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Jonathan Todd on the emerging politics of deficit reduction

24/05/2010, 12:01:51 AM

The deficit must not become the elephant in the room of Labour’s leadership election. Labour needs economic credibility to form the next government. Good candidates should – among other things, obviously – demonstrate that they would provide the leadership necessary for this credibility.

The deficit will define much of the politics of this parliament. The temptation will be great for Labour to duck its tougher questions. This won’t just be because ducking is always a tempting response to tough questions, especially questions as tough as those raised by public spending cuts. Temptation will also derive from a Labour reading of the future that is so optimistic that it risks complacency. On this interpretation, the deficit will require the coalition to do deeply unpopular things and a horrified electorate will therefore rush to the comforting embrace of Labour government on the next occasion that they are offered the chance.

This analysis seems to come recommended by Mervyn King. The Governor of the Bank of England is said to believe that the present parties of government will be forced into such extreme austerity measures as will keep them out of power for a generation. But this thinking has a worryingly “one more heave” characteristic to it. It tends towards a view that simply says: “We told you the Tories and Liberal Democrats were horrible and they are now being horrible. Come home to Labour.” (more…)

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Anthony Painter warns us off the non-existent centre ground

21/05/2010, 08:02:10 AM

Change is everywhere. And what could be better than change? It makes people wealthier, more free, more educated, enhances our status and opens boundless opportunities for all. Time for a change? It’s always time for a change.

The problem is that for a good portion of people ‘change’ is not something to celebrate. It is rather something to be anxious about. It makes you work harder. It means that a family needs two incomes rather than one. It generates insecurity and consumer demands that become increasingly impossible to meet. Not without maxing out on credit anyway. And suddenly not only your work but the entire financial structure of your life is at risk. Global financial crises tend to be local in their impact.

Change or change fatigue? Well, actually this election was a mixture of both. One Britain – change and comfort Britain – largely stuck with Labour. AB support for the party declined by a relatively modest 6% according to Greenberg, Quinlan, Rosner and by 2% amongst C1s. Amongst C2s it fell by 13% and by 11% amongst DEs. The country was divided in two. (more…)

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Hopi Sen asks the leadership bright boys some hard questions

20/05/2010, 09:52:52 AM

In the leadership election campaign, there will be a lot of talk of telling ourselves “uncomfortable truths”. Quite often, these “uncomfortable truths” will be a rhetorical trick to tell the audience what it wants to hear. Like that it’s all someone else’s fault, or that the party lost its way and got out of touch.

So I thought we should perhaps make a habit of proposing some uncomfortable truths that the Labour party, and even the candidates themselves, really don’t want to hear.

Here are two to start us off.

Don’t throw the machine away. Mend it.

The current crop of leadership contenders are the products of the most ferociously successful political machine in Labour party history. It was a machine that won three general elections, reduced the old left of the Labour party to irrelevance and made the country we live in a fairer, more open and safer place to live.

These are not bad things. (more…)

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Vernon Coaker on why he is Ed Balls’ campaign manager

19/05/2010, 02:49:45 PM

The Labour leadership contest provides our party with an exciting opportunity to debate the future as well learn from the past and reflect on the 2010 General Election result.

It has also been inspiring to see a party which, while disappointed with the result, is not dispirited or downhearted. A party which will not allow our proud record of 13 years in government to be trashed and one which will hold this new coalition to account for their actions in a responsible but determined way.

So the person that we select for our leader has to be someone who will stand up for our record but also recognise our shortcomings. Someone who sees this election contest as a way of re-energising our thoughts and views about how we tackle the issues that matter: immigration, housing, welfare reform. Someone to stand up for the decent, hard-working majority.

Such a person will need to be strong and willing to face down the Tories and Liberal Democrats as they attack us, but also able to listen and connect with real people in real communities up and down the country. (more…)

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Jon Bounds on the half-appearance of the internet election

19/05/2010, 08:05:32 AM

Will the General Election in May 2010 go down as the first ‘internet election’? No. The unusual — if not entirely unexpected — result has seen to that, but it was an election in which people using the social web changed forever the way campaigning works in the UK.

Talk before was of which party could “do what Obama did”; that is, use the internet to harness support, and to fundraise. Well, no one really did — and politics in Britain was unlikely to suddenly start to work like that: we’re too conflicted, too cynical and have too many choices. We sometimes have to make decisions about how to place our cross where the local and national aims seem flatly contradictory — it was never going to be a simple case of joining one Facebook Group over another. The web can handle nuance, even if our electoral system can’t.

There was significant grassroots activity though, and perhaps the best way to see the difference between us and US is to look at the difference between my.barackobama.com (‘Organising for America’) and mydavidcameron.com (‘Airbrushed for Change’). One is a social network ‘lite’, directed at organising and nudging (very much in line with the theories of Richard Thaler) support, the other a crowdsourced Private Eye, with all the mix of clever satire and fart jokes that that might entail. (more…)

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James Macintyre is less impressed than most by a long leadership election

18/05/2010, 12:44:25 PM

The decision by Labour’s NEC to “go long” and opt for a leadership contest that concludes at the party’s annual conference in September, is being almost universally celebrated. Harriet Harman, the acting leader, says it will provide ample “time for debate”, and most Labour supporters on Twitter and the blogs agree.

But from the point of view of the party’s reputation in the country, is it really right to assume that a long “debate” will be appreciated? The public will not forgive months of introspection, especially if it is — despite David Miliband’s challenge to candidates to join him in banning anonymous briefings –riddled with the sort of dark whispers reminiscent of the Blair-Brown years, from which many in Cabinet are so desperate to break free.

Perhaps more importantly, there is urgent work to be done in opposing what is beneath the surface a fragile coalition. There are perhaps thousands of Liberal Democrat voters angry at their party for crowning David Cameron as prime minister, who could be won over to Labour, the lasting vehicle for progress in the UK. The sooner Labour resolves the leadership question, the sooner it will be fit to emerge from the indulgences of opposition and begin the hard work of government again. From Labour’s point of view, there is no time to waste.

It is no use crying over the NEC decision. But the pressure will be on all candidates, including those who are playing what already feels like an agonizing “long game”, to keep the fight clean, and unite as soon as it is over.

James Macintyre is political correspondent of the New Statesman.

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John McTernan on the cant of an honest debate in the Labour movement

18/05/2010, 06:12:46 AM

There are two great mistakes that parties make when they lose elections. First, they blame each other, then they blame the voters. Each in its own right is disastrous. Together, they are toxic.

Thus far, the emergent leadership campaign has been more benign. There is a refreshing willingness to concede that we made errors in office and need to reconsider before we rebuild.

But the biggest trap awaits – the false consciousness of an “honest debate in the party/the labour movement.” This is cant, and dangerous cant. A debate with ourselves is a conversation with the already convinced – we all voted Labour. We lost, not amongst the 29% who voted Labour or (generously) the 10% of voters who pay the levy or join the party. We lost among the middle-ground decent folk of Britain. If we were serious we’d let voters in Brighton, Redditch and Redcar choose our next leader.

I’m not suggesting that we have primaries. There is a very good reason that parties have members: the collective discipline provided is crucial for effectiveness in campaigning and ultimately in governing. What I do believe is that unless we understand not just why we lost but also what our people want, then we are doomed to a treadmill of defeat.

Let’s be clear, we were liberated by New Labour because it was a set of policy ideas based on analysis. The example set by Philip Gould was finally copied by the Tories when Lord Ashcroft funded the work that underpinned his polemic pamphlet “Smell the coffee.” What we need now is an equally detailed and compelling assessment of where public opinion now stands. We will differ about how to respond to the facts, but can we have the sense to gather them first?

John McTernan was Political Secretary to Tony Blair.

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Labour must become the anti-immigration party, says David Goodhart

18/05/2010, 06:06:53 AM

The regrets and half-apologies for Labour’s mass immigration policy are starting. The Eds, Balls and Miliband, and Jon Cruddas have all accepted that too many people came in too quickly. Ed Miliband told Andrew Marr on Sunday that the costs and benefits of mass immigration were very unevenly distributed and too many of the costs fell on Labour’s core working class voters. Jon Cruddas described the policy as acting like an unforgiving incomes policy for those in the lower part of the income spectrum.

This should be just the start of a historic shift on immigration policy. Labour should become the party that is anti-mass immigration, but pro-immigrant. This would more accurately reflect the interests of its voters, both poorer whites and minority Britons.

Labour can be proud that since the 1950s it (often alone among the main parties) has championed the cause of race equality and stood up for immigrants. It should continue to do so, but not in a way that conflicts with the economic and cultural interests of the British mainstream. The party therefore needs to re-think its commitment to the laissez-faire multiculturalism that has left many of Britain’s towns ghetto-ised and divided. (more…)

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As the coalition coalesces, Labour must not cede the centre ground, argues Benjamin Wegg-Prosser

18/05/2010, 05:55:27 AM

Labour types will have found last weekend rather curious: an interview with the PM of which we felt no sense of ownership; front page stories on splits at the heart of government which did not raise our blood pressure; and talk of leadership contests which we could not dismiss as an irrelevant side-show.

The idea that being out of office is something which we should welcome and embrace is clearly bonkers. But it is an enforced opportunity to reflect on what we achieved and where we came up short over the past 13 years. The fact that the Tories are making the weather – and the audacity of the new coalition is nothing if not a remarkable piece of political manoeuvring – should renew our appetite for a swift return to government.

In short, Cameron’s move presents both an opportunity and a problem for us. The former is clear: he has not reformed his party; he was unable to push through the changes which he wanted in opposition, so he has rather skilfully turned his own failure to secure a majority to his distinct advantage, marginalising the policies and people whom he wanted to junk but could not do so prior to the election. (more…)