Just how out-of-touch are the siren voices attempting to lure Labour from the centre ground and on to the rocks of electoral defeat? Very, according to a new Populus survey published last month. It asked voters to place both themselves and the three main political parties on a left-right scale ranging from one to 10. Overall, the average voter places themselves just right of centre at 5.35 – and just 0.03 away from where most of those surveyed placed the Labour party at 5.32. By contrast, the survey finds most voters placing the Tories well to the right of Labour, with the Liberal Democrats seen as being sharply to the left.
As might be expected, the poll also suggests that young people aged 18 to 24 place themselves well to the left of those aged 65+ (who, in turn, still place themselves to the left of where most voters put the Tories). The results of the general election were also reflected in the gender split: men placing themselves to the right of where most women were to be found. However, professionals – among whom the Tories had a lead on general election day – see themselves as markedly more left wing than unskilled workers do, despite Labour convincingly carrying this group in May.
Labour’s appeal to the centre is underlined by another of the survey’s findings: while Labour voters place themselves slightly to the right of centre (at 5.19), they place the party itself much further to the right (ay 5.97). However, floating voters see Labour as being much closer to the centre at 5.24 – just 0.14 from where they placed themselves.
Those who believe that all Labour’s problems would be solved by a return to the halcyon days of 1983 might make good headlines. But please, someone, keep them away from the political strategy.
Havana clue
America’s support for democracy and human rights in central America has been, to put it mildly, somewhat patchy. It is not surprising, therefore, that its longstanding opposition to Fidel Castro’s regime in Cuba is regarded sceptically by many. But, as David Tinline, Labour’s parliamentary candidate in Montgomeryshire, argues in an excellent analysis for the New Statesman, for some on the British left, that scepticism translates all too easily into an embrace of the Cuban dictator.
Tinline, a sometime contributor to Progress, details Castro’s ‘repressive machinery’: this summer, 50 non-violent dissidents were arrested by a regime which has a ‘long record of subjecting its enemies to torture, sexual abuse, forced re-education and even the death penalty’. Even some of those found possessing a copy of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, to which Cuba is a signatory, have been found guilty of ‘enemy propoganda’. And it is not only political opponents of the regime who can expect a rough ride: gay Cubans have long been victims of persecution, forcing many to attempt the hazardous 90-mile crossing to the US.
As Tinline sensibly argues: ‘The problem is not just that the nature of the Castro regime is ignored (we take the same approach to many other foreign governments). Rather it is that Cuba is idealised – and Castro idolised.’ In 2003, for instance, the TUC passed a unanimous resolution opposing any diplomatic action against Cuba, despite a purge that year in which 75 activists, mainly independent journalists, librarians and artists, were imprisoned. And, as Tinline pointedly remarks of the presence of the Cuba Solidarity Campaign at this year’s Labour party conference: ‘It is hard to imagine that supporters of any other dictators would be [so] welcomed.’
Those on the left who justify their ‘solidarity’ with Cuba by citing the prominent role of conservative US politicians in the anti-Castro movement, are now likely to find that excuse beginning to wear a little thin. In 2003, the former Czech dissident-turned-president, Vaclav Havel, founded the International Committee for Democracy in Cuba. This summer, he, along with colleagues from Europe’s new democracies, have been calling on British MPs to back their campaign. Havel versus Castro. It shouldn’t be difficult for the left to decide whose side we are on.
Out of proportion
Could it happen here? The stalemate following the German election may appear the natural upshot of PR and impossible under Britain’s first-past-the-post system. Not so, according to Peter Riddell, the Times’ political commentator. Superficially, this year’s elections in Britain and Germany point to the traditional view of the contrast between winner-takes-all and PR systems. In May, Labour polled almost exactly the same share of the vote – 36 per cent – as Angela Merkel’s CDU/CSU won in Germany in September. But while Labour managed a majority of 66 – 55 per cent of the House of Commons’ seats – Merkel’s party won only 36 per cent of the Bundestag seats.
However, on nearly a third of occasions over the past century, Britain’s voting system has produced either wafer-thin majorities or hung parliaments: think 1951, 1964, the two 1974 elections and 1992. A combination of factors could conceivably conspire to reduce, or wipe out, Labour’s majority at the next election. Even on the current constituency boundaries, a uniform swing of just 1.5 per cent from Labour to the Tories would give both parties an identical share of the vote and Labour a majority of just 22 (almost identical to John Major’s 1992 majority). Add to this, however, the fact that the constituency boundaries will be redrawn before the next election, handing the Tories another 14 seats, and that Labour holds 43 ‘super marginals’ with majorities which would disappear on a swing of just 2.5 per cent.
The opponents of PR might attempt to scare off proponents of reform with the unappetising prospect of the Lib Dems getting their hands on a couple of ministerial cars, but the much-vaunted first-past-the-post could just produce exactly the same result.
Ghetto-blaster
The aftermath of both 7/7 and Hurricane Katrina provoked much soul-searching about whether Britain is becoming a more racially segregated society. The Times, for instance, claimed that the country was ‘sleepwalking to segregation’, a warning that was also sounded by Trevor Phillips, chair of the Commission for Racial Equality and a patron of Progress (see page 10).
The notion that Britain is becoming more racially segregated has, however, been challenged by academics. Writing in the Observer, Danny Dorling, professor of human geography at the University of Sheffield, suggests that it is segregation on the basis of wealth, not race, which is growing. In fact, he contends, racial segregation fell between 1991 and 2001, and it fell fastest for people of black and ‘other Asian’ origin. And what of the notion that Britain is going down the American path of ‘ghettoisation’ and ‘minority-majority’ areas? Put simply, argues Dorling, ‘there are no ghettos, no neighbourhoods where a single ethnic minority group is in the majority.’
But, even if there are no ghettos, forms of racial segregation do indeed exist in Britain. In some areas, African-Caribbean boys are up to 15 times more likely to be excluded from school than are white boys, and up to 12 times more likely to find themselves in prison. Thus the country is segregating young black men out of its schools and into its prisons.
The nexus between race, poverty and housing does, however, produce another form of segregation, argues Dorling: ‘Cut Britain up horizontally rather than by neighbourhood, and you do find minority-majority areas. For example, above the fifth floor of all housing in England and Wales a minority of children are white. Most children growing up in the tower blocks of London and Birmingham – the majority of children ‘living in the sky’ in Britain – are black.’