The next general election can yet be won. No one underestimates the challenges, but the one sure way to lose would be to give up now.
This time last year, I was one of the Labour MPs calling for a leadership contest. At that time, I argued that a contest would either produce a new leader (and prime minister) with a chance of winning back public support, or enable Gordon Brown to set out his stall and renew his and our party’s standing. With hindsight, there should have been a leadership contest following Tony Blair’s announcement of his departure.
In my view, many of the problems Gordon has encountered about his personal standing could have been more readily overcome had he been elected as party leader in a contest. However, we have to deal with the situation we are now in.
A lot has changed since last summer. We have had a run of difficult domestic problems and disastrous European and local elections earlier this year.
But the moment when a leadership contest might have helped has passed. I do not believe that there is any enthusiasm in the party – despite the parlous state of our standing with the electorate – for a change of leader. Apart from periodic anonymous briefing from unnamed cabinet ministers to the media, I have seen no evidence of a cabinet determination to overthrow the prime minister. In any event, with a general election only a matter of months away, expecting a new leader to change the political weather would be a pretty tall order. Moreover, pressure for an even earlier general election would be very intense and, possibly, irresistible.
We have also had a world financial crisis, and had we followed the Tories’ prescription the recession would have been far deeper, and far longer. By contrast, Gordon Brown did indeed catalyse world leaders into action.
George Osborne opposed ’Labour plans to pump cash into the economy. In the event, the entire Western world agreed to do precisely that. He implied that he was against, or at least sceptical about, the Bank of England’s quantitative easing policy, which is increasingly felt to have helped Britain avoid a harsher recession. Both episodes, in the eyes of key City figures, showed economic naivety and political opportunism.’ Not my words, but those from the Tories’ house rag – The Telegraph’s editor, Edmund Conway.
We need to rediscover the energy and vision we demonstrated as the financial crisis began. The actions the government implemented then worked, and it is no mere coincidence that Labour and Gordon’s poll ratings rose as a result.
And there are good reasons to believe that the next election can still be won. All Labour supporters wish the current polls were more positive, but a close reading shows some reasons for hope.
First, the Conservatives’ poll lead is much more comparable to Labour before the ‘92 election rather than that of ’97. And there remain places where Cameron’s appeal does not seem to reach – key swathes of the north for example. This needs to be considered in the context of the huge electoral mountain that the Conservatives face – they would need to exceed their biggest post-war swing so far (5.29% in ‘79) to win a majority.
Second, there is an often published but rarely reported opinion poll question that is worth considering. As well as asking about voting intentions if there were a general election tomorrow, many opinion polls also ask a question along the lines of ’which party do you most identify with?’ Most polls still show a consistent, though gradually diminishing, lead for Labour, and for progressive parties.
Third, though Labour’s support on most policy areas now lags worryingly behind the Tories, ask people about specific experience of the successful implementation of policy and you get a different result. It is no coincidence that the demographic groups most likely to trust Labour on health are those most likely to have recent experience of the NHS. The political challenge is to remind people that improvements over the past decade did not happen by accident. Labour policies revived public services and were largely opposed tooth and nail by the Tories.
This is the reason behind Cameron and Osborne desperately positioning the Tories as the new progressives – they know this is where the election will be won.
Taken together, this suggests that while the public may have fallen out of love with Labour, they are not yet in love with the Conservatives. To extend the metaphor, we still have a chance to kiss and make up.
And we should remember that politics is not just about power, polls and party preference: it is also, importantly, about principles and policy.
Labour’s present problems can be overcome by boldly asserting our principles and, into the bargain, highlighting the big difference that still exists between progressive politics, as represented by Labour, and the Tory party which – despite the efforts of David Cameron and George Osborne to demonstrate newly-minted progressive credentials – remains the bleak voice of gloom, doom and despair about the positive role government and communities can play in promoting change and progress.
After 12 years in power, it is hard to sustain the momentum and enthusiasm needed to win another general election. But not impossible. The key to doing so is to demonstrate through our principles and policies that Labour is in tune with the decent and progressive instincts of the British people in a way that the Tories can never be.
The leadership was yesterday’s question. The challenge for tomorrow is to regain our self-belief and win back the public’s wavering trust.