Additionally, I don't think not being seen to represent the workers is really at all one of Labour's biggest problems. For one, it's not really grounded in policy or empirical data at all - we aren't really comparable with the SPD as we never enacted policies actively weakening workers' rights. Just take a look at the Warwick Agreement, tax credits or the minimum wage - for all the coverage from the sorts of people in the media who will never be happy with a social democratic government due to a fundamental inability to understand that compromise makes the prospect of a full-blooded socialist government pretty much impossible, the last government actually did loads for workers and workers' rights (but then, the same people seem to think that representing the working classes and socialism are coterminous. It's more than possible to take a revisionist social democratic position and still represent and advocate for workers, as the above examples demonstrate.) Yeah, wages in real terms stagnated from 2004 onwards - but something that's been universally acknowledged as something we should have done more about from all sides of the party since. No government is mistake-free on stuff like this. Chuck in that the numbers just don't add up on the claim that our biggest problem is working-class perception of representation...

 

It might not be the reality that Labour have abandoned poor people (I agree with you in parts that they did more for poor people than they're given credit for), but it's DEFINITELY the perception, and last week will only have furthered that.

 

 

 

 

And finally, the policies themselves are actually quite popular in themselves, which I think backs up that it's more a case that people aren't paying attention and that it's more something that'll pay dividends closer to the election - if not in direct boosting of support, then through taking the Conservative attack line on benefits (which has been one of the most damaging for us) off the table.

 

Or, more likely imo, it will drive away poor people and people who are on benefits and their family/friends (and even though the media muffles their voices, that is still millions of people, enough to swing an election), and more importantly, it will make Labour activists far less enthusiastic. I'll probably vote for them at the next election no matter what, but if all they promise is that they'll be a slightly less bad version of the Coalition (and, despite their playing with semantics, that's basically what they're saying if they say they'll stick to their spending plans), then I doubt I'll be enthusiastic enough to knock on doors for them and convince people to vote, and if other Labour supporters think the same as me, then the party is screwed. After all, the US election showed that, far more important than appealing to "swing voters" (who some studies have shown don't really exist or atleast they don't think in the way politicians assume they do), you have to maximise turnout of your core voters, and to do that you need an enthused activist base.

 

Besides, again, I fundamentally disagree that by agreeing with the other party on an issue, that you "neutralise" it or take it off the table. It will only push the issue up the agenda, and benefits being at the top of the agenda will ALWAYS go against the Labour Party, no matter how popular at face value what they say on the issue is. By the same token, if all the mainstream parties bang on about immigration at the next election, that will only favour UKIP, simply because it's an issue that fundamentally people distrust all the main parties on. Craig is actually right on this one, even those people who do think all benefits claimaints are scroungers, no-one is going to even believe any Labour leader when they promise a "welfare cap" or whatever and will think it's just a cynical attempt to grab votes which they would never actually implement in government. They need to start focussing on issues which actually favour them, rather than letting the next election and its key issues be defined by the Conservatives, as they have been up til now.

Edited June 11, 201312 yr by Danny

It might not be the reality that Labour have abandoned poor people (I agree with you in parts that they did more for poor people than they're given credit for), but it's DEFINITELY the perception, and last week will only have furthered that.

Or, more likely imo, it will drive away poor people and people who are on benefits and their family/friends (and even though the media muffles their voices, that is still millions of people, enough to swing an election), and more importantly, it will make Labour activists far less enthusiastic. I'll probably vote for them at the next election no matter what, but if all they promise is that they'll be a slightly less bad version of the Coalition (and, despite their playing with semantics, that's basically what they're saying if they say they'll stick to their spending plans), then I doubt I'll be enthusiastic enough to knock on doors for them and convince people to vote, and if other Labour supporters think the same as me, then the party is screwed. After all, the US election showed that, far more important than appealing to "swing voters" (who some studies have shown don't really exist or atleast they don't think in the way politicians assume they do), you have to maximise turnout of your core voters, and to do that you need an enthused activist base.

 

Besides, again, I fundamentally disagree that by agreeing with the other party on an issue, that you "neutralise" it or take it off the table. It will only push the issue up the agenda, and benefits being at the top of the agenda will ALWAYS go against the Labour Party, no matter how popular at face value what they say on the issue is. By the same token, if all the mainstream parties bang on about immigration at the next election, that will only favour UKIP, simply because it's an issue that fundamentally people distrust all the main parties on. Craig is actually right on this one, even those people who do think all benefits claimaints are scroungers, no-one is going to even believe any Labour leader when they promise a "welfare cap" or whatever and will think it's just a cynical attempt to grab votes which they would never actually implement in government. They need to start focussing on issues which actually favour them, rather than letting the next election and its key issues be defined by the Conservatives, as they have been up til now.

Comparing our political system with America's in talking about tactics on this is pretty disingenuous. The US has probably the most polarised political system going at the moment, and there were very, very few people even a month before the election who hadn't decided who they were going to vote for - that absolutely isn't the case here, given there are consistently about 20% undecided. Running a core vote strategy on that basis would be a disaster - it worked for Obama because the cores were so large, but he didn't exactly ignore swing voters either - he just used the politics of social liberalism to bring them in, which is a distinction he could rely on which we can't given all three main parties are (notionally) signed up to socially liberal agendas.

 

I do agree that we need to define the next election about jobs and in areas we can win on, but I don't think it's as simple as just changing the subject the second someone brings up an area we're seen as being weak on - if anything that just makes us come across even more useless on it. I think it's more about having these sorts of policies on this area but not defining the election about benefits/whatever, as you're right - we're never going to win in a battle on benefits or immigration, but by focusing our campaign on jobs and unemployment, and then having the answer there when somebody asks about benefits et al, then we lose by less. In any race those sorts of margins could make the difference - after all, take the economy. Going into the 1997 election Labour still trailed the Tories on which party was more trusted on the economy (by 22 points with people who said the issue was important and by 7 overall). Now by that standard pledging to match Ken Clarke's spending for the first two years would've been a massive mistake - the tradition was that Labour could never beat the Tories on economic management, so by that standard we should've just ignored the issue and talked about, say, the NHS or whatever. Now, I think we'd have won 1997 whatever, but by having a commitment which prevented the Conservatives from using the most effective attack against us at that point - that you could never trust Labour with the economy - we didn't make the election about the economy, but we stopped potential attack lines which could've cost us seats (and additionally got credibility on the economy to allow that perception to be reversed - hence the 21 point lead over the Tories a year later), which in turn could've made the difference between two terms and three terms. Having something in place to ward off the standard criticisms that we're a disaster on benefits etc. can go a long way given a core vote strategy will be a disaster if the economy's growing by 2015 (which is pretty much the way the wind's blowing - Balls wouldn't have let go of his argument rejecting the cuts otherwise).

Comparing our political system with America's in talking about tactics on this is pretty disingenuous. The US has probably the most polarised political system going at the moment, and there were very, very few people even a month before the election who hadn't decided who they were going to vote for - that absolutely isn't the case here, given there are consistently about 20% undecided. Running a core vote strategy on that basis would be a disaster - it worked for Obama because the cores were so large, but he didn't exactly ignore swing voters either - he just used the politics of social liberalism to bring them in, which is a distinction he could rely on which we can't given all three main parties are (notionally) signed up to socially liberal agendas.

 

Not really, at all? The British political system traditionally is far, far more tribal/polarised than the American system -- in America, plenty of people happily vote for a Democrat for President and a Republican for Congress in the same election, hell we saw that happen on a mass scale just 6 months ago. There's never been such true bipartisanship on such a scale in the UK. Similarly, you'd never see such a polarised reaction to a US President dying, as we saw when Thatcher died. So fundamentally, there's far more scope for a core vote/turnout strategy in the UK than in America. And I would argue the main reason the American system is more polarised than it usually is right now is because the main parties are offering a real choice and are completely different to eachother, which isn't true in the UK. (Admittedly Obama's race also was probably a factor, which obviously won't apply here.)

 

But anyway, even if you can't win with just your core vote, you definitely can't win without it, and apathy with politics is so high right now (increased a lot even since 2010) that I'm really doubtful Labour are going to get their core vote to turn out. They're extremly lucky that there's no left-wing version of UKIP right now, a party who is point-blank against the cuts and goes straight for traditional Labour voters, because Labour would be very vulnerable to such a party right now (the Respect Party might've been a candidate but George Galloway is probably too much of a loon for them to properly take off). Even without that kind of party though, many are going to just stay at home. Remember that survey that showed in 2010 that Labour would've won atleast 20 more marginal seats if working-class turnout in those seats had been at the same level %-wise as it had been in 1990s elections.

 

And yes, Obama did win over swing voters, but he didn't do it in the way most political anoraks think you do it, by diluting your policies, being terrified of saying something "radical", or by nervously consulting the opinion polls and always making sure he was against anything that the polls said was unpopular (e.g. amnesty for illegal immigrants or public healthcare). He did it by stating what he believed in honestly and clearly, convinced people that he was a decent person who was saying what he believed, and he persuaded people who wouldn't've considered themselves "left-wing" that his solutions were right (and that's what I was getting at by saying swing voters don't exist in the way British politicians think they do: they're mostly not people who have perfectly centrist views on everything, they're mostly people who don't have much interest in politics and are completely uninspired by the main parties, and are waiting for a politician to say something strong that catches their attention and persuades them - and treating politics like a game of chess and giving the impression you're only saying things to win votes is only going to push people like that further away).

Edited June 12, 201312 yr by Danny

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/polit...15-8669374.html

 

Worried.

 

I know plenty of previously faithful activists saying that if we stick with this it'll be the last straw. Regardless of the merits of it, and unsurprisingly I'm not mad keen, it's highly dangerous politically. Personally I don't think the People's Assembly have the guts to start putting candidates forward and I don't want to be proved wrong.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/polit...15-8669374.html

 

Worried.

 

I know plenty of previously faithful activists saying that if we stick with this it'll be the last straw. Regardless of the merits of it, and unsurprisingly I'm not mad keen, it's highly dangerous politically. Personally I don't think the People's Assembly have the guts to start putting candidates forward and I don't want to be proved wrong.

 

Ed is clueless

 

Labour won't win an election (thank god) on the basis of a tory agenda and simply not being the tories

 

The guy has no vision for Britain, no sense of change, he just reads a Daily Mail editorial and sets the agenda based on that.

Ed is clueless

 

Labour won't win an election (thank god) on the basis of a tory agenda and simply not being the tories

 

The guy has no vision for Britain, no sense of change, he just reads a Daily Mail editorial and sets the agenda based on that.

If Cameron has a vision then he's keeping it very quiet.

Not really, at all? The British political system traditionally is far, far more tribal/polarised than the American system -- in America, plenty of people happily vote for a Democrat for President and a Republican for Congress in the same election, hell we saw that happen on a mass scale just 6 months ago. There's never been such true bipartisanship on such a scale in the UK. Similarly, you'd never see such a polarised reaction to a US President dying, as we saw when Thatcher died. So fundamentally, there's far more scope for a core vote/turnout strategy in the UK than in America. And I would argue the main reason the American system is more polarised than it usually is right now is because the main parties are offering a real choice and are completely different to eachother, which isn't true in the UK. (Admittedly Obama's race also was probably a factor, which obviously won't apply here.)

 

That first part isn't really true at all - ticket splitting is fairly rare, especially compared with how it was decades back. Few people relatively actually split their tickets a few months back - the Democrats won the Congress elections in terms of votes, the widespread gerrymandering in the 2010 redistricting explains how the Republicans won Congress. And given the results were D 66m - R 61m - Other 6m in the presidentials and D 60m - R 58m - Other 4.5m in the congressionals, while you could make the case that Obama had more of a personal vote which decreased turnout for the Democrats in the congressionals, it would be difficult to ascribe it much to ticket-splitting or even really say that it happened on a mass scale.

 

I'd argue there are different reasons that you'd never see such a polarised reaction in the past to a US President dying. One is that the role of President has, at least historically, carried much more respect, gravitas and a pretence to unity than that of the Prime Minister in the British political system. However, I don't think that really exists much anymore after the Conservative Revolution of the mid-1990s when politics became far more personalised and interacted with the culture wars to produce a far more combative style of politics - just see the reaction when Bush Jr. and Obama die for a polarised reaction. A lot of people disagreed with Reagan, but his personable style (and the absence of as many direct attacks on the working class - there was the air controller strike yeah, but that wasn't really as widespread, bitter or publicised as the miners' strike) made it difficult for him to be seen as being as antagonising as Thatcher was to his opponents.

 

And even in terms of being polarising, there's still far more of a case for stating America to be polarised than the UK. Party identification is at an all-time low in the UK - hovering at about 50-60%. I don't have the exact figure but I'd be very surprised if it were anywhere near that low in the US. Furthermore, even if you take Thatcher, though I realise this will sound ridiculous at first hearing (so do hear me out), she wasn't an especially polarising figure in the true sense of the word. Yes, she draws incredibly heated passions from both sides, but there are a lot of people who are ambivalent on her legacy or who just don't really know, along with a consistent plurality/majority of supporters - take the immediate aftermath of her death. 52% saying she was overall a good PM, 30% saying she was overall a bad one. Not an especially polarising figure. Even if you take into account that there are many who'd state she probably counted as a good/effective Prime Minister whilst still massively disagreeing with her and her vision of society, the question over whether people thought she was good/bad for the UK comes out 47-36. The reason she comes off more polarising than she was in the true 50-50 sense is that the 36% (±2) of us who think she was bad for the UK tend to be very vocal about it.

 

Contrast that with Obama, who regularly has figures of about 47-47 (±2 either way) in the main polls for people who think he's a good President or not (as it was for Bush Jr. through most of the midpoint of his term in office). There are very few people who haven't made their mind up on him, and very few people who can be persuaded either way. That is true polarisation, and the point at which a core strategy becomes key - when there are very few people left to be persuaded, as it was for the majority of last year in the lead up to the 2012 election - and even then you can't ignore them because the margins are so narrow.

 

Does that really correlate with the UK? I don't think so at all. Taking the most recent YouGov poll there are still about 24% out there who voted in 2010 who say they won't vote (8%) or don't know how they're likely to vote (16%). Nowhere near comparable to the US system in terms of polarisation, particularly in that there are far more in recent years who've been shown they haven't settled on a given party - take the shift from the low 30s to the mid-40s and then back to the high 30s for Labour in the last three years, or the slow collapse from the low-40s to the low 30s/high 20s for the Conservatives which occasionally perks up with the odd event, demonstrating that there are still a significant group of voters who haven't made up their minds and are easily swayed. Under such circumstances, a core vote strategy is disastrous.

 

But anyway, even if you can't win with just your core vote, you definitely can't win without it, and apathy with politics is so high right now (increased a lot even since 2010) that I'm really doubtful Labour are going to get their core vote to turn out. They're extremly lucky that there's no left-wing version of UKIP right now, a party who is point-blank against the cuts and goes straight for traditional Labour voters, because Labour would be very vulnerable to such a party right now (the Respect Party might've been a candidate but George Galloway is probably too much of a loon for them to properly take off). Even without that kind of party though, many are going to just stay at home. Remember that survey that showed in 2010 that Labour would've won atleast 20 more marginal seats if working-class turnout in those seats had been at the same level %-wise as it had been in 1990s elections.

 

Again, I think the implication of your argument conflates working-class with left-wing. Labour would've won at least 20 more marginal seats if working-class turnout had been at the same level as in 1997 - but I somehow doubt coming out with a more authentically left-wing prospectus would've been the key to overcoming the inevitable apathy of three terms in power. Given a pledge to end immigration could've almost certainly boosted that turnout, if not won us a majority*...

 

I'm sure Labour would be vulnerable to an anti-cuts party. Does that mean that signing up to such a prospectus is the way forward for the Labour Party, given it has the danger to put off as many as it gains in terms of now solid core voters? (well, in many ways that's probably the core question for us, along with 'what can Labour offer when there's bugger all money to spend?' - and the latter question's far easier to answer)

 

I think the best way to inform the answer to that question is to look at the other side. It always astounds me that many who call for a core vote strategy intuitively see how self-defeating it is when applied to the other side and are the first to point out that they're making a mistake. UKIP are tearing support out of the Conservative Party, yet the instinctive reaction of the Conservatives is to attempt to offer a more red-meat solution to bring them home again. Do I think it'll bring back many more than will have come back already when the question was focused on 'Ed Miliband vs David Cameron - who do you want as PM?'. Not really. But I think focusing on Europe and other marginal concerns to most voters will damage the Conservatives immensely when it comes down to it - and for the left-wingers who loathe this government, I don't see that the vast majority of them are likely to in their heart of hearts think that an Ed Miliband government is really going to be as bad as a second Cameron term, regardless of how much they protest to be on the verge of tearing up their membership cards.

 

And yes, Obama did win over swing voters, but he didn't do it in the way most political anoraks think you do it, by diluting your policies, being terrified of saying something "radical", or by nervously consulting the opinion polls and always making sure he was against anything that the polls said was unpopular (e.g. amnesty for illegal immigrants or public healthcare). He did it by stating what he believed in honestly and clearly, convinced people that he was a decent person who was saying what he believed, and he persuaded people who wouldn't've considered themselves "left-wing" that his solutions were right (and that's what I was getting at by saying swing voters don't exist in the way British politicians think they do: they're mostly not people who have perfectly centrist views on everything, they're mostly people who don't have much interest in politics and are completely uninspired by the main parties, and are waiting for a politician to say something strong that catches their attention and persuades them - and treating politics like a game of chess and giving the impression you're only saying things to win votes is only going to push people like that further away).

 

This is why, though I think policy is incredibly important in the current scenario for Ed, I don't think it's the be-all and end-all generally. Obama is someone who by the sheer force of charisma signed America up to a policy prospectus it didn't normally agree with in 2008, and very effectively framed Romney as someone who didn't care about the majority in 2012 (though 1. Romney did a brilliant job of that himself at times, and 2. we've been trying the same for a while now - hence why you'll never hear a Labour spokesperson say the word Tory without the suffix 'out-of-touch', even if I think it's a bit on the nose - but focus groups find it's the most effective way of deploying the message). Charisma - and by extension, valence, the belief that a leader is best placed and most competent to deal with the issues that face the country, regardless of whether you'd necessarily fully agree with their policy prescriptions - is something I've come to think is probably Ed's biggest problem. I'm not sure if it's one he can do much about given he wasted the chance to change his image in his first 100 days from that of a weird wonk who stabbed his brother in the back to something a little more leader-like, and first impressions count for a lot. For example, if Tony/Obama (hell, even David Miliband, though I think he's probably the most overrated Labour figure ever) came along with an anti-austerity message in the UK, I don't think it would be as effective as a more centrist policy prospectus**, but I reckon it'd probably win a fairly comfortable majority on the basis that yes, charisma and valence plays a huge part in winning over voters - previous or not.

 

However, we're talking about Ed Miliband here. Hence why I focus most of my beliefs on the strategy he'd need to take on policy, as he doesn't really convince as much as Cameron does to the average voter that he's leadership material (and that's being charitable). I think there's something to the belief that saying anything to get elected can be damaging and push away people, and that the perfectly centrist voter being the average swing voter isn't accurate (though I think they're more broadly centrist than other voters, which is what matters). Generally I'd say honesty is the best policy on areas of unpopular belief - so long as they aren't the key issues the election is decided on. After all, I'm sure people didn't really doubt Michael Howard's sincerity, and his beliefs weren't really all that unpopular in certain respects - but they had the image of being pseudo-far right traditionalist loons, even though polling showed the public broadly agreed with a lot of their policies until they found out they were Tory policies, at which point they were viewed through that frame. My worry is that the current problem of Labour is that we're seen as totally oppositional with no realistic plan for what to do in government or on the economy at all - and the only way to combat that is by coming up with a prospectus that at least takes into account the long-term need for cuts, even if we do make provision for short-term stimulus. I just wish that Ed had the ability to make that subtle point accessibly and honestly rather than running scared every time he was asked if he would borrow at all, which makes the problem even worse.

 

(*not that I'm suggesting this should ever be considered. I do have my limits, believe it or not :P)

(**which has more of a capacity to pull in undecideds who previously voted Tory/LD - and winning over ex-Tories is electorally far more effective in Tory/Labour swings given that makes up the difference twice as much as pulling in former non-voters/those from other parties. Hence why it's my favoured strategy - it's far, far easier to win with floating Tories than it is to build a whole new coalition. The only example of the latter done successfully in recent times on the left had the godlike oratorical and fundraising skills of Barack Obama, so I'm loath to suggest counting on it from Ed Miliband.)

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/polit...15-8669374.html

 

Worried.

 

I know plenty of previously faithful activists saying that if we stick with this it'll be the last straw. Regardless of the merits of it, and unsurprisingly I'm not mad keen, it's highly dangerous politically. Personally I don't think the People's Assembly have the guts to start putting candidates forward and I don't want to be proved wrong.

This is why I loathe headlines. 'We won't reverse cuts in 2015' is massively different from 'We won't borrow to reverse current (as opposed to capital) spending cuts, and will only fund them from cuts elsewhere or raising extra revenue'. The latter is what he actually said, as the story makes clear, and even fits in with the 'cut military spending/tax the rich!' solutions so beloved by the people who'll be claiming they'll leave the party if we go through with it.

 

As it goes, that's the kind of exercise in subtlety I'm quite happy to see from Ed - he's being directly honest in saying he won't pay for reversing current spending cuts on the national credit card (but that we can borrow for capital projects, which makes perfect economic sense). Good. That's the exact message we should be putting out. If we're going to reverse cuts (and there's no problem with that), they need to be funded from somewhere - and if anything he's just laying the ground for the inevitable tax rises that are going to come in the next parliament, either from the Tories or from Labour.

 

Ed has no vision for Britain, no sense of change, he just reads a Daily Mail editorial and sets the agenda based on that.

So why aren't you voting for him?

Edited June 23, 201312 yr by Kanduälska

And if the People's Assembly start putting up candidates then Owen Jones can kiss goodbye to the hopes of a safe seat that he's currently on the lookout for.

If Cameron has a vision then he's keeping it very quiet.

 

Cameron is the incumbent, has the advantage, if 2 parties go into election with the same ideas the 'better the devil you know' factor comes well into play.

 

 

So why aren't you voting for him?

 

Because I can't stand the Daily Mail

 

Vile paper - racist, homophobic, little Englander mentality, hypocritical too moralising about Jeremy Forrest while at the same time posting pictures of Kylie Jenner ( younger than Megan ) in a skimpy bikini.

 

I am not a Daily Mail reader, Telegraph thank you.

Ed is clueless

 

Labour won't win an election (thank god) on the basis of a tory agenda and simply not being the tories

 

The guy has no vision for Britain, no sense of change, he just reads a Daily Mail editorial and sets the agenda based on that.

 

I might be biased (since I voted for him), but I really don't think it's Ed that's the problem. Imo his problem is he's listened too much to the New Labour relics like Ed Balls and all the 'Blairites', who are still stuck in the 1990s and think what worked for Labour then is what would work now, that the way to win is by saying bland niceties about "unity" and coming across as centrist and not saying anything too radical. That worked in the 90s because most people agreed that society and the economy were in a pretty good place so nothing much needed to be changed -- whereas now, everyone knows the country is in a terrible shape, and people want radical solutions and answers. If you've got nothing to say at a time when there's such big problems then you're never getting anywhere. (And this is why I also totally believe David Miliband would be doing even worse if he is Labour leader, because he suffers from the politician disease "I've-got-nothing-of-substance-or-interest-to-say-so-I'll-just-say-every-cliche-and-platitude-I-can-think-of-for-2-minutes-to-try-and-sound-intelligent-and-serious"-itis even more than Ed.)

 

Although I do think that, now Ed's bottled it, he might be vulnerable to a leadership challenge when the opinion poll boost or rise in "economic credibility" (whatever that's even supposed to mean) doesn't happen. If it does happen, I'm hoping Andy Burnham would get it. My only worry with him is that the snobbish "Westminster media" will sneer that he's not "credible" purely because of his accent (case in point being Alan Johnson, who was hounded out of his job because of one mistake whereas anyone who sounds like a Professional Politician gets free passes to make cock-up after cock-up).

I might be biased (since I voted for him), but I really don't think it's Ed that's the problem. Imo his problem is he's listened too much to the New Labour relics like Ed Balls and all the 'Blairites', who are still stuck in the 1990s and think what worked for Labour then is what would work now, that the way to win is by saying bland niceties about "unity" and coming across as centrist and not saying anything too radical. That worked in the 90s because most people agreed that society and the economy were in a pretty good place so nothing much needed to be changed -- whereas now, everyone knows the country is in a terrible shape, and people want radical solutions and answers. If you've got nothing to say at a time when there's such big problems then you're never getting anywhere. (And this is why I also totally believe David Miliband would be doing even worse if he is Labour leader, because he suffers from the politician disease "I've-got-nothing-of-substance-or-interest-to-say-so-I'll-just-say-every-cliche-and-platitude-I-can-think-of-for-2-minutes-to-try-and-sound-intelligent-and-serious"-itis even more than Ed.)

 

Although I do think that, now Ed's bottled it, he might be vulnerable to a leadership challenge when the opinion poll boost or rise in "economic credibility" (whatever that's even supposed to mean) doesn't happen. If it does happen, I'm hoping Andy Burnham would get it. My only worry with him is that the snobbish "Westminster media" will sneer that he's not "credible" purely because of his accent (case in point being Alan Johnson, who was hounded out of his job because of one mistake whereas anyone who sounds like a Professional Politician gets free passes to make cock-up after cock-up).

 

I agree particularly with the last part, Alan Johnson is a decent guy, down to earth and understands the working man.

 

He knows what it is like to get up at 5am for a shift unlike the career politicians and 'special advisers' who go straight into politics after uni without any career life experience.

 

But because he sounds like a working man he is looked down on by the toffs of the metropolitan and old school tie political elite.

 

I don't think Alan Johnson was really hounded out of his job. There were really genuine personal issues at play there...Andy Burnham would be an excellent leader from a valence perspective though. He also has an advantage over Ed in that he's very relatable, something I don't think is the case with Yvette, who does come over very overprofessionalised and dour - and I see the next leadership election (if Ed loses) being between those two.

Who's to say we need anything especially radically left-wing, or that it would be the electoral way forward? Mild social democracy/redistributionism and reforming the banking system to split investment and high street banking pretty much alleviate the two central problems of the last decade - i.e. the banking crisis and stagnant real incomes since 2004. The British public has never really taken too well to radicalism, preferring the devil it knows (especially vague radicalism of the sort Ed's come out with with no serious policy prospectus beyond 'stuff has to change'), at least at elections.

 

It's worth bearing in mind that the most radical British government of modern times (Thatcher) wasn't elected as a radical government - her '79 policy prospectus was quite light, proposing moderate union reform, and it wasn't until after her second election victory that most of the ingredients that would be interpreted as part of the Thatcherite model were enacted. The British public is fundamentally a gradualist one in my view - they won't elect radical reform until you've proved yourself a trustworthy custodian of the country. Most of the radical reform since 2010 had zero mention in the election itself - it's worth remembering the central conflict was over £6bn worth of cuts to be made that June, a drop in the water compared with those actually made!

Edited June 23, 201312 yr by Kanduälska

That first part isn't really true at all - ticket splitting is fairly rare, especially compared with how it was decades back. Few people relatively actually split their tickets a few months back - the Democrats won the Congress elections in terms of votes, the widespread gerrymandering in the 2010 redistricting explains how the Republicans won Congress. And given the results were D 66m - R 61m - Other 6m in the presidentials and D 60m - R 58m - Other 4.5m in the congressionals, while you could make the case that Obama had more of a personal vote which decreased turnout for the Democrats in the congressionals, it would be difficult to ascribe it much to ticket-splitting or even really say that it happened on a mass scale.

 

Ticket-splitting happened less in 2012 than it traditionally does, but it still happened to a far greater degree than it ever would in a British election.

 

Actually a few days after I made that post, I saw a poll which showed that in Britain, more than 50% of people said they would never even consider voting Conservative (and almost as high a percentage saying they'd never vote Labour). You simply would never get that in America -- yes there is a large proportion of people who say that they wouldn't vote for the Republicans right now or in the near-future with the state the party is currently in, but if you then go onto ask would they ever envisage voting for them (i.e. with different policies/leaders), the vast majority say in any of that poll that kind say it's totally possible that they could one day vote for them. That's why fundamentally (and I stress that because of the point I'm about to make), the American system is far less tribal/polarised than Britain.

 

 

And even in terms of being polarising, there's still far more of a case for stating America to be polarised than the UK. Party identification is at an all-time low in the UK - hovering at about 50-60%. I don't have the exact figure but I'd be very surprised if it were anywhere near that low in the US.

.....and the point I wanted to make was, yes probably more Americans say they identify with / are more enthusiastic about a party than in Britain right now, but I think that is as a result of the fact that the two main American parties are offering a real choice right now between two different visions, in a way British politicians haven't for 15 years (and, judging by what Labour are saying, won't be anytime soon either). Up until 2008, party identification in the States was at a pitifully low rate -- but then Obama came along and offered a radical agenda and the Republicans after that election responded by veering off into a radical direction of their own. So the current polarisation there is because of what the parties are saying, not because of something fundamental, and there's no reason to think that the same wouldn't also happen in Britain which is fundamentally so much more tribal, if the parties were to actually give a proper choice like in the States.

 

 

 

Again, I think the implication of your argument conflates working-class with left-wing. Labour would've won at least 20 more marginal seats if working-class turnout had been at the same level as in 1997 - but I somehow doubt coming out with a more authentically left-wing prospectus would've been the key to overcoming the inevitable apathy of three terms in power. Given a pledge to end immigration could've almost certainly boosted that turnout, if not won us a majority*...

 

Well, obviously the distinction to be made here is that, by "left-wing", I don't mean a Guardian-type agenda. Many, perhaps most, working-class people don't identify themselves as "left-wing" or "socialist" anymore, and many have right-wing views on crime or immigration (though I completely disagree with the assumption that working-class people have right-wing views on welfare -- yes many people complain about the minority of "proper scroungers" who cheat the system and so they might support a pledge to "crack down on benefit cheats" in a vague sense, but working-class people are also much more likely to be friends with or related to people who are on benefits and who they know genuinely can't work or can't find a job, and they know these cuts are also going to harm those people, so I definitely sense that the government's benefits policies have gone down terribly with most working-class people, because it's viewed as another attack by rich men on people like them). And they don't really give a shit eitherway about civil liberities or political reform or whatever.

 

But on things like public services and spending and tax, then yes, I definitely think working-class people are still left-wing. They think the government has a responsibility to make sure there's jobs for everyone, they hate the fact that their inner cities and their high streets and local communities are being left to rot away, and they certainly think the richest people should be paying far more into the system than they do (remember the government's single most unpopular policy to date was scrapping the 50p tax rate - the biggest sign of how things have moved on since the 90s. And yet Labour still don't say they'd even restore it). Most don't care about the deficit, and they certainly have no time for the argument that people should lose their jobs and vital public services should be weakened solely because of what "the markets" will think.

 

 

This is why I loathe headlines. 'We won't reverse cuts in 2015' is massively different from 'We won't borrow to reverse current (as opposed to capital) spending cuts, and will only fund them from cuts elsewhere or raising extra revenue'. The latter is what he actually said, as the story makes clear, and even fits in with the 'cut military spending/tax the rich!' solutions so beloved by the people who'll be claiming they'll leave the party if we go through with it.

 

Oh come on, that's total semantics :lol: They're basically the same thing, since they're also too scared to say they'll be raising taxes in any major way. It totally comes across as "we basically agree with what the government is saying, but we're going to say we oppose it anyway to score political points". And this approach would be the worst thing of all for Labour, if they claim they'll cut spending just as much as the government, yet still manage to improve the way the country is. People know at this point that it's a choice between big spending cuts and a worse society, or high spending and a better society. In my personal opinion, people would be responsive to the latter if Labour were really bold in saying it and saying how the deficit is not particularly important -- but if they say they'll magically manage to slash spending while still keeping/bringing back all the good things that government money pays for, then apart from anything else everyone is just going to think they're being dishonest and playing people for fools.

Edited June 23, 201312 yr by Danny

This is why I loathe headlines. 'We won't reverse cuts in 2015' is massively different from 'We won't borrow to reverse current (as opposed to capital) spending cuts, and will only fund them from cuts elsewhere or raising extra revenue'. The latter is what he actually said, as the story makes clear, and even fits in with the 'cut military spending/tax the rich!' solutions so beloved by the people who'll be claiming they'll leave the party if we go through with it.

 

As it goes, that's the kind of exercise in subtlety I'm quite happy to see from Ed - he's being directly honest in saying he won't pay for reversing current spending cuts on the national credit card (but that we can borrow for capital projects, which makes perfect economic sense). Good. That's the exact message we should be putting out. If we're going to reverse cuts (and there's no problem with that), they need to be funded from somewhere - and if anything he's just laying the ground for the inevitable tax rises that are going to come in the next parliament, either from the Tories or from Labour.

So why aren't you voting for him?

One of the reasons to hate headlines being that people often don't read beyond them - Ed surely knows this, and regardless of the merits of what he was actually saying he must have realised that it was going to be misconstrued as "we won't do anything different".

 

Subtlety is fine, and I agree that we can't be seen saying anything too radical on certain topics (you can imagine I'm popular in Sheffield with that one), but the approach suggested by that headline is plain unpopular on the doorstep and we need to be both clearer and more canny with the media.