In Liverpool it seemed that plenty of party members were burying their heads in the sand. This is bad – not only does this make you look silly, but it leaves you with only one orifice to speak from. I want to take issue with an ‘accepted fact’, which contributes to a sense of near-complacency; an odd sentiment for a party which last year suffered its worst defeat since 1918.
The story goes that all Labour has to do is to wait for the economy to go belly-up and we’ll be back in power in 2015. For every dip of the economic bow into the water, there will be a corresponding rise in our poll rating stern. Economic success and Labour success form a zero-sum game. This is dangerous nonsense. For a start, it leaves us looking like we want jobs to go, growth to slow and inflation to kick in. ‘I know you’ve lost your job and you can’t afford to fill the car with petrol, but look on the bright side – that means we’re back in power!’. I don’t think this would be a popular approach.
But it is also really bad politics. The latest YouGov poll (in June) shows that 41 per cent blame only Labour for the current gloom, alongside 26 per cent blaming the government and 23 per cent blaming both. These numbers have barely shifted for a year. Of course, for every month that the economy flatlines, our arguments about cutting VAT, stimulating growth and creating jobs become more urgent. But the trouble is that nobody is listening because they still don’t trust us. We have bags of urgency but only spoonfuls of relevancy.
For the zero-sum gamers, growth has to stay negligible for our prospects to improve. But think of this. In June, two-thirds of voters blamed Labour. Since then, cuts have bitten, jobs have gone, inflation has risen, growth has slowed and confidence has plummeted. Is it likely that people who blamed us for a lump will stop blaming us when the lump becomes a tumour? Yes, according to the zero-sum gamers.
Surely it is just as likely that, the more the economy tanks, the more people will blame us? Whether they are right or wrong is irrelevant – that is what people believe. We either deal with it or we carry on being urgent but irrelevant. If we are to deal with it, we will need a grand bargain between our Westminster politicians and our politicians throughout the country who are actually in power.
Our MPs must chart a course back to relevancy, showing that we understand just how difficult day-to-day life is for many people (and not just for our ‘core voters’) and how a Miliband-Balls government would do things differently. But our Labour town halls also have a role. Around a third of voters blame their council for the cuts in their area so, if we don’t live up to our role, we will add our own kindling to the bonfire of Labour’s economic competence.
Labour town halls must do everything in our power to ease the economic pain in our areas. If the government removes the EMA, we should have our own. If the Work Programme isn’t helping our residents, we should start our own work programme. What are councils doing to help with ever-rising fuel bills? Has your council considered issuing social impact bonds to pay for their projects? If not, why not? We must never allow ourselves to think that economic pain is anything other than an unmitigated disaster for us. This is the right thing to do for our residents, but it also makes sense politically. Economic pain does not spell electoral success for us. When we lessen the pain, we do well – not the government.
The zero-sum gamers’ shaggy dog story seems to make sense, but it is wrong on every level – economically, politically and morally. Economically, because people who blame you for a little thing will blame you even more when that little thing grows. Politically, because any viewpoint which leads Labour supporters to hail an economic crisis as an opportunity is just laughable. And morally, because any strategy which requires the hardest-hit to pay the biggest price simply for your political benefit is utterly bereft of value. We need to take our head out of the sand. And we need to beware the zero-sum gamers.
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Mark Rusling is a Labour and Cooperative party councillor in the London Borough of Waltham Forest , and writes the Changing to Survive column for ProgressOnline
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