I’m not sure why there is a habit in the Tory party of broadcasting their election strategies. Perhaps it is disinformation designed to spook us. But it usually seems reasonable stuff so we shouldn’t ignore it either as intelligence on their likely moves or to ‘reverse engineer’ their lessons and apply them ourselves.
Usually it’s Lord Ashcroft who publishes his musings, but the latest campaign strategy to see the light of day comes courtesy of Tim Montgomerie at ConHome, who has leaked the details of a Central Office briefing for Tory MPs:
It’s worth reading the whole post but for me the key nuggets were:
• The relative confidence about defensive marginals, with only 50
existing Tory seats targeted. This makes sense given the polls, but may present the opportunity for some opportunistic ‘deep strike’ attacks by well-organised CLPs and candidates in Tory seats just behind that layer, which under this plan won’t get central targeted support.
• The ambitious goal of 50 gains – 36 from Labour and 14 from the Lib Dems. This shows we can’t be complacent about holding the seats we have. Thirty-six of them are going to come under pressure. The places where the Labour seats are being targeted – urban areas in the Midlands, north-west and Wales – warn us against complacency. They think that, as in the 1950s and 1980s, a tight first win can be built on in subsequent elections. Our task is to make this follow the other historic model – the 1970-1974 one-term opposition.
• The two-track policy of trying to take seats off the Lib Dems to form a majority but at the same time acknowledging they may have to work with them in the event of another hung parliament. Some Labour strategists have worried that if we are too mean to the Lib Dems they will refuse to negotiate with us in the event of a hung parliament. The fact that they are being targeted for virtual extinction in their south-west heartland by their current coalition partners means they won’t be able to hold it against us if we also hammer them.
• The understanding that welfare reform is central to voters’ understanding of fairness – they are as aggrieved by the unfairness of people abusing the welfare system as they are by excess at the top of society.
• They recognise they are vulnerable on the NHS, which shows why it is strategically sensible as well as morally correct for us to keep hammering away at it. It’s not just a Labour comfort zone, it’s a Tory discomfort zone.
• The references to targeting BAME voters, particularly younger ones and the increasingly prosperous Hindu and Sikh communities, is a warning to Labour not to take minority communities for granted. There may be a specific point about us needing to promote and select more Hindu and Sikh candidates in seats Labour can win, to demonstrate we remain the natural national political voice for those communities (Marsha Singh’s resignation means we no longer have a Labour Sikh MP – this is not acceptable when there are approximately half a million Sikhs in the UK).
• Recruitment of 80 field organisers. Like us, the Tories know that putting a full-time agent into a seat is a game-changer in terms of energising the local party.
Our opponents understand that, as in 2010, the 2015 election is going to be a tight battle of attrition where every seat counts. The consistently tight opinion polls, with the public not gushing with enthusiasm about any of the parties, point to a range of messy possible outcomes from a narrow Tory win to a narrow Labour one, through all the various hung parliament permutations. In such circumstances organisational factors and candidate selection in specific constituencies, as well as micro-targeting of specific demographic groups of voters, may be the key to ‘winning ugly’ (a US phrase – in UK terms think of Labour’s narrow 1964 or 1974 wins, not its 1997 landslide), which is a lot preferable to ‘losing ugly’. This scenario helps explain both the priority the NEC put on the campaigning best practice aspects of Refounding Labour (trying to make all our CLPs as potent fighting forces as Barking, Birmingham Edgbaston and Oxford East, motivating their members and supporters to become activists) and our decision to appoint a master of field organisation and tactics, Iain McNicol, as Labour’s new general secretary.
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Luke Akehurst is a constituency representative on Labour’s NEC, a councillor in Hackney, writes regularly for Progress here, and blogs here
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[Rather unusually for me!] I agree with Luke’s succinct analysis and observations.
One thing in the original that I don’t know whether Luke has missed out for space reasons or ignored was the (possibly quite risky) strategy for the Conservatives of holding some form of referendum (European, perhaps?) on the same day, thereby mobilising the anti-EU (or anti-whatever the Conservatives disagreed with that week) vote. It could maximise the Conservative vote and perhaps up participation, especially if they were also running on an anti-immigration ticket.
I agree with most of Luke’s post. I also think it would be a huge mistake to worry about the possibility of another hung parliament, in as much as it could become a distraction from concentrating on winning a clear majority – and that will require a strategy that appeals to those on the centre and centre left who are still pinning their hopes on some sort of mythical Social Democratic resurgence within the Libdems.
I think this is what some of the centre-right in the party are hoping – that the Lib Dems have borrowed our own centre-right, and if we were only to back selective schools, unemployment insurance, and other centre-right policies, they would come flooding back to the Labour Party. When I think, personally, the issue, is motivating the non-voters, rather than chasing a mythical and (very) small centre-ground. Why vote for centre right policies in the Labour Party when you can vote for the real thing elsewhere ?
I think there needs to be a two pronged strategy – both based on reconnecting with lost tribes.
One is the socially liberal, progressive, professional and skilled working classes who abandoned Labour (primarily for the Libdems) for a host of reasons, including but not limited to civil liberties, Iraq, percieved fiscal incompetence etc.
And those generally from lower incomed backgrounds who either switched to protest votes (BNP, Libdem, UKIP etc) or dropped off altogether; for a different range of reasons again including but not limited the abolition of the 10p tax rate, being “soft on immigration”, being “soft on bankers”, increasing prices in some areas, fuel duty, etc.
A successful electoral strategy for 2014/15 will have to be about constructing a narrative that appeals to the sometimes mutually exclusive and sometimes overlapping aspirations of both tribes.
Some of these policies may well have to incorporate ideas that have traditionally been the preserve of the right, and others may have to reach back to the historical left for inspiration.
I agree that there was a section of misguided Guardianistas who for some unfathomable reason, grounded nowhere in fact, assumed that the Liberal Democrats would be somehow to left of Labour on a number of social issues. I hope 2 years of coalition government have purged them of that belief system.
As regards appealing to the party’s previous core vote – what you seem to be advocating is a further lurch to the right socially and economically, that would thereby alienate the group mentioned in the above para. We do not for instance need tighter controls on immigration – we need to impose the existing controls more effectively, and explain more effectively our current policy. Blue Labour and movements like this are thereby doomed to fail if they solely appeal to a narrow band of the centre right of the electorate.
I most certainly do not advocate a further lurch to the right. I do think Labour needs to ask why it lost millions of lower income voters, as well as substantial numbers of middle class voters and secondly develop policies that can appeal to both those groups.
When talking about looking at ideas traditionally or now associated with the right, I don’t mean naturally rightwing politics like xenophobia and punishing the poor, I mean ideas like family values, personal responsibility, entrepreurealism, self improvement etc. Ideas that mesh with social justice and progressive politics but that we have failed to articulate effectively in recent decades.
As for immigration, I agree that the current Labour policy is broadly correct, but there were real failures to explain it properly and counter widespread popular myths.
We do not need to enter any agreements with The Lib Dems in the event of a hung Parliament-we must not trust them at all. We need to set out our agenda and policies in order for us to deliver the message on the doorstep. We are continuing to build a good base within Local Government and we had a great night last May in The Local Elections with great gains like in Liverpool from The Lib Dems. We need to continue fight back by ensuring we have more gains this year as well as Sacking Boris in London–that will be a geat night.
The Tories are dangerous and have undertaken cuts that make the Thatcher years seem like a walk in The Park. We need to highlight the impact on The Health Service –the very issue that resonates with most people.
“the NHS will collapse without reforms” is that a threat ?
and anyway who said the NHS needed no reforms ?