There is a well established narrative that New Labour lost the working classes progressively throughout 13 years of government. And in 2010 it lost even more skilled and unskilled C2, D and E working class voters. Given that these groups are Labour’s traditional ‘core’, it is clear that Labour has deserted it roots and that only a recalibration back in their favour can win them back. Sound plausible? The only problem is that this ‘betrayal’ analysis is highly flawed.
Demos Open Left commissioned YouGov to undertake a 45,000 respondent poll to begin to understand – in fundamental terms – what was underlying the election outcome. The poll has enabled us to compare the values and outlook of Labour loyalists – those that stuck with Labour from 2005 – and the voters Labour lost from 2005. When we looked at the issues that divide these two groups a very different picture to the ‘betrayal’ narrative emerges.
C2, D and E voters, whom Labour lost disproportionately in the election, seem to have a very different outlook in many key respects to what you may expect from Labour’s traditional ‘core’, should such a thing still exist. They are different to the extent that any ‘back to traditional base’ or ‘core vote’ strategy looks extremely suspect.
Take the Labour government’s defence of services against spending cuts – it seems that it was falling on deaf ears. When it came to the NHS, 33 per cent of loyal Labour voters thought that the priority was to ‘avoid cuts’. Of the voters that Labour lost, that proportion was only 13 per cent. And 55 per cent of the ‘lost’ vote thought that the priority was actually to ‘seek greater efficiency and end top-down control.’ 31 per cent of ‘loyal’ Labour voters thought the same. Government spending had reached or even breached acceptable limits for Labour’s lost voters.
This is echoed in the degree of scepticism towards the state amongst Labour’s ‘lost’ voters. 54 per cent of Labour ‘loyalists’ consider government to be ‘a force for good’ improving their lives and the lives of their family. Only 33 per cent of Labour deserters are of the same view. 27 per cent of the same group see government as ‘part of the problem not the solution.’ By a margin of only 6 per cent, Labour’s ‘lost’ voters see government as a force for good. This doesn’t seem to be a cacophonous cry for a return to ‘real’ Labour or tax and spend.
Labour’s renewal will need rather more imagination than that. The ‘safe house’ shelter from the coalition brutality strategy is appealing but misguided. Even if any ‘safe house’ would do, underlying scepticism would mean that the successes of such a strategy would be short-lived.
All of this suggests some of the context and themes of Labour’s next renewal. It does not determine its precise form. There is room for competing visions of the purpose of the modern state, the limits of the market, and the expansion of civil society and the limits on political imagination are fewer than Labour sometimes pretended in its recent history.
Nonetheless, if Labour is to be seen as a party of the future once more then it must ask searching questions about both the market and the state. As a corollary, that would mean a new discussion about the possibilities provided by a more active civil society. The notion that people are now willing to be simply passive recipients of nationally administered, standardised services feels increasingly anachronistic.
An extended period in government becomes rather like a cave existence. Like chained men in Plato’s Allegory of the Cave freed to see the world in the light and without walls, Labour’s leaders now have the chance to interpret the world afresh. If they reach for the easy answers they will fail. If they start where people are and craft a vision and story of a different future then they may succeed. But the exercise starts with where people actually are; not where Labour assumes or wants to think that they are.
The reasons people give for not voting are not necessarily what actually motivated them. This is particularly true when they are “fed” reasons in a multiple-choice-type way – I can’t believe the majority on the doorstep would use the words “seek greater efficiency and end top-down control” unless they were guided that way. It is up to us to create the political dynamics, not just to respond to them. We need to make sure we are not advocating policies that discriminate against C2/D/E electors, and so our positions on benefits and taxes need to be re-visited. But I didn’t join the Labour Party in order to take part in the dismantlement of public services – if that’s what Anthony Painter wants to do, I don’t think he should be in the same Party as me!
Where people are is not necessarily the place where they should be. By all means start from where people are but the trick is to persuade them to take a different path if you see it that way while taking full account of how they see things at that point in time.
So I did not vote labour because of the welfare reforms or being called work shy, it was what something else, no it was not. The 20 billion savings from the NHS that was not cuts, the 100.000 job loses Brown stated were needed then after he got rid of half of them he had to re employ them because unemployment went through the roof. Do you not think people sitting at home watching the housing bubble explode saying we could see this a year ago, while Labour came out with worlds like finding it’s own level. How the hell did a government thats supposed to run a country not see the banking mess. I did not vote Labour at the last election after 46 years in the party simple you forgot about the poorest and you chased the middle class middle England swing voter, they became your main interest. No thanks, no more
One must also bear in mind that the public had 13 years of Labour ministers and prime ministers attacking the public sector and constantly talking about reform. Changing our tune in the two months before the election was hardly likely to undo the damage of this. Shame, as public services in the UK are now at a high water mark in terms of quality which may never be matched again.
Polls, doncha just love ’em? Year after year in the Eighties concern for the NHS topped every poll and election after election Thatcher was returned to power after publicly demolishing the Service. What is this person saying: that more government should be handed to the people, mechanisms should be employed that allow as many as possible to be involved in decisionmaking or what? I’ll say again, that no matter what you do and no matter how you do it when something goes awry the first thing you hear is “What’s the Government doing about it?” What mechanism can we employ to deal with that? Think tanks: “Life, Jim, but not as we know it.”
How strange that views such as “seeking greater efficiencies”, “ending top-down control” and “seeing the government as part of the problem, not the solution” exactly coincide with Tory Election propaganda statements, which were loyally promoted in much of the media. Perhaps the numbers of ‘deserters’, as you put it, were more prone to media persuasion than the ‘loyalists’ and perhaps the most important role for the Party and the next leader is to be far more effective in countering the gerrymandering of our political opponents. Even you, Anthony, have been duped into accepting this Con-Lib mantra: “The notion that people are now willing to be passive recipients of nationally administered, standardised services feels increasingly anachronistic.” David (as in Cameron)would be proud of that line! Sounds like you’ve turned into a sheep, Anthony. BAH! BAH!
Yes – since when was Labour’s policy on public services that they should be standardised and top down?