Elections in France, the US and London will test the left in 2012. How optimistic should we be, asks Anthony Painter

Politically, the left has had a disastrous financial crisis. For some leftist parties in major European nations, the malaise set in before 2007. France, Germany, Italy, and Sweden fall into this category. For others – the Netherlands, the UK and Spain – it has been since. It is too uniform for it to be simply bad luck. There is more that is going on. The left is in a state of both cyclical and structural crisis.

Hard economic times tend to be hard on the left also. This time is no different. Whether Keynesian expansionism is proposed or austerity is pursued the result seems to be the same: people in a state of anxiety have a tendency to cling on to conservative ways of thinking. Keynesianism creates the potential for terrifying levels of deficit and debt.

Yet, when the left reaches for austerity-lite they are similarly punished. The Spanish Socialist government did just that. While the performance of Mariano Rajoy’s Partido Popular in last November’s election was reasonable – a five per cent uptick, though in a lower turnout election – the PSOE’s vote share collapsed following the pursuit of more rigorous fiscal consolidation.

For the left, it is Scylla or Charybdis. It is as if people are suspicious of Keynesianism and feel that the left will be less resolute than the right in cleaning up the deficit but all the while express opposition to cutbacks. Cognitive dissonance is a characteristic mindset with the slightly stronger force in favour of austerity winning out. In economic crises, ‘safety first’ has tended to be the preferred route.

This then raises the question: is social democracy a luxury product, a non-essential in economically tough times? The evidence of what has happened to the European left suggests that is the case. So just as the left goes to seize its hegemonic victory while neoliberalism is in crisis, it overreaches and falls. And if it remains cautious it angers its own core voters while being simultaneously rejected by people who want real conservatism.

But this is not the whole story: some of the decline happened before the global financial crash. The simple fact is that the electoral coalition that has sustained the left for so long has become fragmented. While this afflicts the right also, in general it is less the case – its historical bases of support are enduring to a greater extent in general and that gives it an advantage.

It has proved to be too difficult to sustain a coalition combining materialists and post-materialists, liberals and conservatives, human rightists and moralist right-and-wrongists, those who seek authority and order and those who crave freedom, the low paid and the comfortable-yet-insecure who are concerned at welfare expenditure. One only has to look at the five million votes shed by the Labour party over 13 years to see the complexity of holding such a coalition together.

Society has become less defined by coherent classes and is now more of a series of bubbles and tribes – lifestyles, values, economic position, culture and location all intersect in myriad ways. Social and demographic change do not determine political outcomes but they do provide an important context. These changes do not only affect the left but they seem to be having a disproportionate impact upon it.

An illustration of this came in last year’s Berlin city elections where the liberal Pirate party (increasing its vote by 8.9 per cent) and the Greens (raising theirs by 4.5 per cent) gained at the expense of the SPD (who dropped 2.5 per cent) and Die Linke (who fell by 4.6 per cent) on the left and the FDP (shedding 5.8 per cent) on the right. New parties and movements are eating away at traditional voting coalitions.

Where there is a ‘bloc’ form of politics characteristic of proportional representation systems the left can be shielded from this. In Denmark last year, Helle Thorning-Schmidt’s Social Democrats returned to power, despite losing some support and a seat. The big winners were the Red-Green Alliance and the Social Liberal party. By contrast, the centre-right Venstre party leader, Lars Rasmussen, lost office despite gaining support and a seat.

So how will this play in elections this year? In France, there is little doubt that Nicolas Sarkozy is in trouble and François Hollande is a serious challenger. Worryingly, however, the polls have begun to narrow. The latest Ifop poll shows a two-point lead in the first round of the presidential election for Hollande over Sarkozy, which widens to 54 per cent to 46 per cent in the second round.

Sarkozy has announced a new wave of austerity that includes an increase in the sales tax – a ‘social VAT’ to enable a reduction in company employment taxes. It is very high risk and unorthodox. Meanwhile, the Parti Socialiste seems to be playing a good political hand. As reported by the Financial Times, Hollande’s campaign director, Pierre Muscovici, has said: ‘The time of the tough right and the lax left is over. We will be responsible and credible. Whatever the difficulties, we will reduce the deficit and the debt. We won’t spend more.’

The question is whether Sarkozy can reach out to the cultural protectionist vote that favours the Front National among others and also remain more credible on economic policy. He will win if culture trumps economics. If the election is balanced the other way – towards economics – it is a closer fight. Should Hollande win, then maintaining a new electoral and governing coalition will be a test from day one – as Thorning-Schmidt has found in Denmark with her party already at record lows in the polls.

The other big election of this year – the US presidential election – is the exception that proves the rule. Social and demographic change actually works in the Democrats’ favour. The growing demographics of professionals, Hispanics, and young, millennial voters have all increasingly leaned towards the Democrats in recent years. Together with a growing economy – should that hold – and declining unemployment, Barack Obama is likely to prevail even though a closer election is on the horizon with the likely nomination of Mitt Romney as the Republican candidate.

That leaves London. Ken Livingstone’s campaign got off to a flying start in 2012 with its Fare Deal campaign committing to reduce London public transport prices. As of the end of 2011, Boris Johnson was still ahead in the polls, although the first polls of 2012 suggest Livingstone is edging ahead. Johnson’s ability to win will be determined by the degree to which he is able to neutralise the Fare Deal campaign and shift the debate onto other ground.

Londoners still have the memory of 2011’s riots fresh in their minds. The riots not only affected less advantaged neighbourhoods but they touched better-off neighbourhoods and suburbs too. When elections focus on law and order and economic competence – Johnson will argue that the Fare Deal plan is reckless – then it is the right that too often prevails.

No one on the traditional European left has found the winning formula for unlocking sustained electoral and governing success for some time. Numerous strategies have been attempted – all have largely failed. 2012 may be the year in which a new strategy succeeds. Whatever it may be, not forcing your voters to choose between their hopes and their anxieties will be key. That matters on fiscal policy, law and order, and on jobs and growth. In France, in the US, and in London a way forward may be found. If not, it is back to the drawing board again – with no easy answers in sight.

Anthony Painter is a contributing editor to Progress