A little remarked-upon moment of the leadership campaign was the revelation that amongst the pool of donors to Ed Miliband was one time leader and bête noire of the Australian Labor party, Mark Latham.
For advice, Ed may want to take a closer look at Latham’s one-time parliamentary nemesis and leader of the Australian Liberal party, Tony Abbott. The extraordinary success of Abbott in the last federal election has been one of the most surprising developments in the last few years of Australian politics, which is never short of a surprise. The ascendency of a man who started so far on the rightwing fringe of his party he was dubbed Captain Catholic deserves some closer scrutiny by those genuinely interested in a Labour victory in 2015.
There’s nothing wrong with the party that victory wouldn’t fix
Immediately following their loss the Australian Liberal party fell into a protracted round of internal warfare. Free of the responsibilities of government, long-time foes found themselves free to indulge their inner toddler and commenced the usual round of backstabbings, media briefings and the general unpleasantness of a rabble. Consequently the party began to slide in the polls towards the dangerous point of irrelevance.
Almost alone among his colleagues Abbott was the first to really take heed of the fact that this is what new oppositions usually do and the only remedy is to regain public credibility and embrace the role of opposition. His strident and calculated attacks on the Labour government brought with them some much-needed relief in the polls and ended the internal haemorrhage of his troops.
The good news for Ed is that he probably doesn’t need to worry about internal divisions. So long as he can achieve some relief in his polling, jump on any opportunity to savage the government no matter how small the result and score a few victories in the 2011 elections then internal rifts will probably close themselves. Seeing a leader out there scoring a few victories also has a powerful impact on members’ morale which delivers the apparatus Labour needs to win.
It doesn’t matter how you got there, you’re there now
Selecting a leader of a political party in Australia is an order of magnitude simpler. Whoever carries 50 per cent + 1 of the parliamentary caucus becomes the leader. The election of Tony Abbott by the Liberal caucus was as close as it gets. He defeated the moderate incumbent Malcolm Turnbull by one vote. The fact that he took on the leadership of a party divided over questions of policy by a margin that is hardly an imposing mandate may sound familiar to Ed.
Ed ought to consider what Tony did next. Tony did not seek unity, he insisted on it. He came down hard on internal critics and did not respond to media speculation on his right to run the party. He assiduously placated lieutenants of the previous leader and turned them out in force for the media to attest to his leadership. He emerged from the initial fracas of his victory looking stronger and more serious for his show of discipline.
Ed needs the support of the whole party for the party to win; this is something he may well have to insist on. Key individuals who supported other candidates must be placated, and in return expected to aggressively support the leader in their public appearances.
Don’t be afraid to do something from the past just because of a minor thing like an election defeat
Three words have been known to truly terrify an Australian Labor true believer: John Winston Howard. He was our deadliest adversary, wily as a fox, relentless in his attacks and virtually impossible to pin down. To survive Howard, you didn’t so much have to get up early as sleep with one eye open. Howard lost for the same reason he so often won, he just refused not to be prime minister. It caused him to stay too long and he could not escape the fact that he just seemed too old, an unfair but common objection of Australian voters. His loss, however, must be seen in context: this was his fifth tilt at the job. No-one who leads their party to four election victories in a row should be ignored.
At first this is exactly what the new Liberal opposition did. They elected an anti-Howard in the moderate Malcolm Turnbull and set about to create a ‘new’ type of politics, which equated to running as fast as possible from their legacy in government. Tony Abbott saw the folly of this. Running from a governing strategy that won your party four elections on the hop is not only mad, it’s negligent.
In choosing to retool and update the Howard playbook rather than trashing it, Abbott wrongfooted Labor, took down a prime minister in rather spectacular fashion, reinvigorated his party and put it within striking distance of the government in less than a year. Renewal wasn’t something he set out to achieve, it was the logical consequence of using a tried and tested set of tactics to strengthen his message and invigorate the party base.
The parallels to New Labour could not possibly be starker. New Labour won a record three elections on the trot. It has its deficiencies, but these can be addressed without throwing out the lessons it taught. Ed doesn’t need a new approach to politics. He needs to take some time to seriously engage with the New Labour agenda and seek to reinvigorate it in a way consistent with the tactics that were so wildly successful in the past. Run from your losses and you run from your victories also.
British Labour is in far better shape than the Australian Liberal party was after its election defeat. A strident performance from Ed, a couple of well publicised victories and a willingness to learn from the successes of New Labour would give us a real optimism for victory in 2015.
Samuel, interesting piece. What your argument has to contend with, as I see it, is that Abbott only got as close as he did because of a series of political and administrative disasters that resulted in Labor ditching its own PM. The other issue with the Abbott model was that Abbott only had to run (as it turned out) a half-year campaign. Miliband could well have 4 years to go, over the course of which the wrecker role Abbott played is unlikely to remain credible.
Stephen. I think you’re second point is absolutely correct. Abbott was indeed very fortunate to step into his leadership while the stars were correctly aligned for his party to prosper, and a short election campaign clearly suited the man well. However, I think many were surprised that he was able to capitalise on the opportunities presented to him and were certainly very surprised at his hitherto unseen capacity for discipline and nuanced tactical campaigning. Could he keep it up for four years without returning to his past form? Hard to say, but I suspect you’re right. Opposition leader is often described as the worst job in politics and Tony isn’t well known for his long game, but he’s already surprised us, so I’d be cautious of counting him out. On your first point there is clearly no question that the knifing of Rudd didn’t help the Labor cause, but it doesn’t necessarily follow that his remaining in place would have produced a better outcome, as hard as that is to say. In an ideal world he wouldn’t have been torn down because the Government was traveling so well it wouldn’t have occurred to the caucus to do so. That said, what brought the Libs within striking distance, in my contention, is that while Labor was making so many unforced errors, Abbott’s ability to make so much of them was a really defining and surprising characteristic of his leadership.