Is Pilgrim alone in thinking that Labour’s current travails are merely the hand-to-hand combat that all governments face? To read the hysterical tone of the newspapers, you’d think we were in the midst of a British Watergate. The government has done nothing unconstitutional or illegal, is still firmly supported in the opinion polls, and has a huge majority in parliament.
So what is all the fuss about? There are three factors coalescing that are transforming the political scene. The first is that the media is bored with Labour being in government. Like children, when journalists get bored they become a noisy nuisance. So today’s lobby correspondents are pursuing a narrative that Labour is in crisis, that Blair’s position is wobbly, and that the government could falter at any moment. All nonsense, but it makes for good copy.
A bizarre alliance has formed between leftwing and rightwing journalists to spew the same bile. Anne Lesley and Gary Younge, Peter Hitchens and Jeremy Hardy, all find themselves in the same camp – a sort of journalistic non-aggression pact. And every bit as cynical as Hitler and Stalin’s.
The second factor is that some semblance of parliamentary democracy is returning. Iain Duncan Smith is as bad as ever. But his shadow ministerial team are starting to land punches, and not just on each other. Liam Fox, David Davis, Theresa May – these people are not entirely without talent. Labour’s frontbenchers must sharpen up their acts in coming months: the opposition will be fierce in front of them as well as from behind them.
The third factor is a change in the national mood. The public have fallen out of love with the government. Labour is no longer lively and fresh, it is business-like and battle-scarred. Excitement
has given way to efficiency. The longest-serving government is
also the one that has been through the most troubles.
So do these three factors mean that Labour is doomed? Journalistic hysteria can be dismissed. The same old hacks who
didn’t like us in 1997 don’t like us now. No surprise there. The difference is that now they have something – Iraq, foundation hospitals, tuition fees – to bash us with. The rightwing press is no great threat, it’s just annoying. The so-called leftwing press is more insidious because it pretends to be your friend while stabbing you in the back.
The Guardian – staffed with trotskyists and malcontents – is the biggest traitor to Labour’s cause. It was hilarious to hear the Guardian’s Michael White on the Today programme in August. Accused of working for a Labour-supporting newspaper, White exploded with outrage, and went to great pains to explain how the Guardian did not support the Labour government. So now we know (if we hadn’t already guessed after years of vitriol).
And what of the Tories’ revival? As democrats we should welcome a properly functioning parliamentary system, with governments subject to scrutiny by oppositions. So what if the
Tories pick up a few opinion poll points? It might help remind some of Labour’s critics of the terrible alternative.
Much more serious and worrying is the collapse of trust in
the Labour government. But even that should be viewed against
a broader canvas of the collapse of deference in society as a whole. We live in a post-trust age. Nobody trusts anybody – not your neighbours, not the police, not the media, and certainly not
the government.
If Labour isn’t trusted, can we be elected? Of course. Because when people vote, they hold their noses and vote for the party that is least likely to damage their interests, and most likely to help them and their families. Some may have fallen out with us on specific issues, but they will still vote for their hard-working and likeable local Labour MP, for the party that is spending record amounts on schools and hospitals, and the government that can best run the economy.
Ten years after James Carville pinned his famous sign on the wall of Bill Clinton’s campaign HQ, it’s still the economy, stupid.
