Labour enters the next election in the strongest position the party has ever enjoyed; indeed, probably the strongest enjoyed by any government in the past hundred years. Apart from a brief dip last summer, Labour has led the Conservatives in every poll since 1992. Its lead now is as high as at the same point before the landslide victory in 1997. Tony Blair’s personal lead over William Hague is twice that he enjoyed over John Major. The voters’ feel good factor, the number of economic optimists over pessimists, is higher than the Tories enjoyed before their re-election campaigns of 1983 and 1987. And, despite local difficulties in Scotland, London and Wales, Labour is the first government in fifty years not to lose a seat in a by-election.
The Government has reached this summit of political strength by planning for, and thinking about, the long term. Far from being borne along by events, the leadership of the Labour Party has displayed an exceptional ability to focus on the big picture, both in opposition and in government. It is this which has enabled it to approach the historic goal of re-election for a full second term.
One keystone of that long-term thinking has been Labour’s courtship of the Liberal Democrats and the accompanying strategy of political pluralism and inclusivity. Paradoxically, however, the appeal of that strategy can be undermined by its very success. The stronger Labour’s position going into the next election, the less need it appears to have for the Liberal Democrats. The hassle factor of co-operation, the need to take other views on board, to reach explicit agreements and understandings, especially on issues as thorny as proportional representation, seems less and less worthwhile. This is the situation now facing Labour’s leadership. A rising tide of press comment proclaims, ‘The end of the affair’ and ‘Labour is going off the Liberal Democrats’ (Guardian, 19 February). As the election battle draws near, triumphalism is in the air and the narrow party tribalists are on the march. Yet it would be an enormous mistake for Labour to abandon its strategy of co-operation in the heat of the election battle or in the afterglow of victory. The logic underlying political co-operation remains as compelling as ever and it bears restating.
Labour’s long-term strategy operates on three levels: the economic, social and political. The economic strategy began with the extraordinary, self-imposed financial discipline displayed in opposition, as well as in the first two years of the government. The two-year straitjacket was rigidly maintained, regardless of the difficult and unpopular short-term choices it entailed. The benefits have been enormous, providing the headroom for the huge, yet sustainable, increases in investment that we are now seeing and, just as important, bestowing upon the government the priceless lustre of economic rectitude and competence. The current spending boost is no simplistic return to ‘old’ or ‘traditional’ Labour. It was always planned to occur in the second half of the government’s first term, so long as the economic context permitted. What is remarkable is how Tony Blair and Gordon Brown together have been able to stick to, and deliver, their first-term economic strategy, through the thick and thin of short-term events.
The second, social pillar underpinning the Government’s strategy is equally focused on the medium to long term. One by one, the unemployed, the low-paid, the poorest families, pensioners and public service workers, have taken their turn in receiving targeted spending increases. Long-term commitments have been made on NHS funding, raising school standards, eradicating child poverty and targeting full employment. Again, this is no sudden change of tack by the government, no ‘return to traditional values’. Investment in improving urban schools, in reskilling the long-term unemployed and in making work pay for the poorest families, sustains the momentum of economic growth, swelling in turn the government’s ability to invest still further in tackling the structural causes of unemployment and poverty. The social values were always there, underpinning ‘the project’ from the start. Both the economic and the social strategies have been long-planned and deep-rooted in the hard lessons Labour learned in the 1970s and 1980s.
But what of the third pillar in the strategy, the political? Does this also display the same disciplined focus on the long term, or is it in danger of being abandoned in response to short-term temptations? From the outset, the distinctive emphasis was on political pluralism. Labour’s big tent was open and endlessly welcoming. Partly, of course, this was the tactical opportunism that any political party engages in to discomfit its opponents. But there were also deeper considerations that went beyond mere tactics and looked instead to the long-term lessons of recent political history.
One of the myths of the 1997 election is that Labour won more because the Tories stayed at home than because people came across to vote Labour. Certainly, the Tory vote collapsed to an unprecedented degree (although still significantly ahead of Labour’s nadir in 1983). In fact, however, Labour attracted 13.5 million votes, a full two million more than in 1992, 3.5 million more than in 1987 and five million more than in 1983. The last time Labour polled even marginally above twelve million was in 1970. Labour cannot take for granted this enormous influx of new votes. This support will, of course, be retained only if the Labour government is a provable success, with real economic and social achievements to point to. But the pluralist political language of the open door and the listening ear is also important in encouraging new voters to stick with Labour over successive elections.
One of the reasons why voter support on this scale has been so rare for Labour has been the twentieth century split of the left-of-centre vote. Hence, the other motivation driving Labour’s political pluralism. Whereas the Conservatives have enjoyed a monopoly of the political right (oscillating comfortably from thirteen to fourteen million votes between 1979 and 1992, for example), Labour has had to share the centre-left vote with the Liberal Democrats and their predecessors, the Liberals and the Social Democratic Party. Together, of course, the Lib-Lab total exceeds the Tory vote and has done so in every year since (and including) 1959. The centre-left margin of victory was one million in 1970, two million in 1979, three million in 1983, almost four million in 1987 and 3.4 million in 1992. Unfortunately, it was the Tories who formed the government after every one of those Lib-Lab ‘victories’. No Labour leader serious about the long-term progressive reconstruction of Britain can ignore the harsh lesson of history. That is why Labour’s political planning has to be every bit as long-term, determined and rigorously sustained as its economic and social strategies.
It is politics, not personal chemistry, that drives the strategy of co-operation. From being equally divided in their second preferences between Labour and Tory in 1992, Liberal Democrats swung heavily towards Labour, preferring it by two to one in 1997. Tactical voting significantly increased the number of seats won for both Labour and the Liberal Democrats. The benefits of co-operation have continued for Labour in government. In Scotland at first, and subsequently in Wales, coalition government has provided long-term political stability for Labour-led administrations. Without the support and involvement of the Liberal Democrats, both administrations would be subject to constant no confidence motions. They would find it impossible to plan ahead and to govern sensibly. Devolution itself would be in danger of being discredited.
By sharing power with the Liberal Democrats, however, the Labour-led administration in Scotland has been able to survive a number of difficult issues that could have proved fatal. These include the reform of higher education funding and the implementation of the Sutherland recommendations on the long-term care of elderly people. The process of reaching a compromise settlement between the two parties has not been pretty. But, once reached, the coalition has been able to move on other issues, confident in the knowledge that it can survive any vote. The tragic death of Donald Dewar was a major blow to the Labour Party in Scotland but it is telling that the coalition has survived, as strong as ever. For young, up and coming ministers, such as Jack McConnell and Wendy Alexander, coalition politics has become as natural and as instinctive as strident confrontation is to Westminster.
At a UK level too, co-operation has proved its value. The joint Lib-Lab cabinet committee has been most successful on international policy, including policy towards UN reform, arms controls and intervention in the Balkans. Where the two parties have failed to see eye to eye, the Liberal Democrats have projected themselves as being the more bold and radical. This, of course, is clever political positioning vis à vis Labour but it also helps to maintain the central divide between the progressive centre-left in British politics and the hard Tory right.
If co-operation has proved so beneficial to both parties, why is it widely reported to be running out of steam? Two factors appear to be at work, one short term and tactical, the latter inherently more difficult to handle. The short-term factor is the need to galvanise and motivate as many activists as possible in the run-up to the election. Many Labour activists understand and support the strategy of co-operation. Indeed, they use it to good effect locally to encourage tactical voting on behalf of their candidates. Other activists are still hostile, however, and they have to be reassured and motivated. Nevertheless, while the outward apparatus of co-operation, such as the joint cabinet committee, is being suspended until after polling day, both Labour and Liberal Democrat strategists know that tacit co-operation on anti-Tory campaigning is still the most effective way to maximise their return of seats on any share of the vote. There may be a respectable distance established between Labour and the Liberal Democrats over the election period but it will benefit neither to engage in open hostility.
Much more difficult is the second factor, how to handle electoral reform. For the Liberal Democrats, a strategy of co-operation is only credible if they can point to continued progress on voting reform, leading, ultimately, to the Holy Grail of proportional representation at Westminster. The Labour Party, however, is divided on the issue, from the cabinet down to rank and file activists. Clearly, the Labour government cannot advance as fast as many Liberal Democrats would wish.
This is a problem to be managed. It need not, and it should not, lead to the dilution of co-operation, far less to its termination. In fact, the period since 1997 has seen remarkable progress on voting reform accompanied by a great deal of practical inter-party co-operation on this very issue. New voting systems have been used in successive elections for Scotland, Wales, Europe and London. In no case did the issue of voting reform lead to a breach in the Lib-Lab relationship or to a split in Labour’s ranks. On the contrary. In Scotland, the co-operation forged between the two parties while in opposition, working on the details of devolution, including a new voting system, has been invaluable in maintaining the stability of the coalition in government. It has gone largely unremarked because of the very smoothness of this reform, yet a quiet revolution is already occurring in Britain’s voting habits.
Undoubtedly, the next phase will be much more difficult. Other than the low profile European parliament, only new institutions have been involved thus far. The next wave of voting reform, however, will lap against traditional party citadels in local government and at Westminster. The pace may have to slow a little if progress is to be maintained. It is likely that voting reform for local government will be addressed ahead of Westminster, in which case all that will be required in Labour’s election manifesto will be a reiteration of the 1997 commitment. It is also probable that voting reform in local government will happen first in Scotland, ahead of England and Wales. The Mackintosh Commission, which reported last year, has placed the issue high on the agenda for the Scottish executive. The recent vote by Unison in Scotland, to push for PR in local government, is a major breakthrough and signals that the mood among ordinary Labour members is not as tribalist or conservative as often portrayed. From the point of view of the Liberal Democrats, real movement and progress on voting reform in local government over the next four years, in Scotland and elsewhere, would be a major prize, well worth the price of co-operation.
Electoral reform, in other words, although fraught with difficulties, need not be the barrier to continued cooperation that some imagine. Over time, indeed, it could well prove a bond between Labour and Liberal Democrat activists at a local level.
Meanwhile, hard logic continues to underpin Lib-Lab co-operation to mobilise the anti-Tory majority to the two parties’ mutual advantage. The Liberal Democrats know that they will never replace Labour as the major progressive force in Britain, and Labour realises that the Liberal Democrats have established, since the early 1970s, a solid beachhead of between four and six million votes from which they will not be easily dislodged. They both recognise the main enemy to be a hard right Tory Party in Westminster and dangerous separatists in Scotland and Wales. Hence, they must co-operate. Happily, the electoral convergence of interest is matched by a political and philosophical convergence of values. As Blair has pointed out, the pantheon of modern progressive heroes, Bevan and Attlee, Beveridge and Keynes, is common to Labour and the Liberal Democrats. On a wide range of domestic and international issues they are travelling in the same direction, even if occasionally by varying routes.
In the first half of the next parliament, moreover, the dominating issue will be the referendum on the euro. Here, the Lib-Lab identity of interest is complete. The two parties cannot afford any dilution or confusion of their joint message to the voters in a referendum. Their campaign will have to be bold, clear and co-ordinated. That will not happen by happy accident but by scrupulous planning. Preparation must commence the day after the general election.