There are lots of Tories in the United Kingdom. Some will only ever vote Conservative, others need a bit of persuading – a tax cut here or a right to buy there. And then there is a block, a large block, that will vote Conservative when there is no other viable option.
Thousands of people engaged in five million conversations with the British public over the last few months. Our ground game was to be crucial, as we were being outspent by the Tories, who could rely on the vast majority of the written press for millions in free media.
Neither Labour nor the Conservatives attempted to win many votes off each other at this election. Just seven seats went from red to blue, while nine chose the opposite route. The Tories have a majority because of the ruthless exploitation of Tory-Liberal Democrat marginals. It was supposed to be us that would win, by hanging on to that grim 29 per cent last time and throwing in the bulk of the Lib Dem vote. It was the same fallacy to which we clung about the 1980s. If only the left were not divided, if only the SDP/Alliance would just come back home, we would have locked Margaret Thatcher out of power. Except, where has the Liberal Democrat vote gone? To the Tories. When push came to shove, their place of safety, their choice, first or second, was the Conservative party, not us.
We picked up so few Tory marginals because we did not try very hard to win them. We had policies that only appealed to us. Our message was so muddled it collapsed in on itself. After nearly five years in opposition, our leadership stated we did not spend too much in government. A perfectly reasonable and defendable argument, yet one that had been long lost in absentia four and a half years ago. So, while maintaining we did not overspend, we proudly, fiercely declared that every spending commitment in our 2015 manifesto was fully costed. We embarked on a zero-based review, which for those in the party who undertook it know it was painstaking. Yet, if we did not overspend, then why the emphasis on a fully costed manifesto? Did we protest too much? What were we trying to hide? Surely only if you admit you spent too much last time do you need to spend every day convincing voters and ourselves that we had changed.
Ed was clear: The global financial crisis had shifted the British electorate to the left – closer to him. Neoliberalism had delivered falling living standards, greater inequality, bankers enjoying impunity in their London mansions that leave regular people stranded from the housing ladder. Again, an argument could be made for this in 2010. Ed made it, and won the leadership contest. But if the electorate had shifted, why were we only pursuing a 35 per cent strategy? Surely if the Great Recession had shifted public opinion, we would be able to reach more than an additional six per cent of voters. That seems to suggest that even we did not think it had shifted much, as the strategy necessarily implies that only Liberal Democrat voters had shifted to the left, and not a single Tory.
Ed was, of course, right: the centre had shifted. Except, it was not the financial crisis or bankers or the great recession. It was us – we did it! We shifted it through 13 years of a Labour government. Look at the two main parties, which, despite the rise of nationalism, still command two-thirds of the popular vote and more than four-fifths of the parliamentary seats. The Tories now support, with differing levels of pride, Labour policies on gay rights, the national minimum wage, international development, the National Health Service, education. And it is because we changed the country.
And therein lies the point: we did it, not the financial crisis. And we were able to do it because we were in government. Oppositions very rarely change the political fundamentals. They draft press releases. Governments govern and in doing so make change real.
The nastiness directed at those deceitful, meretricious silent Tories over the last few days is instructive. More insidious than their embarrassment in talking to pollsters, is that a lot of our people do not seem to like those people. The ‘wrong sort of voters.’ The author Peggy Noonan calls that attitude ‘shrink to win.’ Good luck passing legislation that expands opportunity and social justice with fewer parliamentary seats.
New Labour was a product of its time, as any political project must be. But the very point of New Labour was that it was responsive to the needs and realities of its present. The determinants for political success in 2015 are different to those in 1994, for the task in May 2015 is tougher than it was in April 1992.
Tony Blair did not change the party and the country from 1994 because he had the prettiest face and the busiest press secretary. The changes he implemented were structural, and at multiple occasions he risked resignation to get them through. Today, it is not the case of a new face to oppose a majority Tory government. Why do the leadership candidates think Labour lost to a Tory party that implemented substantial cuts to public services, that could command few seats in Scotland and Wales, that had a leader who, while more popular than his party, remained distrusted, a party that is yet to fully disinfect itself of the toxicity. Why despite all that did they win and we lose? Who do we need to convince to win again? What would a 50 per cent strategy look like?
Ed Miliband’s appearance on the BBC Question Time election special is worth a second watch, not simply for the audience’s hostility towards his answers, nor for the disdain, disbelief and laughter that followed his answer on overspending, but for what Ed said when faced with that disdain. Time after time, he said, ‘You may not agree with me’, or ‘I may not be able to convince you on this one’, followed by ‘this election is a choice.’ In the end, far too many people disagreed with us. We had not convinced them that we would be a government that would govern in their interests. They made a choice; it wasn’t us.
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Jack Kessler is a member of Progress
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Photo: Louisa Thomson