But just as with the thread about what Hague should have done in 1997, not even Nelson Mandela would have won an election for Labour in 2015.

I think Miliband had some interesting ideas but they weren't a simplistic sell, and the problem was that Balls set boundaries which meant that there wouldn't have been any real difference from the coalition government. Austerity was still the message, just "not as much and not as fast". It didn't convince.

But as for Johnson, he was a dreadful minister (wanting to deport the autistic hacker to the States) and a weak opposition spokesperson. He wasn't able to lead the Labour Remain campaign at all effectively. He does have a great backstory and his books are worth reading but I never rated him as a politician

[stb12]

Very much seems like the benefit of hindsight to say Labour were never winning in 2015, for that Parliament they lead the vast majority of polls I believe and the coalition government never really seemed popular. The unexpected SNP surge after the referendum also had a clear impact on English voters in the final months

[bsjmcr]

Mar 2, 2022 20:36:34 GMT stb12 said:

Very much seems like the benefit of hindsight to say Labour were never winning in 2015, for that Parliament they lead the vast majority of polls I believe and the coalition government never really seemed popular. The unexpected SNP surge after the referendum also had a clear impact on English voters in the final months

This. There was a fair amount of hubris from Labour people on Twitter during the height of Partygate when Labour was on something like 42% and 10 points or more above the Tories, but wasn't Labour up by a similar amount back in 2012? And look what happened then...

A lot changes in the run up to a GE, clearly when push came to shove Ed Miliband wasn't seen to be PM material in the event, despite all the earlier polling leads. The question is whether KS can step up to the plate during a GE campaign, certainly in the unlikely event Johnson remains PM he'd win hands down - but I feel a big factor will be Johnson's simultaneous unpopularity and popularity (the Marmite effect). Should a more 'boring' figure be the next Tory leader, anything could happen. 

cf. with Biden's victory. I don't think it was because Biden was particularly energetic or inspiring to the masses during the campaign or that it was a massively positive personal vote for him, it's just that he was just a 'safe pair of hands' and 'not Trump' - and don't forget Trump still gained votes in total and held on to some swing states, just that he repelled just as many votes in other areas. The same could go for Starmer vs Johnson. Tories to lose their majority, losing Altrincham, Macclesfield and the usual marginals, while holding on to Mansfield and Dudley. The times we live in...

[tonyhill]

Benefit of hindsight - I was posting on LibDem Voice prior to 2015 and from the day the coalition negotiations started said that the outcome of the next election would be the LibDems annihilated and a Tory majority, and as time went on and the Labour line of attack was 'the most right wing government in British history' rather than setting out a clear vision of what they were for it was obvious they were going to lose. How much clearer could it have been than at their leadership hustings in 2015 when all the candidates other than Corbyn were offering pale watercolour views of what the party stood for? That was why Corbyn won - at least he had a clear idea of what the Labour Party should be. He might have been wrong, but Starmer's vision is even more obscure than Miliband's was.

[matureleft]

Mar 3, 2022 6:39:11 GMT tonyhill said:

Benefit of hindsight - I was posting on LibDem Voice prior to 2015 and from the day the coalition negotiations started said that the outcome of the next election would be the LibDems annihilated and a Tory majority, and as time went on and the Labour line of attack was 'the most right wing government in British history' rather than setting out a clear vision of what they were for it was obvious they were going to lose. How much clearer could it have been than at their leadership hustings in 2015 when all the candidates other than Corbyn were offering pale watercolour views of what the party stood for? That was why Corbyn won - at least he had a clear idea of what the Labour Party should be. He might have been wrong, but Starmer's vision is even more obscure than Miliband's was.

I'm not sure that the British public do the "vision" thing as much as you suggest.

Generally governments lose elections rather than oppositions win them. So the economy is normally critical, particularly as it is reflected in family circumstances. Major perceived errors count (so the Iraq war certainly had an impact in 2005-10) even if the opposition was clearly party to those errors. A perception of incompetence is harmful as is substantial scandal. 

After a certain time the pendulum has an effect, assuming a reasonable level of opposition competence. 

There are exceptions to this broad set of rules and it would be wrong to think that the opposition merely has to sit and wait for boobs and the pendulum. The key tasks are a. to appear competent themselves b. to foster perceptions of government incompetence and error, and ensure economic failure is known and attributed to the government c. not to scare too many horses but d. to motivate their supporters (and that involves policy and "vision" work).  

Looking at Miliband's period there's some way to go before the pendulum worked, the government had successfully (arguably with some help from the opposition) blamed Labour for the economy, Cameron had run a government that seemed to work with no dramatic errors (in public perception terms - of course I thought there were some big mistakes but that is rather different!). And they had some help from events in Scotland where Labour's support took terrible punishment post-referendum with the added bonus of the rise of the SNP worrying some English voters. Labour losing was unsurprising. I didn't expect a Labour win. A decent, but not big, Tory majority was a little out from my expectation - I expected them to be just short. 

[The Bishop]

Mar 3, 2022 6:39:11 GMT tonyhill said:

Benefit of hindsight - I was posting on LibDem Voice prior to 2015 and from the day the coalition negotiations started said that the outcome of the next election would be the LibDems annihilated and a Tory majority, and as time went on and the Labour line of attack was 'the most right wing government in British history' rather than setting out a clear vision of what they were for it was obvious they were going to lose. How much clearer could it have been than at their leadership hustings in 2015 when all the candidates other than Corbyn were offering pale watercolour views of what the party stood for? That was why Corbyn won - at least he had a clear idea of what the Labour Party should be. He might have been wrong, but Starmer's vision is even more obscure than Miliband's was.

Ed Miliband actually had some good ideas, but much of the party establishment (who very much included Alan Johnson btw) wouldn't let him develop them as much as he wanted. The sense amongst many of them and their media allies that he was "the wrong brother" and in some sense an illegitimate leader, never fully went away.

(and a backlash against them was an important factor in Corbyn's win, as well as what you mention)

[sirbenjamin]

He would've been an amiable caretaker leader for a few years without ever being seen as Prime Ministerial, and in all likelihood would've handed the reins over to someone like Tom Watson before long.

By now Starmer might well be Labour leader anyway, but there would've been less 'heartland shift', so seats like Bolton West wouldn't be Tory but Canterbury would.

[stb12]

I’m not denying that some will have predicted the outcome of the coalition and the next election correctly. I simply don’t think it’s credible to say that it was like a 1997 situation, margins and events were pretty borderline throughout