by Atul Hatwal
Labour did a good thing last week.
On Sunday, Ed Balls re-launched his proposals for a £2bn tax on bankers’ bonuses to fund action on youth unemployment and a new house building programme.
Politically, the policy draws exactly the right dividing lines. Greedy bankers versus young unemployed and aspiring home-owners.
In economic terms, it focuses funds just where they are needed, helping reduce the costs of economic failure and getting the housing market moving again.
And by putting down amendments to the finance bill, Balls will ensure a parliamentary vote on the plan, giving the opportunity to pressure individual Tory and Lib Dem MPs and expose whose side they are really on.
The initiative has all the elements of a policy which could cut through the white noise of political debate to resonate with the public.
But it hasn’t.
Not that there was anything wrong with the proposals. Or the media coverage. The public just don’t seem to be listening, much as when the proposals were originally launched in March.
In his Q&A session at the GMB conference on Monday, rather than being on the front foot, Balls had to explain why Labour wasn’t doing better in the polls.
And when the session chair, Kevin Maguire, asked the audience whether Ed Miliband needs to do better, Balls was left surveying a forest of arms.
In the past few months, a new turn of phrase has entered the everyday lexicon in politics. “Permission to speak” has become over-used in the way of other Westminster linguistic fads over the years, particularly by politicos seeking to impress (see also last year’s favourite, “meme” and more recently, “rolling the pitch” amongst Tories describing how to prepare for a policy launch).
But on this occasion, it does accurately summarise why this incisive policy has effectively gone nowhere.
The electorate has withdrawn Labour’s permission to speak on the economy.
Regardless of the merits of individual policies, voters have turned away from Labour’s arguments because they see no change in the party’s stance on the defining economic issue since the election – the deficit.
Unfortunately, they have a point.
Despite slumping to its worst election result in nearly twenty years, Labour party policy on the deficit, the Darling plan, remains preserved in aspic.
The Darling plan was always a compromise for Labour in government. It held the cabinet together, just, but in the end it was neither one thing nor the other.
Not tough enough to match the Tories on tackling the deficit but harsh enough to undermine Labour’s attacks on the Tories as reckless slashers.
The electorate gave their clear judgement on it last year.
A year on, in an environment where all of the polls show that tackling the deficit is now entrenched as voters’ number one economic priority, Labour is still sticking to its losing position.
The leadership response to this type of criticism has been to ask for time. People will see the reality of Tory cuts. The message will get through. The Darling plan gives the right balance between spending and cuts. The public will come back to Labour.
When? It’s already a year and counting.
There seems to be a belief that electoral advancement is some sort of inevitability. Starting from a base of 29%, it will take a few years to get back into a winning position, but if the party keeps doing what it’s doing, then the progress will come.
Why?
Here’s an alternate view. The government has front-loaded the cuts and the political pain. If we aren’t a long way ahead now, we never will be. At some point in the coming months the economy will likely start growing again. Not because Tory policy is right, but an upswing in global growth will lift the British economy.
What then?
Last week the Labour party lost its poll lead for the first time in seven months in the ComRes poll. Admittedly its only one poll, but the lack of progress in Labour’s polling over the past six months is clear. Why voters are more likely to turn to Labour as the economy slowly recovers rather than when it is on its back, is unclear.
Whatever people’s opinion about the Tory cuts, they are at least tangible and real. For voters who are concerned about the deficit, they give a concrete demonstration of the Tory approach to tackling the problem.
In contrast, Labour’s commitment is to meet the Darling targets, but not to reveal whether this will be through cuts, tax rises or by simply trusting to growth.
To a voter concerned with the deficit, one party is implementing a detailed plan to achieve its objectives, while the other has less stringent targets and is not even saying how it will achieve them.
The Tories might relish the cuts a little too much for most people’s taste, but for swing voters it’s effectively a binary choice – a party that will do something about the big issue versus a party that won’t.
The economic rationale for Labour not making detailed commitments is understandable. No-one thinks the party should bind itself four years out from an election in a web of inflexible policies.
But there has to be a middle ground between too much detail and our current blank sheet of paper. Some indication of what will be done, or at least a target that shows that Labour is as serious about tackling debt as the Tories.
Unless the party can shift this basic perception of being soft on the deficit, then we’re more likely to see Lord Lucan skipping down the street, arm in arm with Godot, before the public starts listening to well crafted polices, such as the one set out by Balls on Sunday.
Voters currently have the Labour party on mute when it comes to the economy. Labour’s leadership seems to have voters on mute when it comes to understanding what people want on the economy.
If there is to be any hope for the party at the next election, this dialogue of the deaf needs to be broken.
Here’s hoping the leadership find the remote control sometime soon.
Atul Hatwal is associate editor of Labour Uncut.
Tags: Atul Hatwal, dialogue of the deaf, economy, permission to speak
“Why voters are more likely to turn to Labour as the economy slowly recovers rather than when it is on its back, is unclear.”
it’s clear to me
when Balls makes the claim that osborne’s plan will kill all growth then any growth, no matter how small, makes osborne look right and Balls look wrong
No matter how nuanced balls gets he made significant claims about a double dip and he hasn’t changed the fundamentals of his plan since. Effectively he’s been proven wrong already and irrelevant to the economic debate
Even if labour were to change tack I don’t think Balls could do this credibly. His desire to land the economic porfolio will be as fatal for his career as Brown’s desire to be PM. It’s a shame because Balls is the kind of assertive politician Labour needed to address the govt policies on Health and Education where the public clearly don’t accept some of the coalitions arguments. With the majority of voters backing deficit reduction to a greater or lesser degree Balls’ approach has just damaged labour’s electoral chances.
Political warfare has to be asymetric – concede ground where the opposition are strong and dug in and attack weakness. The cuts/no cuts argument – whilst important to many public sector employed labour members – isn’t a battleground where the tories are currently weak. In an ideal world labour would have waited for clear failure in economic policy first (an odd month or quarter of poor figures doesn’t count) and then created a narrative to explain that failure that then supported an alternative set of proposals. Balls has been too eager to seize on any half chance and has gone too early too often. This all would have required stronger leadership than the party has at the moment to explain this to members and deal with their anger and hurt.
I think Labour have to go on a journey and fail to deliver the messages the membership wants before they can get back to the centre of politics. The election loss was just the start of the learning process and I don’t think you can short cut it.
A very perceptive piece,Mr. Hatwai.The USP of the coalition government is ‘deficit reduction’,met by silence from the Opposition,who have to come to terms with the fact that the electorate REJECTED the Darling alternative.It is not worth fighting the next election on what will be old hat.For Labour to make progress,there are a number of prerequisites.First,akin to tearing up Clause 4,an admission that the post 2002 economic policies centred on public sector growth were wrong and will never be repeated.Second,an absolute commitment to raise the threshold of household income tax exemption to £12,000 pa.Third, a commitment towards private sector friendly policies(cf. John Denham).If that sounds like New Labour,it is, give it a new name,and remember ,with the right leader it is a vote winning proposition.
“A year on, in an environment where all of the polls show that tackling the deficit is now entrenched as voters’ number one economic priority, Labour is still sticking to its losing position.”
[citation needed – have there been any polls which ask voters what their number one economic priority is?]
Populus, May 2011 – 53% back halving the deficit by the next election, 43% back eliminating it completely
Populus, March 2011 – top priority for voters is cutting fuel duty, ahead of faster deficit reduction
ComRes, June 2011 – 58% think that the government is cutting public spending too much and too quickly
YouGov, May 2011 – 38% think spending cuts are good for the economy, 47% think they are bad for the economy. 47% think that they are too deep, 53% too quickly
*
Polls suggest that people think the spending cuts are necessary, blame the last Labour government rather than the current lot, and don’t trust Ed Miliband or Ed Balls with the economy. But there is rather less evidence that they see the deficit as the defining economic issue.
“At some point in the coming months the economy will likely start growing again. Not because Tory policy is right, but an upswing in global growth will lift the British economy.”
Is this prediction the result of close economic analysis, or is it, as I suspect, just a bland assumption that ‘business as usual’ will inevitably return, and soon? Many economists would disagree with you, both about the inevitability of a world upturn, and about the impact of current policy on Britain’s prospects of recovery. It’s possible that the government may have got their economic strategy disastrously wrong. Paradoxically, though, this doesn’t help Labour much, because most people seem to buy into the government line that the deficit is the legacy of a profligate Labour government, and that it must be cut at once – so any pain suffered in cutting can be blamed on Labour.
It’s not very clear what the party can do in this situation. I’m not saying we should sit on our hands and wait for Tory policies to fail, but nor should we be simply acquiescing in the government line that deficit-cutting is the only game in town, which seems to be what you are advocating. On that territory, we cannot win, because Tories will always be more enthusastic cutters than Labour. And there is also the little matter of that being the wrong policy for the country, if that doesn’t sound too touchy-feely and unrealpolitikish – but it was making economic policy according to short-term political calculations that got us into this mess in the first place.
My feeling is that deficit or no deficit the crisis is not over, though most people think it is. The way things play out in its next phase, which is beyong our control, will determine the politics of the future. The left, internationally, has not yet worked out what its future politics should look like – but since nobody really knows what the future world will look like, that is hardly surprising. But we are not going to find a way forward if all we do is ask people what economic policy they want today and give it to them. What people want is economic outcomes, not economic policies; they will not thank us for doing what they say they want us to do if the outcome is not as they expect. Unfortunately, many people’s preferred outcome is probably a return to the credit-fuelled boom of the past two decades, which is not going to happen. Once voters realise this, their views may become more volatile. Meanwhile, staking out a few positions on the banks, inequality and the environment – though rather more stridently than we have done so far – might not be a bad idea.
But we are doing well in the polls. Consider that those voting for the Cons and Dems together vastly outnumbered our tally in 2010 and ‘we’ have done very well to climb back so quickly . The right wing voters on the south like what the coalition is doing and most of them voted for it. The difficulty we have is the inevitability of being in office for 13 years then losing badly. That is why Ed is right to take the long slow option. We still lead the polls.
And if you actually think the Tory economic plans will work then perhaps you are in the wrong party. Up here I think the vast majority of voters wouldn’t agree with you. Where do you live? London or the South-East?
Glad to see the big beast, ED Balls, ‘taking the fight to the Tories’.
Shame his real skill was ‘taking the fight to Labour’.
Interesting article, Atul, but I wonder whether the underlying reason for “not being heard” is actually a lot more simple.
Most people aren’t all that interested in politics as such (scandals are a different matter). The next GE is probably years away. Labour party policies won’t actually impact on people’s lives until then. Why should they be listening now? Is it reasonable to expect them to be listening?
What people might take notice of is the Labour party’s domestic housekeeping. Over the next few years, a terrific effort to get the party’s finances into proper order would generate lots of “good news” stories and embed a consciousness of Labour’s fiscal competence.
Mr Cameron needed to do touchy-feely things (huskies & so on) to change the perceptions of the Conservative brand.
Mr Miliband needs to do “economic competence” things (which ordinary people can relate to) to change the perceptions of the Labour brand.
@ AnneJGP
Mr Miliband needs to do “economic competence” things (which ordinary people can relate to) to change the perceptions of the Labour brand.
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This is a very pertinent observation. Leading a Party which is on a sound financial footing through a combination of funding from Union Members & ordinary people would be a triumph for Labour.
And Labour do need to take every opportunity to highlight the fact that funding comes from Members via their Unions – & thank the Members for their support.
😎
“Unless the party can shift this basic perception of being soft on the deficit, then we’re more likely to see Lord Lucan skipping down the street, arm in arm with Godot, before the public starts listening to well crafted polices, such as the one set out by Balls on Sunday.”
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The policy set out by Ed Balls is a clever bit of politics. When (as is likely) youth unemployment rockets – due to a combination of fewer university places, loss of EMA & the availability of cheap, experienced pensioned workers – Ed Balls can point to this policy & say: Labour saw this coming & tried to do something about it.
Therefore, it’s not a ‘now’ policy, Ed B is setting things in place for the battles of the future. And Ed is being careful not to over-reach; he is not introducing grandiose policies that would get loads of publicity but be seized on as profligate Labour throwing money at a problem.
Other than setting up traps for the future, Ed B can do little but wait. It is too early to try to change the narrative on the economy. Either it will change itself due to ‘events, dear boy, events’, or Ed B will change it when the time is right.
And I am puzzled by your lack of confidence in Ed B… if Ed doesn’t believe that the economy will bounce back due to external, global forces then why do you assume it will?
😎