by Atul Hatwal
Jeremy Corbyn is busy with his reshuffle but the reality is that its a sideshow. The main event this week was in Birmingham with Theresa May’s first conference as Tory leader.
Party conferences share an important characteristic with Chancellors’ budgets – the better the immediate headlines, the worse the legacy.
Last year, George Osborne’s post-election budget was heralded as a masterstroke the day after it was delivered, only to unravel over tax credits.
Ed Miliband’s commitment to fix energy prices at Labour’s 2013 conference was viewed as a game-changing moment on the day. But in reality, it fed the public’s mistrust of Labour and markets contributing to disaster at the general election.
Gordon Brown’s 2007 conference debut as leader won instant plaudits (“Brown dressed to kill after emptying Cameron’s wardrobe” proclaimed the Guardian) that subsequently dissolved. Rather like his last budget as Chancellor earlier in 2007 when he abolished the 10p tax.
Or for those with longer memories, the glowing reports of Norman Lamont’s 1992 budget foreseeing the green shoots of recovery the best part of a decade before the public agreed.
The headlines this morning following Theresa May’s big speech were all that she would want. But she’s actually had a disaster.
Long after the conference bubbles have gone flat, two bitter flavours will linger on the palate: hard Brexit and the Tory obsession with foreigners.
It’s unlikely that Tory conference will have substantively cut through to the public; few pay sufficient attention though the notion that Tories really don’t like people from abroad might have seeped further into the public consciousness thanks to Amber Rudd and Jeremy Hunt’s interventions.
The problem for the Tories is with the media.
A clear narrative has formed about Theresa May’s Tories as people who will sacrifice almost everything – the economy, living standards, whatever – to get rid of migrants.
It will be the prism through which journalists seek to explain the government to their audience and shape what the public sees and reads about the May administration. A prism which casts an image that vividly brings to life the prejudice and aloof indifference encapsulated in Labour’s most potent attack on the Conservatives: same old Tories.
In 1996, Ken Clarke’s budget gave the NHS one of the biggest boosts in spending since it was founded. Remember that? No, didn’t think so. At the time they got zero credit for it because the narrative about the same old Tories was firmly set in reinforced concrete.
It was impossible for them to communicate a message at variance with this basic premise.
The cloying breathlessness which afflicts many journalists covering a new PM means May will continue to receive good personal coverage for a few months.
But as her sheen of newness fades and the ineluctable economic consequences of Brexit begin to felt in people’s pockets, this narrative – formed clearly over the past few days during their conference – will provide a ready and plausible explanation.
In the 1990s, Black Wednesday was the equivalent of Brexit. It provided the inflection point where a huge economic event was perceived by the public to have crashed the economy and wrecked the government’s reputation for competence.
In 2008, the equivalent was the crash.
Once this happens, and is understood to have happened, the public want someone to blame. No matter how much they might dislike the EU or migrants, no-one wants to be poorer. Recent research by the LSE found that 62% of the public were unwilling to pay anything to reduce the numbers of migrants.
In the 1990s, the Tories initially reverted to their old standard of cutting red tape to boost business before switching to Ken Clarke’s mid-90s public spending largesse. None of it made any difference.
Following the 2008 crash, Labour’s stimulus programme did much to save the economy, but by 2010 public anger was mounting, spending was being reined in and once again, the party on the bridge when the ship hit the iceberg, was ejected from office.
Theresa May is lucky in that Jeremy Corbyn is her opponent. She won’t lose to him in any scenario, no matter what he does with his shadow cabinet reshuffle or how badly she performs.
But at some point he won’t be leader. She, however, will still be the PM who made everyone poorer because she hates foreigners.
That’s quite a brand.
Atul Hatwal is editor of Uncut
Tags: Atul Hatwal, Brexit, George Osborne, gordon brown, migration, Tory conference 2016
Reshuffle? Labour’s Tory-lites bite the dust. Superb!
Rubbish, they don’t hate foreigners. You are just propagating Corbyn/ Abbott style of thinking.
Immigration us an issue, and they raised it.
Did they say report all foreigners? No.
Did they say all foreigners should wear a special badge? No
They had common sense ideas that the MAJORITY support, including Labour voters.
Atul Hatwal contradicts himself here. First the headline “The Tories don’t realise it yet but their conference was a disaster”. and then, “Theresa May is lucky in that Jeremy Corbyn is her opponent. She won’t lose to him in any scenario, no matter what he does with his shadow cabinet reshuffle or how badly she performs.”.
If the second statement is true why does it matter what Atul Hatwal thinks about the Tory conference?
It’s unlikely that Tory conference will have substantively cut through to the public; few pay sufficient attention though the notion that Tories really don’t like people from abroad might have seeped further into the public consciousness thanks to Amber Rudd and Jeremy Hunt’s interventions.
Atul, it may come as a surprise to you but the the public at large party conferences of all parties are boring and they don’t bother paying any attention to them at all or anything politicians may say in them. They don’t even bother reading the reports that appear in the papers.
You are what is known in normal-speak, a boring c**t with his head up his own arse, talking in a largely empty room..
Why oh why do you continually attempt to make yourself out as a political commentator when everything you write is invariably wrong and nobody gives a toss anyway other than party members.
Still, at least the comedy value of what you write has some appeal.
Atul has his finger on the pulse of Britain as usual:
http://order-order.com/2016/10/06/voters-back-naming-shaming/
I don’t like to criticise too heavily but this is absolute tosh! From the headline to the closing sentence it looks like you are making it up as you go. Have some respect for your readers please.
Just goes to show that even if Labour get out of their Corbyn nightmare, the other side of the party hasn’t get a clue how to connect with the voters either.
If they really think the public is going to kick the Tories out in a fit of pro-migrant outrage they really ought to spend less time on Twitter and more time trying to understand why Brexit happened.
Or less time being Directors of pro-migration lobby groups.
The British centre-ground is now pretty racist really. It was like this back in the 1970s and 1980s. In the 1990s, nobody wanted to admit to being racist. Now it’s swung back. People don’t care anymore, what anyone thinks of their views on immigrants.
I’m confident that most would take a sizeable drop in income/capital, if you told them that somehow every single immigrant currently in the UK, who wasn’t from a country that spoke English as a first language, could magically disappear in a puff of smoke and no more would arrive.
I think a lot would give up every asset they have and be content to start again. I remember living in the UK, when their were virtually no immigrants. It was still crap and people weren’t very nice to one another.
It’s just a poisonous country, where very few people seem happy and know how to enjoy life. I’m glad I left it behind, several years ago. There are so many nice places in the world to visit, if you can work remotely.
To anyone who is reading this and thinking they they have just about had enough of the UK, I would say ask your boss if this would be possible and if they seem reluctant then consider taking a pay-cut. I realise that this will be very difficult, if you are not single or childless.
Spending your life living in nice places (often countries that are considered to be much poorer) will completely change your outlook on things. You quickly come to realise that the problem was not just where you used to live, but also that where you used to live had turned you into someone who wasn’t very nice either.
Even after years away from the UK, I still have to suppress instincts to whine and complain about things that really aren’t important. I grew up in a country where people generally don’t like or trust one another and where you were only really judged by how rich and good looking you were, or by how rich and good looking your partner was.
Travel around the world for a bit and you quickly discover that most people don’t think that way. What’s sad is that most of them dream of moving to the UK, for a better life.
It’s not even a nice country to be rich in.
I can imagine that in a few months or years time we will look back on The Tory Conference as the moment when they sealed their own fate. However I dont see any prospect that Labour can gain from that.
Labour was defending 7 Council Seats yesterday & they lost 3 of those, 1 each to The SNP, UKIP & The Libdems.
I like the new format!
Unless the flow of immigrants – not just form Europe, but from the whole world, is controlled firmly, you can kiss goodbye to universal education, to the NHS, to a working Police Force and to prison reform.
Already we are approaching £2 TRILLION of debt. We just cannot afford to feed, clothe and educate the whole world in this country. It is not possible.
One or the other…
Fatal flaw in all this as I discovered from talking to over a 1000 Leave voters during the gruelling referendum campaign.
The “hating foreigners” thing is a massive vote-winner. There was a bit of dissembling with (only some) ordinary voters but 90% of Leave voters I met were primarily motivated by racism.
That’s a big constituency.
Which is precisely why Rachel Reeves, Chuka and Kinnock are chasing it by trying to put their own gloss on what they see as endemic voter racism.
You are right about Corbyn, though.
Brexit is defining everything and the world is dumping UK sterling as it realises hard Brexit is May’s way. As the FT reports the consequences are serious as everything gilts and shares , investment head south as and when the true import costs of falling sterling come through in a few months ( with more sterling collapse) .
The registration of foreigners by companies threat is appalling and 1930s like.
The departure not just of EU but single market and customs area has set the business world against May. Tariffs and custom border hold ups threaten UK exports ,and the deficit will widen. Yet the combination of Brexit tabliods and an economics grade E Corbyn Labour unable to alert the voters blocks a true grasp of why the globe are selling out the UK. Please we need a new centre left party!
What a lot of angry people commenting on this site!
Actually, Atul’s argument seems entirely reasonable. The Tories are in a lose-lose situation with Brexit because the 48% Remainers won’t like any Brexit deal of any type, and many of the 52% won’t like the particular deal that the government manage to negotiate.
And the anti-foreigner messages at the conference just confirm mainstream voters’ opinion that the Tories can be vindictive, childish and xenophobic when it comes to issues involving ABROAD!
An article for the sake of writing something. What is the point of Atul?
“Once this happens, and is understood to have happened, the public want someone to blame. No matter how much they might dislike the EU or migrants, no-one wants to be poorer. Recent research by the LSE found that 62% of the public were unwilling to pay anything to reduce the numbers of migrants.”
Entirely correct. May’s honeymoon will last as long as it takes inflation to start hitting food prices. It will last as long as the stagnation in business investment starts driving unemployment up. It will last as long as it takes the first Japanese factory to be moved into the EU. When that point is reached being both economically incompetent and a bigot will not look much like a winning combination.
And for Rallan’s suggestion that naming and shaming was a popular policy, I think he needs to explain why it’s just been dropped. Not that wonderful after all, apparently? Even an Osbourne budget usually managed to last for longer than that.
“The Tories don’t realise it yet but their conference was a disaster” ….so disastrous, in fact, they’re only 17 points ahead in the polls now. Perhaps they don’t realise that, the fools.
This reminds me of the back-slapping and the “now they’ll really be for it” comments at junctures like listening to Osborne announce the planned inheritance tax cut in 2007 or Labour electing Michael Foot in 1980.
The latest ICM poll giving the Tories an increased (17%) lead over Labour just demonstrates how bad the Conservative Conference was.
Corbyn already has easily bested Maggie May and Atul’s crystal ball regarding the leadership is on the blink again – like the last two summers.Not one to let facts and evidence get in the way of out of date political dogma, Atul
Corbyn has already bested Maggie May.He will continue to be leader. The membership will see to that but don’t let facts confuse you when you’ve already made your mind up.