In the local elections, Labour won over 800 seats and gained 25 councils. Over 400 of those gains came from the Tories, and Labour’s vote was up eight per cent on 2010. The Labour family campaigned with good heart and energy. Quite a feat for a party defeated 12 months ago.
For me, the clearest lesson is that the collapse of the Liberal Democrats alone is not enough for us to win the next general election. In our heartlands, disgruntled Liberal Democrats (who in an earlier life had been disgruntled Labour voters) returned to us in their droves. And as a result cities like Newcastle, Hull and Sheffield will see the benefit of Labour councils protecting their communities against this government’s cuts, offering good value-for-money, and getting the job done.
But to win the next general election we have to beat the Tories, especially in the south. There are only so many gains we can make from squeezing the Lib Dem vote – and it’s not enough to win an election. Of our top 100 target seats, needed to give us a majority of 30 or so, only a dozen are currently held by the Lib Dems. 83 are held by the Conservatives. That’s the battleground.
While every former Liberal Democrat vote gained is welcome, the hard facts of life in southern marginals is that for every Lib Dem vote we win a Tory switcher is twice as valuable. Indeed, Labour cannot regain Watford, Worcestor or Welwyn without a substantial shift from Tory to Labour.
The biggest challenge is for Labour to change and give voters a reason to notice us again by renewing our offer.
We won’t inherit government through the failings of the coalition; we have to earn the right to govern. As Ed Miliband has said, unless we change, we won’t have earned it.
One lesson we learnt in the 1980s was that trying to knit together a patchwork of protests and turn it into a successful electoral coalition would never work. To win, we have to reach out beyond our traditional heartlands and appeal to a broad cross section of society, from every social class and part of the country. That’s where we’ll find the real progressive majority.
The families who work hard and play by the rules. They are pretty self sufficient. They try to do the right thing. People who see themselves as middle of the road, who don’t get angry about much, and complain less than most. It sounds clichéd, but we know who we mean.
And they just want government to make life a little easier.
Their instincts are progressive. They want an NHS without the worry of endless waiting and an education system that raises standards across the board. They believe in community, in fairness and in decent public services. They’re also aspirational and want the best for themselves and their family. Above all they want their children to have a better life than they did.
Labour must meet their aspirations – that’s the promise – and allay their anxieties – that’s the reassurance.
Among the issues they are most worried about – crime, welfare reform, immigration – each taps into their sense of fairness. Labour believes there’s nothing progressive about leaving people to languish on benefits, allowing communities to be terrorised by antisocial behaviour or allowing illegal migrants to abuse British hospitality.
And there is nothing progressive about the centre left losing elections.
And ultimately, it’s only with their support that we’re able to deliver on the things that really matter to all progressives. The minimum wage, civil partnerships, doubling overseas aid, lifting millions of children and pensioners out of poverty, statutory recognition for trade unions, the world’s first legally binding targets for cuts in CO2 emissions. None of them would have been possible without the support of millions of people who’d never voted Labour before 1997 and didn’t in 2010.
They’re the people we need to win back. They’re the real progressive majority. They need to know that Labour is on their side if they work hard and want to make a better life for themselves. When Labour taps into this innate British characteristic, we win elections. Without them, there’s no majority at all – never mind a progressive one.
Labour needs to lose its authoritarianism and its paranoid fantasy that the electorate is criminal. Government should serve the electorate not dominate it. Labour needs to listen to its electorate, not dismiss its views as Gordon Brown did when he dismissed Ms Duffy as a bigot. Labour has turned its back on its traditional core vote just when the poor and marginalised more than ever need to be represented in policy formulation. Perhaps Blue Labour recognises some of these truths. And yes, immigration is a legitimate issue. The middle classes may benefit from it but the poor, who are already competing under almost impossible conditions for jobs, seldom do.
People want their pride back, they want the dignity of being able to provide for and take care of their families without having to go cap in hand for benefits. The minimum wage was a good start but what’s needed is a living wage for those in work and a living income for those who can’t work. Whilst campaigning in the recent Barnsley central by-election low income and the spiralling cost of living were uppermost in peoples’ concerns. As someone who is unemployed myself and in and out of work I know that relative job security and a regular living income is paramount to your wellbeing, self-esteem and overall quality of life. £25k a year for a 40 hour working week is not too much to ask; or £10 an hour. Poverty holds people back, stifles aspiration and creates huge social divisions in society. We want a ‘trickle up’ model to kick start and maintain a healthy economy and replace the failed ‘trickle down’ model so beloved of Thatcherites. Money is not everything but without it our life chances and opportunities are few and far between. Fairness, equality of opportunity, social justice and a living income for all will get Labour back into power. Tackle this problem seriously and you’ve got my vote back.