A civil servant friend suggested to me that the coalition will last either five weeks or five years. If the fault lines had been deep, and the agreement flaky, then the coalition would collapse under the weight of its own contradictions. But yesterday’s five year plan, remarkably free from targets for wheat harvests and tractor production, represents a robust programme for government. Cameron and Clegg have each squared their own parties, both in the country and in parliament. The media is signed up, with the exception of the Mirror. They remind me of the little corner of Gaul holding out against the Roman Empire in the Asterix cartoons.
The public is giving ministers the benefit of the doubt. There is enough material in the agreement to propel the government forward with enough momentum to keep things interesting. The nature of the coalition has allowed each leader to lock away their loony fringes, and hide any embarrassing policies in the attic.
I’m as guilty of wishful thinking as anyone. I’d love the coalition to collapse, and for a grateful public to re-elect a new Labour government in a wave of repentance. I’d love to see Labour ministers back in Whitehall, reforming public services, building new hospitals, and improving exam results. But with each passing day, it is clearer that it isn’t going to happen. There is every chance that the coalition will continue until May 7 2015, and I’m afraid, dear friends, that it may win the general election on that date and serve for another term. Britain 2020 may still be living with a coalition government. All those bright young Labour MPs we elected a fortnight ago will be spending the best years of their political lives in the pointlessness of powerlessness. The Labour party is like the husband whose wife has left him: waiting at home thinking ‘she’ll be back’, as the dishes mount up in the sink, and the shirts remain unwashed. Face it. The voters aren’t coming back.
Our leader Harriet Harman has put together a shadow team, built on the cabinet that Brown appointed in his last reshuffle. Some, such as Straw and Darling, have said theirs is a temporary role. Others, such as Mandelson and Adonis, have resigned from frontbench responsibilities. As a temporary fix, it works fine. We can man-mark the coalition ministers with senior figures who know their policy areas. But the first act of a serious opposition is to select a new team. The shadow cabinet elections in the autumn will allow MPs to choose their preferred squad. The new team captain gets to allocate portfolios. I hope that the shadow cabinet is not full of golden oldies. There are plenty of new Labour MPs more than capable of a shadow ministerial role: Rachel Reeves, John Woodcock, Emma Reynolds, Liz Kendall, Kate Green, and Jonathon Reynolds, for starters. There are also retreads such as Chris Leslie and Stephen Twigg with ministerial experience. And people such as Jon Cruddas and John Cryer who didn’t serve as ministers, but should now join the opposition frontbench. The new times demand a fresh team.
Then we need to choose our ground carefully. There are aspects of the coalition agreement – such as recall of MPs and reform of the Lords – which were in Labour’s manifesto. On issues where we broadly agree, Labour should make a virtue of supporting legislation. The public always says it prefers politicians working together rather than throwing brickbats. Let’s see. We need to take a big strategic decision on the cuts. We can enter into a sober spirit of national responsibility, and sign up to the age of austerity. Or we can chain ourselves to the railings of every local service the coalition seeks to close. The latter path is tempting, and more fun. No Labour MP will want to meekly accept Tory/Liberal Democrat cuts to services in their constituency. But I think it needs to be calibrated (by people above my pay-grade) so that we don’t end up on the picket lines with the SWP shouting ‘they say cut back, we say fight back’.
At the moment, the Labour party is like a cartoon character who’s just run over a cliff, but remains suspended in mid-air. Soon we will land with a bump. But once we’ve dusted ourselves down, the long march back to government can begin.
The Office of National Statistics has just announced that the deficit has been revised down from £163BN TO £156BN – earlier this year it was revised down from £167BN to £163BN. We argued that the diference between the main parties was about cutting £6BN immediately whilst all parties advocated a draconian cuts programme to at least halve the deficit over the lifetime of the current parliament. It appears that the £6BN we argued about is statisically a very modest amount. Voters will notice this and our continuing to dramatise the effect of £6BN of cuts will only undermine our credibility as an opposition. We should either decide that these immediate cuts of £6BN is something we can live with or we decide that the burden of paying down the deficit is something that should be primarily funded by Tax rises. This should be the essential argument our leadership candidates should be having with the party and the country at large.
Labour needs to counteract the narrative that has build up recently – that the banking crisis was a sideshow and the real problem was profligate spending on public services. And also that ‘what the market thinks’ is all-important: http://etonmess.blogspot.com/2010/05/we-have-angered-him-again.html
I agree with the general thrust of Paul’s article, but can we move away from seeing our future as only safe in the hands of former SPADs (Woodcock, Kendall, Renolds & Reynolds). They are all good people but with all of the main leadership candidates themselves ex SPADs, we run the risk of appearing only open to be led by a small clique.
Perhaps we could look at who within the new intake has local authority experience – including time in opposition groups.