2010 is indeed the second worst defeat in Labour’s history. Described by David Cowling in the paper as ‘a dismantling of the 1997 triumph’ it produced an almost total wipeout in southern England and result of clinging on in much of the Midlands – while in the east, as Liam Byrne has said, it’s possible to travel from Edmonton in north London up to Grimsby without meeting a single Labour constituency.
The research has been produced in timely fashion for the new leadership, the shifting sands of public opinion revealed to us in this concise and precise document which indeed ‘tells it as it is’. It is indeed Southern Discomfort Again.
Although the result bears similarities to 1992, the emerging reasons for the defeat have much altered. Whereas in 1997, aspiration was the watchword for this electoral cohort which translated into electoral success, in 2010 this has morphed into an overwhelming sense of insecurity which has driven voters away from the party in their thousands – though with notably little enthusiasm for either of the other 2 options. Nor is this a simple insecurity of the moment, but statedly for the life chances of their children, and for their own retirement.
While the party lost support across all social groups, in particular, the C1 C2 response graphically illustrates that these key voters who abandoned Labour in droves did so for very specific reasons – not simply in search of a change. With an income of £18 – 30k, they perceive themselves to have given their all and received little or nothing in return. Meanwhile £23.5 billion of fiscal gains largely went straight back into business or the Exchequer instead of proportionally into these voters’ pay packets. Specifically these key voters saw Labour’s policies as being unfair – and unfortunately the Labour election machine failed to demonstrate any contrary argument without seeming accusatory or critical of ‘Mondeo Man-Worcester Woman’, who essentially felt betrayed by the party they opted for in the three previous elections. In 2010, with so much of which to be proud, Labour serially failed to explain in the necessary clear and accessible terms our laudable raft of achievements since we inherited three year NHS waiting lists, decrepit school buildings and shared text books, acres of destitute brownfield sites, poor children’s services and a cardboard city beneath Waterloo Bridge.
As the Radice paper points out, this is also a new generation of voters – not simply in terms of age, but in terms of memory and perception. Thirteen years is a long time in terms of electorate recall and in an age when the voting public is swayed by short media soundbites rather than by received knowledge of the privations of the Thatcher and Major years the much improved standards of public service were barely acknowledged.
As Peter Kellner said, speaking of the research at YouGov: ‘The great tragedy is that voters who recognised their services improved, believed they did so in spite of, not because of, the Labour government. Labour failed to tell a story of social democracy on the march and achieving things’.
Labour is evidently no longer seen as the party of fairness, the party of economic expertise or the party of fiscal skill. A huge loss. Those voters who are essential to any electoral victory have come to view Labour as the party who favoured only bankers, benefit claimants and immigrants (a disparate mix!). At the same time, voters also harked back to the notion that Labour is essentially a tool of the unions. Thus they identify Labour as alien to their hopes and aspirations.
Labour lost sight of the breadth of our target audience ie. the majority, and failed to understand the national mood. Combine this with a generally reprehensible view of politicians, and the hung result was inevitable.
Moving onto the solutions, Sunder Katwala has stressed the need to identify the nature of the political economy of the future. Given the stated importance of fairness – this needs to be clearly defined (as Liam Byrne said, Cameron has yet to do so).Everyone supported the need to acknowledge cultural changes and the way voters feel – which is often based upon subjective local judgements rather than national fact. Voter knowledge needs to be secured. Given the increasing bias of the press, increasingly taking workers to the right, then the facts need to be clearly spelled out, but not in a vitriolic way. A careful assessment of globalisation anxiety and immigration as a perceived threat must be properly managed as an opportunity.
Deborah Mattinson, also from the original 1992 team, recommended a careful nurturing of connections with the public and the encouragement to recruit more politicians from voter friendly backgrounds to help to minimise the tension between different value systems. We must sell what we do well, clearly describe our values and policies, ask voters what’s important to them now and in the future. Listen, and do all of the above using accessible language
As Liam Byrne explained, if Labour does not focus on the pressing need to bring about a cohesive critical mass of understanding and opinion, by bringing together both the right and the left of the party in a common collective of ‘civic purpose’ where tax and spend combined with investment and growth are clearly outlined as being for the greater good, then we will be at grave risk of a fragmentation of the electorate which we have already seen taking place in the US, Holland and latterly Sweden. If good sense becomes subsumed by alarmist reactions to ever increasing extremes, then the key marginals that make all the difference to a favourable result will be lost to Labour forever. Region will become separated from region and as Rupa Haq so clearly expressed, suburb further alienated from city.
Neither a scattergun nor a generalised approach is going to work. Careful planning is required. Liam Byrne stressed that we must turn around the ‘crack in the bedrock of our voting tradition’ by revisiting the exemplar constituencies where the vote was doubled, not by chance or random changes, but through considered listening, strategic endeavour and clear passion. I believe we should also examine the recent by-election wins in Exeter and Norwich which indicate that there really is a means to turn the tide with a specific locality approach to electioneering. With this in view, the Movement for Change model offers us a vital component in the necessary civic turnaround.
Retaining the best from New Labour but also looking to a very different world that 1997 presented, we must address the conundrums of globalisation and immigration, high rate tax, university fees and housing issues with a clear vision. We need to prove the worth of the public sector in direct relation to taxation. At a time when there is an increasing tension between ever more complex value systems, we need to work together across the party to encourage the widest sweep of inclusion by means of promoting clear values which evolve into coherent and relevant policies which provide real solutions for thousands of disaffected voters. This must be our 2015 target.
Please see Southern Discomfort Again by Patrick Diamond and Giles Radice
hear hear !
Policy Network welcomes further responses following Monday’s presentation and debate ~
I totally agree that we lost the plot at the last election but had done so years before! We completely failed to tell the voters what we had done and how we had transformed Britain in the previous thirteen years. During the first government after 1997, we published lists of Labour’s achievements, in the first 100 days, then the first year etc. At the last election I couldn’t even find such a list let alone hear our candidates talk about them. We should be proud of what we achieved and shout it from the rooftops. Now we need to have in place policies that we use to measure Cameron’s failures against rather than just crying foul from the touchlines, in this way voters will know what we stand for.
Well done on this article Jos, hope you write again.