by Jonathan Todd
Last October, Uncut ran a regression on economic sentiment and Labour’s poll lead. This indicated that the Conservatives would start to overhaul Labour in the polls when a quarter of the electorate feel that the economy is “doing well”.
The last two times YouGov asked people whether they think the economy is doing well on 1/2 May and 8/9 May, 24% of them indicated that they think it is. By Monday evening, 12 May, the Guardian was reporting two polls that showed the Tories ahead of Labour.
It could be that between the last YouGov tracker on economic sentiment and the polls reported by the Guardian an extra 1% of the electorate decided that the economy is doing well. It might be that Uncut got something wrong with our regression or our interpretation of it.
But 24% is pretty darn close to 25% in most people’s books. So, while Labour’s slipping lead may have produced surprise in some quarters, what has happened is virtually exactly what Uncut postulated would happen.
The economy is improving. Voters can see this and are rewarding the Conservatives. This has happened sufficiently to give them a poll lead. While this should be placed in political context, Labour would be foolhardy to not recognise the direction of travel and recalibrate accordingly.
The political context is that in both polls in which the Tories led, they were only polling just above a third of the electorate, well below the 40% that they may well need to win an overall majority. Given the economic headwinds now blowing in the Tories favour, this should, however, be scant consolation for Labour.
We just had the biggest rise in employment in 40 years. The British Chamber of Commerce reports record business confidence. This is reflected in growth in the Markit/CIPS services purchasing managers’ index (PMI) from 57.6 in March to 58.7 in April, well above the 50 threshold for growth. And this might, in turn, be taken as emerging evidence to support the Oxford Economics expectation that GDP growth will continue, sustained by rising exports and business investment.
The impacts of the financial crisis were, of course, profound. It imperiled household finances and greatly inhibited business activity, which undermined the UK’s tax collection and fiscal position. It even threatened the survival of the Euro. We haven’t learned all the lessons that we should have done. But we are half a decade on.
The Euro is becalmed, supporting UK exports. Cardiac arrest in the City is receding to memory and positive economic news is the more immediate reality, which encourages businesses to make investments that may have seemed too risky for a number of years. Given all of this, it seems likely that economic sentiment will keep ticking upward beyond 24%, potentially further damaging Labour’s poll position – at least on an unchanged strategy.
Hopi Sen is right that “we should reject the inevitability of victory or defeat” for Labour. And, in the same article, he establishes five very sensible tests for how Labour is performing over the next year. But these tests miss the bigger point about the economy and what it means for politics.
It is change in the economy that, according to the regression analysis put forward by Uncut, has driven change in politics. These economic changes appear likely to continue. The seizing of poll leads by the Tories – at almost precisely the moment Uncut predicted this would happen – suggests that this economic good news will continue to improve the Tory position.
Labour has two options. Continue as we are: emphasising issues – e.g. the bedroom tax, food banks, payday loans – that speak to manifest unfairness. But which are removed from the lives of many voters and which seem out of tune with the UK’s building economic optimism. And engage in populism that risks division and Labour appearing vengeful – thus, being equally off-key in a more optimism context.
The alternative is that Labour becomes the optimists. The industry of the people and the entrepreneurship of business have got Britain off its knees. Just imagine what they could achieve with Labour backing them all the way: unashamedly pro-business – not setting “producers” against “predators” or big businesses against small, but wholeheartedly backing all those that create jobs, wealth and tax collections.
Ed Miliband has been right to stress that Britain can do better. Equally, Jon Cruddas has been that Britain must be rebuilt. This better, rebuilt Britain does depend on Labour. But angry finger-pointing is not the way for Labour to return to government, particularly in our improving economy, or to behave if we get there. Rather than judgmental diktat, the economic context reinforces the importance of a hopeful politics, grounded in confidence in the capacities of British business and workers.
My test for Labour is that we reverse the trajectory that we are now on: That the Tories will fight May 2015 as the optimists and Labour as the pessimists. This is entirely the wrong way round. But changing this and the interaction between economics and politics that has seen the Tories recover poll leads requires that Labour seize the optimistic alternative.
Jonathan Todd is Deputy Editor of Labour Uncut
Tags: economy, Ed Miliband, Jonathan Todd, optimism, polls
Another the Tories are winning, lets be the Tories story.
If you had a message board it would be fight on the other guys message, an oxymoron!
The economic recovery is manufactured by rising house prices in the South East, and yes, entirely predictable. As George Osbourne, will do anything to win, and the abuse of statistics (see The Independent) is the least significant of his transgressions.
Labour need to present an optimistic vision to win, but with Ed Balls: not a penny more spending and Ed Miliband so cautious as to be worthless, no prospect of that.
Dressing as Tories will just alienate those who still believe in the Labour Party values.
One Nation is a great slogan, but that one nation is London, the rest can go whistle.
Vision: the Ed’s can’t see past their blinkers, nor can people who wish to wear the Tories clothes.
The problem is that Labour has not even understood why the economy is recovering, wasting time promoting explanations which can’t bear the weight of reasonable analysis, and then being surprised when they turn out to be wrong, and their policies and political strategy consequently redundant.
Recognize this: the rise in employment IS the recovery. People have been squeezed into work not only by benefit clampdowns, but also by the destruction of pensions (that’s Gordon to blame), and the non-adjustment of house prices. Part-time work, marginal self-employment, zero hours contracts – you may not like it, but the population has had no choice: some-employment is better than un-employment.
If you don’t understand that dynamic, you’re in no state to talk to the British people about politics. That IS politics post-Crisis.
Once you’ve accepted that, you have the basis for a useful and potentially powerful argument: viz, people don’t just want jobs, they want good jobs. And that means investment by business, it means apprenticeships, and it means rebuilding a functioning financial sector.
Instead, the Labour Party looks and sounds like it merely wants to re-invent a bloated welfare state. Believe me, if you’ve been forced by circumstances out of the welfare state and into the working economy, you’re absolutely not going to be voting for anyone who threatens to blob-up the welfare state again. In short, get with the program, because everyone else has been forced to get with the program, and now want it, and need it, to work.
“It is change in the economy that, according to the regression analysis put forward by Uncut, has driven change in politics. These economic changes appear likely to continue.
BUT “The shadow chancellor says the growth in the UK economy is welcome, but it is the wrong kind of recovery. “ http://tinyurl.com/kvvg6tt
Another reason to fire the Shadow Chancellor then..
If a blog can get it right and the Shadow Chancellor cannot…
Poll leads can come and go, but obviously there has been a general trend in favour of the tories. That may or may not be sustained, but it does n’t seem likely to me that it is a strong enough trend to give Cameron an outright commons majority. OTH, it might well be enough to make Ed’s life difficult from another direction.
If it looks like the tories will win the next GE it’ll be increasingly hard to persuade Scots that Labour is the best bet for protecting them from a tory government. Lots of people – including solid Labour voters – are aware that 50 Scottish Labour MPs were pretty useless in the Thatcher/Major years, and in those days there was some talent among the Scottish MPs. It seems to be an article of faith that if he gnats lose the referendum they will not do well in 2015 but there are several weakness to that assumption…..
If the referendum puts independence on the back-burner for the next decade or generation, some voters will feel it is ‘safe’ to vote for the gnats.
The tradition of people who vote gnat for Holyrood but Labour for Westminster may be past its sell-by-date; last I looked (which was a while ago admittedly) the gnats were slightly ahead in Westminster voting intentions.
Sheer uselessness and a total charisma by-pass in the upper echelons of Scottish Labour…they actually make the Welsh leadership look quite good.
A dreadful attitude to the electorate; notably Lamont’s ‘Scottish people are not genetically programmed to make political decisions’ and just about anything from Ian Davidson.
Douglas Alexander is n’t helping either. it’s all very well to invite the gnats to help further the devolution process after a ‘No’ vote, but is he prepared to commit himself to a constructive attitude after a ‘Yes’ vote?
All the same, right now things don’t look that bad in Scotland, but they certainly don’t look good either. Four years into a tory government at Westminster and seven years into a gnat government at Holyrood should have Labour well ahead in the polls, which is not the case.
Tory prospects are the big thing though. If it looks like Cameron will win or even that the tories will be the biggest party in 2015 there is every chance that more Scots will vote for the gnats. That won’t hurt the tories but it could lead to a bad night for Labour. It’s already going to be a very bad GE for the Scottish Glib-Dumbs, but there is a risky degree of electoral complacency and nobody seems to be concerned that the gnats are very close to the point where FPTP would work in their favour and against Labour.
“While this should be placed in political context, Labour would be foolhardy to not recognise the direction of travel and recalibrate accordingly.”
Ed Miliband is leading your party, and Ed Balls is your shadow chancellor. You’re screwed.
Most of your Party arent listening though, theres still talk of a close Election next year even after recent Polls.
In the last 15 months Labours average lead has fallen from 11% to 1% & theres still a year to go. How much evidence do Labour need ?
labour have been totally wrong the last 4 years.
they have opposed everything when a little unity would have helped the country immeasurably, refused to accept things went wrong on their watch, damaged several business sectors simply by mouthing off hot air with no proper research … and now we are expected to take yet more pronouncements as gospel of a new fairer, socially responsible society if only we’d tick the box marked labour.
Somehow that box still seems to say … higher taxes, more borrowing, wildly out of control spending with immigration, the public sector and benefits boosted to the detriment of the working classes of britain – supposedly this parties core vote.
as a natural labour supporter … i fear that I see nothing from labour for me but even less disposable income than I have now (1 holiday in last 12 years and 13 years between cars) … but then I no longer fit labours key demographics … I’m just a union member, worker, drone.
“The alternative is that Labour becomes the optimists. The industry of the people and the entrepreneurship of business have got Britain off its knees. Just imagine what they could achieve with Labour backing them all the way: unashamedly pro-business – not setting “producers” against “predators” or big businesses against small, but wholeheartedly backing all those that create jobs, wealth and tax collections.”
Actually, there is one other alternative: namely, that you accept that, for the last four years, you Labour supporters have been backing entirely the wrong horse, and that the current shower led by the two Eds have absolutely no business being allowed anywhere near the levers of government ever again. And that you vote Conservative.
incidentally, your mea culpa about analysis probably ain’t needed.
1) error bars, so 24 and 25 % practically the same
2) Your original analysis rounded up 23 to 25 %
“14% of the electorate currently describe the economy as doing well, so a further 9% would take us to around a quarter of the electorate being of this view. Is this possible?”
While there are probably gaping flaws in the analysis, I like that you set out a model, set out a hypothesis that could be tested and, importantly, came back to it when the data warranted. Nice.
I don’t believe you can write this, and people comment, with no mention of UKIP
They are a coming and will take votes from your old core white working class.
You betrayed them on immigration and they haven’t forgotten.
That with a set of expenses criminals and paedophile apologists in the last Labour government and you wonder why you are not trusted anymore.
…….The alternative is that Labour becomes the optimists. The industry of the people and the entrepreneurship of business have got Britain off its knees. Just imagine what they could achieve with Labour backing them all the way: unashamedly pro-business – not setting “producers” against “predators” or big businesses against small, but wholeheartedly backing all those that create jobs, wealth and tax collections……
Can anybody really see the UK Tax, Borrow, and Spend Labour Party changing to these policies? Perhaps in some alternate universe if you believe there is a Multiverse?
Mmmm .. Labour as a ¨ pro Business Party ¨ . Bit like saying the Tories should be a ¨ pro Unions party ¨ .Labour has no reason to exist when its fundemental aim of redistribution via tax and spend( waste) is no longer a realistic proposition . Socialism dosnt work – just look at France where Hollande has been forced into an ignominious retreat . Labour dosnt know howwealth is created- especiall Miliband who thinks its the 1970ś so any ¨ optimistic¨ message is at best guess work, at worst , downright lies .