by Rob Marchant
On discovering, via Tim Montgomerie’s Saturday piece, that Michael Ashcroft has commissioned a report into the future of the Labour party, one’s immediate reaction is that it was exceptionally kind of him. After all, as Montgomerie points out, the party is not exactly awash with cash at the moment to do its own polling. Really a very public-spirited action by the noble Lord.
All right, perhaps Ashcroft is not really bankrolling a report for our benefit. It is of great political value to the Tories to show Labour to be out of touch and polling poorly. But you know what the smart thing for us to do would be? It would be to read it very carefully anyway. And the article is a good starting point. It is uncomfortable reading, naturally, but it is always a position of strength to listen to adverse criticism, especially when it’s based on the opinion of ordinary people. And it is always a position of weakness to ignore it.
Wisdom from the Daily Mail, you say? Free your mind. Montgomerie is an intelligent Tory: strip out the partisan from the adverse criticisms made in the first half of the piece, and what’s left is a pretty objective, if ruthless, analysis.
At the very highest level, there are two things any politician needs to get right in order to attain or keep power: the policy thing; and the non-policy thing. It would be great if we were elected purely on our policies; but to think so is dangerously naïve. There is a range of other factors which can make a big difference. Aside from public perception of the leader, we have public perception of other key figures, historical context, current economic situation, expectations of the future and so on. And these things tend to apply irrespective of political stripe.
The policy thing you can never get much out of through a Tory prism. Montgomerie himself is a full-blooded Tory on touchstone issues such as Europe; therefore such issues, irrespective of whether the public is bothered about them, are talked up, as we would talk up ours. No, we can mostly skip the policy part.
However, on the non-policy areas, the piece makes for some interesting points. First it reinforces what the personal attack line will be: it characterises Ed Miliband, simply, as odd. Now, the Red Ed approach was always too glib and too visibly inappropriate to stick, but Odd Ed – well, it’s cleverer and more effective. Instead of angrily rejecting the personal attack – after all, a fact of political life – we should do what grown-ups do: calmly clock it; analyse it; and deal with it.
None of us can do much about the way we look or sound; but Ed does need to work on how he comes across on television. More personable bloke from the pub, if you like, and less policy wonk or visionary Martin Luther King. Reagan, Clinton and Bush Jr. all had one thing in common: they were people the American public felt they could have a beer with. There is something important in that attack line that needs to be neutralised.
Next, the low personal poll rating is brought up, as per last week’s poll. Again, this should be a concern, but it is not an insurmountable one: there is still time to change it. More importantly, he admonishes Labour for giving the impression of returning to being a party of protest, of student politics. That stings, but it’s also credible, if we review with realism the overall impression left by the March 26 demo (and, while there are undoubtedly other factors, it is at least an interesting coincidence that the month following the London demo was the month our poll lead there abruptly evaporated).
Not everything is accurate about the analysis. For example, Montgomerie adversely criticises Miliband’s failure to reform his party, and here he is wrong: it is simply not possible to reform a political party in eight months (although if he means challenge the party, that is a different matter). But one final adverse criticism is insightful:
“By the early stages of his leadership, David Cameron had been sending mega-watt messages to voters on issues such as the NHS, the environment and fighting poverty — whether you agreed with them or not, they all energetically suggested that he was a very different kind of Conservative”.
The vital subtext here is this: Cameron was prepared to bypass the conventional wisdom of his own party to tell the public what they needed to hear: that his party had changed.
And here is the crux of the matter. Cameron did it. Blair did it with clause four. Thatcher did it against the wets. Once done, all of their positions became secure. All of our leaders, in winning power from opposition, have to do it, usually shortly after becoming leader: it is difficult to argue that Ed should be an exception.
A message of change has been there, yes. But it has been muted, a little fuzzy and, most importantly, directed more at the party and core Labour supporters than at the wider public and swing voters. The public can’t see what’s changed and, if they see anything, they likely see a swing to the left, away from them.
All of this non-policy analysis by the Tories is interesting and useful, precisely because it is largely dispassionate: they have no reason to be nice. It may not all be right, but we could do much worse than to go through it carefully in search of learning points. Because sometimes your worst enemy will tell you the home truth that your best friend won’t.
So, thank you, Lord Ashcroft, for all your hard work on our behalf. You’ve whetted our appetite, now if you could just send the full report to Labour Uncut, we’d be much obliged. We’ll pay the postage.
Rob Marchant is an activist and former Labour Party manager who blogs at The Centre Left.
Tags: Lord Ashcroft, Rob Marchant, Tim Montgomerie
Noblesse Oblige…
I’m sure it’ll be an interesting report when it is published – Lord Ashcroft’s work is always worth taking seriously, not least because he is willing to tell uncomfortable truths to his own party as well as to his opponents (see e.g. his ‘Minority Report’ into the 2010 election, and the more recent ‘Project Blueprint’ report on the Tories’ continuing areas of electoral weakness).
I think, though, that Montgomerie is being a bit mischievous in this article: he’s trailing a report by Ashcroft which he suggests that he hasn’t seen (“although its findings are yet to be published, it’s likely to be an uncomfortable wake-up call…”) before going on to discuss some of the results of the Tories’ own focus group research, which is separate from that of Ashcroft (who I believe is freelancing again now and no longer under the Tories’ commission).
Of course, this Tory focus group research is still worth taking seriously and there is no doubt that serious work needs to be done to improve Ed M’s approval ratings as well as perceptions of the party as a whole. But it’s also quite clear that Montgomerie is selecting particular findings (and apparently mixing up different polling data – it’s not very clear) to present as negative as possible a picture for Labour. That means we need to treat what he says with caution, in the ‘non-policy’ areas as well as the policy areas.
Also worth noting that, based on his other published work, Ashcroft would not agree with Montgomerie’s assertion (with which you appear to concur) that Cameron succeeded by his actions in convincing the public that the Tories had changed. Indeed, it’s a key finding of both ‘Minority Report’ and ‘Project Blueprint’ that too many voters (both in 2010 and now) still *don’t* believe the Tories have changed substantially, and that this is one of their main obstacles to achieving a Parliamentary majority.
Assuming we can discount the idea that the research has been published altruistically, I suspect Ashcroft’s report is much more likely to focus on Labour’s strengths (and how the Tories can best counter these) than on their weaknesses (which are much easier to identify and exploit).
We’ll wait and see, but I’d be surprised if the Montgomerie article is a reliable guide to the content.
but Ed does need to work on how he comes across on television. More personable bloke from the pub, if you like, and less policy wonk or visionary Martin Luther King
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Meh, I wouldn’t spend too much of your time overworrying about people perceiving Red Ed as a ‘visionary Martin Luther King’.
Rob,
I think you’re being far too obliging to Tim Montgomerie’s piece. It started with the headline which was mindlessly hyperbolic and descended into the default arguments against Ed Miliband that have become the norm in political lexicon. Montgomerie is a much respected and astute conservative commentator, whose ConservativeHome website he has established as a formidable platform for grassroots thought. But this was pure nonsense, designed to appease the rabid Daily Mail hordes who despise the Labour party even if Jesus of Nazareth were to lead it.
I doubt very much Montgomerie selflessly wrote the article as a source of help for the Labour party. On the other hand, however, I genuinely suspect Lord Ashcroft’s research is designed to indulge his desire to fully understand British politics. And if he does release it, then frankly we in the Labour party should read and digest it. His 2005 report ‘Smell the coffee: a wake up call for the Conservative party’ went a long way to laying the base for the Tories (just about) returning to power in 2010. And if Ed’s doing as badly as some suggest, he’ll need all the help he can get.
“Cameron did it. Blair did it with clause four. Thatcher did it against the wets. Once done, all of their positions became secure. All of our leaders, in winning power from opposition, have to do it,”
Rob – Ed did it .
He denounced the Iraq war that cost us a million votes.
By moving away from the swivel eyed Blairite brigade but not away from the centre ground Ed has been able to add a huge amount of support to the party in a very short time. And when the memory of a Labour government is still fresh, unlike when Blair came in.
What Ed needs to do is sharpen his and the Labour parties competency image. But in order to do this he needs the usual whine merchants on here to stop being so pessimistic and stop constantly briefing against him and show some loyalty.
When you see articles that constantly stretch any news into bad news it’s not hard to believe that the editorship here isn’t prepared to support a leader who wasn’t “their” leader. Indeed Dan Hodges has implied as much.
It’s a strange tactic I have to say. You are alienating the membership to your message and simultaneously reducing the efficacy of what you are saying. A sort of rope-a-dope strategy against yourselves.
If you keep on swinging constantly. You will never have the power to land a blow.
Show some loyalty not just for the parties sake.
But for your own.
A remarkably sensible piece of analysis. If more people on the left had this degree of good sense we might have some hope for another Labour government before we celebrate the centenary of the General Strike.
Change “directed more at the party and core Labour supporters than at the wider public and swing voters. The public can’t see what’s changed and, if they see anything, they likely see a swing to the left, away from them.” ?
I’m not too sure about that. Aside from the absurdity of the left/right/centre talk, certain messages have got through in media outlets – the mea culpa on migration levels during the 00s was pretty significant. Especially since this concern is raised as a trust issue by Tory-inclined swing voters on doorsteps. In recent elections our line on the A8 EU migration has been contrary to what people experienced in terms of increased competition for housing, services, and employment.
By the way, you quibbled with me back in February when I pointed to Ashcroft’s opinion survey of Labour supporters and swing voters – the similarities his focus groups had in sentiment on making work pay, reducing youth unemployment, reforming corporate governance to give employees a stake in remuneration, the distributional impact of spending cuts, and the causes of the economic crisis. In this respect, the ammendment to the Finance Bill is an attack on the coalition’s weakspot.
But in Ed’s case he is moving towards a place where he is explaining that the party has changed. Away from New Labour and of course, to the left of that position. It’s not as if a further shift towards the right would be feasible unless we are abandoning our need for existence at all
Rob – Ed did it .
He denounced the Iraq war that cost us a million votes.
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I agree – That was Ed’s ‘piss off your party’ moment. He did it early & with great success.
Who can forget the coverage: Harriet Harman applauding; David Miliband asking: “Why are you clapping?” It was covered by the media for an entire week.
And that was the point at which ex-LibDem voters, already dis-enchanted with the Tory coalition, moved to the Labour Party.
The Labour Party are slowly gaining ground in other areas, which shows the shift away from New Labour. Again, Harriet was spokesperson – this time on Andrew Marr’s Sunday show. We are on our front foot about funding from the Unions; we are proud that ordinary working people donate to our Party.
And, IMO, Cameron never had a ‘clause 4 moment’; the closest he came was promising to protect the NHS, saying there would be no cuts & no tops down reorganisation…
…whilst all the while reassuring his Party & donors that there would be massive changes to the NHS that could be very profitable for private sector providers.
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The only really useful thing that Tim Montgomerie highlighted was the ‘Odd Ed’ thing. I already posted about that on another thread… suffice to say: Ed showing he isn’t Odd will be easy. And none of this ‘have a pint with the men’ nonsense.
Ed should appeal to women & ‘new’ men – not the pint at the pub brigade. The over 60’s are tribal Tories (mostly) or tribal Labour. The 45-59 age group like Labour (we remember Thatcher) & young people are favouring Labour more too.
Ed has yet to appeal to the 30-45 age group. And Cameron is frantic that Ed & Justine can sweep the board there, given half a chance. Hence Cameron’s pandering to mumsnetters with his ridiculous ‘lads mags in paper bags’, Mary Whitehouse web-site & ban bikinis for under 18s (or whatever his silly dress code promises are).
So win back Scotland from the SNP – & for Westminster that should not be too difficult;
Keep the North happy – Labour are miles ahead there;
Keep gaining ground in Wales & the Midlands where labour are steadily building support…
…& Labour will be at least 80% of the way to where we need to be, without sacrificing any principles or attacking our own Party or alienating its ‘natural’ supporters.
The last 20% – make Ed likeable to women & enough men in the 30-45 age group by showing them he is not so different to them. They are his peer group; he can win them over.
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@Simon: fair point, you may be right about Montgomerie finessing the facts between this report and other work. But I think it doesn’t really change things: I doubt when the report comes out it will diverge that strongly from what he says. I suspect he’s had an advance peek, at least, and is not just second-guessing.
Re him possibly painting the picture blacker than it is, it may also be true but we’ll see when the report comes out. Ashcroft’s stuff is usually backed with data.
Someone else on Twitter made the same point that Cameron didn’t *completely* convince the public he’d changed – true. But, as I said to them, that is still consistent with my argument. Anyway, I think we’re agreed on the overall point that the report will be worth reading (many people would strongly disagree even with this).
@David: “I doubt very much Montgomerie selflessly wrote the article as a source of help for the Labour party”. David, of *course* he didn’t. I hoped at least my irony was clear! On the headline, I think you are misplaced in your criticism: as someone noted on the LibCon review of his piece, authors don’t write headlines. The headline was “pure nonsense”, as you rightly say. The content, especially the non-policy content, was not.
@TheFuture: I wish we didn’t have to make every debate into a discussion about party loyalty: it makes debate so limiting. Now is exactly the time when we *should* be debating and are free to do so. Your argument seems to be: let’s just clap along with the leadership in everything they do. If I were an MP, I would agree with you, but I’m not. I should also add that I am not in the habit of making ad hominem attacks against anyone, least of all my party leader. I may criticise his actions or his style – and praise him when he gets things right – but not the man himself. Other writers may make different choices.
In the absence of information to the contrary, I believe you to be well-intentioned: but I find it frustrating that you think that Ed’s mea culpa over Iraq is enough to make people think the party has changed. Iraq, in the eyes of many British people, was not our finest hour. However, although it is still a touchstone issue with the party, it has never been as important to the country as we think it is. They care more about the economy, health and education (particularly the first). Until we have some different things to say on these areas (like Cameron or Blair did), people will not see the change.
Finally, the mea culpa itself was not really a statement of change at all: it was the opposite. It was a reflection of the reality that Blair had never taken (most of) the party with him on Iraq. It was, in fact, a statement of “no change”. The others challenged their parties, and this was not a challenge.
@ForlorneHope: the next General Strike may come sooner than you think…;)
@James: we’re never going to agree that “left/right” is absurd, you think “labour/capital” is the right way to cut it, and I think that’s anachronistic. We’ll have to agree to disagree, I think. I accept your point on migration levels, that is about the only significant mea culpa we’ve had. But we need more, and they need to be more radical: it was a very modest claim. Anyway, if you think that, by this, Ed has marked himself out as a “very different kind of Labourite” as Montgomerie suggests of Cameron, I think most people would agree that’s clearly not right.
Don’t remember the Feb discussion, but I think we agree that Ashcroft’s worth listening to.
@MerseyMike: You can probably see that I disagree on the direction: but, even if I didn’t, you seem to accept that a leisurely pace for defining oneself is acceptable, and it’s not. We need to be doing it now, as the article points out.
@AmberStar: on Iraq, I refer my Rt Hon friend to the answer to TheFuture above. On your second post, I find it very sexist that you assume that women cannot have pints in a pub with Ed. It’s nothing to do with men or maleness (apart from Ed happens to be one), which were not mentioned, but you are revealing your own prejudices 😉 Anyway, we agree that the oddness thing is an issue. Your back-of-an-envelope demographic analysis of the UK has holes all over it but this response is already pretty long.
The last 20% – make Ed likeable to women & enough men in the 30-45 age group by showing them he is not so different to them. They are his peer group; he can win them over.
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Oh here we go again. Why not just pay Simon Cowell a million quid to tell the country that, ‘Ed, you nailed it there’.
Or even better, how about coming up with a sensible vision for Britain underpinned by proper, sensible, costed policies.
Or is that just too grown up.
Rob, “we’re never going to agree that “left/right” is absurd, you think “labour/capital” is the right way to cut it, and I think that’s anachronistic.” I wish it was. But here we are, discussing this on “Labour Uncut” a blog of Labour Party members and supporters 😉 Left/right is after all an abstraction of labour/capital, reduced to the level of preference – I think a way of thinking about politics that focuses on people’s activities and interests rather than their prior opinions (left/right/centre) is particularly helpful in understanding swing voters concerns.
@ Rob Marchant
Your back-of-an-envelope demographic analysis of the UK has holes all over it but this response is already pretty long.
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I think of it as broad-brush rather than back-of-an-envelope. And it’s based on YG polling. I can get all the numbers for you, if you’d like. Let me know & I’ll post them for you later. 🙂
I’ll also pull the polling/ stats on how many women drink pints. We may find that my prejudices are well grounded in facts. 😉
I actually think that I posted quite a laundry list of things that the Party – & Ed M – do need to focus on; there’s no complacency here.
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Here you go, Rob
http://today.yougov.co.uk/sites/today.yougov.co.uk/files/yg-archives-pol-sun-results-070611.pdf
How many links to YG would you like?
Labour are ahead in every age group except the 60+. Of the groups where we’re ahead, Labour are weakest in the 25 – 39 group & that’s the group where the CONS occasionally go ahead when Labour are fewer than 8 points in front.
Labour support in the North, Midlands & Wales is good; London is neck & neck (although there can be slippage when Labour is less than +8 points); Scotland looks good for Westminster voting but the SNP will always be ‘bubbling under’, which is why I mentioned it specifically in my broadbrush analysis. The rest of the South is staunchly Tory for now. Labour can win without it but it would be nice to have some support there.
Okay, you do have to be careful with polling sub-samples but you are happy to link to the London article posted on Uncut that is arrived at by tracking YG sub-samples so that’s why I reckon it’s fair enough to use them too. I have posted the latest YG link but I run averages, trackers & charts – all the way back to the first YG poll after the 2010 GE.
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@ Rob,
Now, I’ll go look for that polling on the gender gap in pint drinking…. 😉
@AmberStar: “The rest of the South is staunchly Tory for now. Labour can win without it”.
I think you have been drinking those pints rather than looking for the stats! 😉 I understand, you had a momentarily lapse of judgement.
A poll which says we are ahead does NOT mean we can win without the South. No-one believes that, including Ed, I’m sure. Irrespective of national distribution, the overall poll lead is *soft* (see my LabourList piece on this). Plus, the latest national poll actually put us without a lead. At all.
While there is some encouraging news in your data about the strongholds, do not think for a second that we can win without the South.
@ Rob
While there is some encouraging news in your data about the strongholds, do not think for a second that we can win without the South.
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I said ‘the rest of the South’ which is how YG separates its regional sampling. When I have time, hopefully this weekend, I’ll post the math on how Labour would do in each region, based on the average swing, per region, since the 2010 GE.
Leads are always ‘soft’ until two or three weeks before a GE. But that’s all we have to go by. A poll lead certainly shouldn’t be a reason for complacency. And I’d be genuinely interested to know, what would convince you that Labour are doing well? What have you set as milestones for ‘the Journey’ back to government?
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@ Rob
Plus, the latest national poll actually put us without a lead. At all.
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All YG Polls are national polls – the link I posted is the latest (i.e. most recent) national poll.
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Nice try, but you said, quote, “we can win without [the South]”. Wrong. Poll leads do not magically translate into wins, certainly single-figure ones. As you rightly say, poll leads are soft until a GE. So “we can win without the South” is simply an incorrect conclusion from those data. It also ignores the highly important point that the economic situation will almost certainly be significantly better by 2015.
What would convince me otherwise? Simply, a much, much stronger lead than that.
Finally, the latest YG poll, yes but this one from Comres (31 May) differs. That’s what I meant. Obviously polls are at best accurate to plus or minus a few per cent, but it underlines the extreme fragility of our lead.