For those of us who lived through it, the election held on 9 April 1992 had a profound impact on our politics.
Labour entered the campaign ahead in the polls. At the very least, a Lib-Lab coalition was on the cards. In 13 Tory years we had been through two major recessions, the poll tax riots, mass unemployment, the miners’ strike and deindustrialisation.
Labour had undergone a difficult process of reconciliation with the real world. The 1983 manifesto was torn up, and the policy review led to a manifesto in 1992 which contained no trace of suicidal tendencies. Sure, it promised higher taxes to pay for pensions and the NHS, but no mention of scrapping Trident, nationalising the utilities or withdrawal from Europe.
You know what happened next. On a 77.67 per cent turnout, the Conservatives won a majority of 21. They won more votes – 14,093,007 – than any party since 1945. Although nine Tory ministers lost their seats, the swing to Labour was just 2.2 per cent. The four victors of Labour’s by-election triumphs, John Smith in Vale of Glamorgan, Huw Edwards in Monmouth, Ashok Kumar in Langbaurgh, and Sylvia Heal in Mid Staffordshire, all lost their seats. Labour won 34.4 per cent of the votes cast, just shy of the magic 35 per cent to which some today seem to aspire.
Looking back 22 years on, I draw five lessons from the defeat in 1992.
1. Change must be real, not a cosmetic exercise
Labour in 1983 was decisively rejected, as in 2010. In the 1980s, Labour went through the policy review and dropped unpopular policies. Yet the lingering doubt prevented thousands from voting Labour, even in 1992. Only after Clause IV and New Labour did people believe we had changed. Do the voters believe we have changed – on the economy, on spending, on immigration – sufficiently since 2010? We have this year to persuade them.
2. Labour cannot confuse rallies and demos with public opinion and instincts
When the parliamentary Labour party represents solid Labour areas it is easy to confuse anti-Tory sentiment with public opinion. When Labour members of parliament go on lots of demos and rallies they can believe people agree with them. 11,000 people attended the Sheffield rally, and loved it. Millions saw it on the news and were repelled. The instincts of Middle England are what will determine the winner in 2015, not the campaign against the bedroom tax.
3. Leaders matter
My generation of Labour activists loved Neil. We admired his passion, bravery and speeches. But the harsh truth is that that view was not widely shared among the voters. The more the image consultants tried to change him, the worse it got. Ed Milband has not allowed himself to make the same mistake. He is the son of an academic from north London, and he must not pretend to be anything else. If we see him pretending to like beer and bingo, we are sunk.
4. Election campaigns matter too
The received wisdom is that election campaigns do not have much impact. Elections are won in years, not weeks. But in 1992 the election campaign damaged Labour. The row over ‘Jennifer’s ear’, the ‘tax bombshell’ and ‘double whammy’ billboards, the Sun’s light-bulb front page, and the Sheffield ally all played to, and amplified, the public’s fears about Labour. The election campaign in 2015 will make a real difference as the contest is so tight.
5. Any hint of coalition with the Liberal Democrats is pure poison
The prospect of a hung parliament in 1992 brought proportional representation into the election campaign. Labour was all over the place. Kinnock privately supported it; Roy Hattersley would have rather stuck needles in his eyes. The idea of a back-room deal with the Liberal Democrats repulsed swing voters, who voted Tory to stop it. In 2015, if Labour allows itself to get drawn into public pronouncements on terms of a deal, or megaphone diplomacy with Nick Clegg, the Conservatives will win.
———————————
Paul Richards is a writer and political consultant. He is author of the Memo on … column, part of the Campaign for a Labour Majority; read all his pieces here. He tweets @LabourPaul
———————————
You talk about leadership and ignore the fact that Neil Kinnock was defeated by John Major. Neil went on to become a senior figure in the EU and proved he would have made an excellent PM. John Major limped along for five years of wasted time, especially on BSE (which prevented the UK farmers from exporting farm animals for 10 years) and the EU Treaty which his chancellor, Ken Clarke confessed he did not read. Not that it mattered when the UK had opted out of European Human Rights elements of the Treaty as well as the Euro. Major lost all his majority in by elections by 1997. In 1996 he resigned the leadership of his Party in order to force his MP’s to back him or sack him. Only John Redwood had the courage to stand against him as everyone of them knew that they would lose the next election. The UK voters made a big mistake in 1992, as they had done in 1970 in electing Edward Heath and suffered as a result. However, we must face up to the extraordinary ability of the Tories to win elections, whoever is in charge of them
Not sure Labour was decisvely rejected in 2010 – otherwise very good points.
Good points, I would only add the large scale impact of the Tory press ( slightly alluded to with the Sun headline) but it was the vast majority of the press day in day pounding Labour. We need to consider this will be undoubtedly be a factor in 2015. Indeed if 2010 is an example it could be worse with more collusion between the Tory Party strategists , Lynton Crosby and the Tory paper’s editors ( Mail, Express, Telegraph, Star, Sun and the Times).
I think we have to be loud and up-front on this like Salmond was recently in the Scottish referendum where he repeatedly spoke of the London bubble/ Establishment press. What was likeable about him was his versatility, robustness and unrelenting focus on the media. We have to remind the electorate that these papers are Conservative and represent their interests. Unlike New Labour in 97, 2002, 2007 we will not have the support of several titles. It will be ugly and we will have to monitor BBC output to see they are not lazily repeating the Tory papers agenda which the BBC has being doing increasingly.