There are a number of very clear lessons to be learned from the general election result.
The first is that the austerity narrative works in the UK as a whole although it is economically illiterate.
The second, is that the SNP developed an anti-austerity narrative and it very clearly worked in Scotland.
The third is that the middle ground appears to have disappeared from UK politics.
The fourth, the remnants of the New Labour years should now lose their influence on Labour.
What does this all mean? I suggest that what is clear is that the time has come for those who have concern for social, economic and tax justice need to build a new narrative in England and Wales.
This will be an enormous task. I relish it. It's a shame that Labour blocked progress on that issue so strongly over the last few years. I hope they won't do so again. There are far, far too many people in this country who deserve better.
The SNP has shown what is possible.
Now the passion for change that Scotland has shown can exist has to be recreated elsewhere.
That is very obviously possible, but what is clear is that if those with social and economic justice concerns want to see the country run with those interests to the fore then they cannot do so by working on an agenda dictated by the UK's right wing parties, think tanks and press.
Building that narrative is now the task in hand.
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No middle ground and no willingness to join a coalition? Cameron suggesting he could be a One Nation Conservative seems bizarre. Feels more like Thatcherism 2.0. The same old pattern of a minority behaving as if they have a majority mandate. I hope your narrative includes PR!
It does
Erm… Thatcherism 4.0 don’t forget John Major and Tory Blair ?!!
@Trog
Not strictly speaking true about Thatcherism 4.0 Both Major and Blair only MAINTAINED the Thatcherite status quo, with Blair considerably “humanising” Thatcherism – to paraphrase the 1968 Prague Spring “Thatcherism with a human face”. So Major was 1.1 and Blair 1.2 of Thatcherism
Cameron, by contrast, using the feeble fig-leaf of Lib-Dem assent, went for full-blooded Thatcherism 2.0, presiding over an administration in many ways FAR more radical than Thatcher’s – think privatisation of education, NHS, the Royal Mail for starters.
Now, alas, we face Thatcherism 3.0 – the FULL deconstruction of the Welfare State, and a return to Dickensian society. Vae victis! Woe to the conquered.
All we can do now is build grass-roots movements, from the bottom up, that will eventually – we hope – overwhelm the forces of neo-feudalism. At 70, I shall not live to see that clash and victory.
I’m not sure I agree with your second point, Richard.
The campaign in the run-up to the referendum was not all about selling the idea of an independent Scotland. People like the National Collective (who were not politicians) went out and talked about the establishment of a culture in Scotland that was distinct from that in England, something far wider than mere economy. The primary reason that Scotland will, I suggest, soon be independent of the UK is that the Scots realise that they have a distinctive culture, and that it is something to be proud of – and a wiser Labour party could have tapped into that.
I agree – Labour could not or did not get that
I don’t really agree with that.
Scots do have a different culture, that is true. But the rise of the SNP seems to me to be about something rather different. And I think it is very interesting to listen to the post election analysis which is beginning in the Labour party.
For many years there has been no social democratic party in the UK. Labour decided that those days were over and adopted a neoliberal narrative in its entirety. In doing so they accepted TINA and they did not challenge the absurd narrative, nor take any principled stance. About anything, really.
Politicians take their core support for granted, and so they concentrate on a small number of voters in marginal seats. Most of the time that is a reasonable approach, but it has not been reasonable since the Labour party turned tory. As ever, things are slow to change, for tribal loyalty and sentimentality work hand in hand with unchanged rhetoric, and with the hope of many voters that the change they see is temporary. FPTP makes it hard for any small party to gain electoral success (as it is designed to do: and I am not so certain PR is a good idea, though I am open to argument about that) and so Labour has presumed that their core vote has nowhere else to go, and can safely be ignored. Gradually that core support has lost faith in the political system and so we have seen falling turn out: explained as “apathy” and addressed with hand wringing and stupid schemes to encourage younger voters to engage, all of which ignore the fact that people will not vote if they do not believe it will make any difference: that is not apathy, it is a realistic appraisal of the situation.
In Scotland social democrats and those further left were offered a genuine alternative and, in really quite a short period in the scheme of things, labour’s core support deserted them in droves. A small party became a very big party, despite the FPTP barriers. It seems very obvious to me why that has happened and I do not think it is due to the cultural differences which undoubtedly exist. It is far, far simpler than that.
Some on the right of the labour party are saying that their party was too far left in this election and must turn back to Blair’s tory position in order to win elections in the future. If they accept that story I think that labour will be wiped out in England as well, and for the same reasons they have been massacred in Scotland. While england may well be culturally more right wing than Scotland, the differences are not so great as they are sometimes presented. The difference is the lack of a left wing alternative.
Do they honestly believe that the loss of 40+ seats in Scotland can be made up by attracting swing voters in england? That they can write off Scotland because they can make up that number just to get back to where they started, and then add enough to give them a majority? I don’t think so.
As I see it there is no evidence at all that they had moved left in this election. That is the tory story, which they always appear to accept, though common sense says otherwise, as does their manifesto pledges.
UKIP took votes from Labour (and from the other parties) and that is horrifying. But I do not think it undermines my case: I think it reinforces it. UKIP position themselves as a party which speaks for ordinary people and are very vague on most issues. In reality they are hard right, so far as I can tell: but what is certainly true is that they have attempted to present themselves as different from the Westminster establishment: and an alternative is what people who feel disenfranchised want.
If the labour party decides it needs to lurch to the right again (though they never left it so far as I can see) they will lose their core support in England too. And they will never recover. I hope that the example in Scotland will encourage the left elsewhere in the UK to realise that it does not have to be this way, and that a left wing alternative will rise. But those who think that way will have to learn that Labour is not it, and probably never will be. That is not because they could not change,but because there is no will to change, and also because what happened in Scotland will happen there too: that is, they could not effectively reposition themselves because nobody believed a word that came out of their mouths. People here have genuinely stopped listening to labour: they can’t even give their leaflets away, if their canvassers are to be believed.
If the Tories win a majority, then expect full blown austerity, the rapid privatisation of the NHS and the complete destruction of the welfare state.
The “Nasty” party will be able to remove the human mask that the Lib Dems provided.
Welcome to the Road to Wigan Pier 2.0!
“the remnants of the New Labour years should now lose their influence on Labour”
In the last 40 years, the only Labour leader to have won a general election was Tony Blair, three times. That tells its own story about where Labour needs to be if it is to win.
But really, the two stories here are of a divided nation: Scotland going its own way, most of the North still Labour and the rest Tory; and an electoral system that is manifestly broken with the Tories and SNP grossly overrepresented (36% of vote – 50% of the seats and 5% of the vote for 8% of the seats), whereas UKIP and the Greens are massively underrepresented.
It could be however that what we are seeing is an end to left/right being the defining issue in politics and a start of globalisation/corporatisation vs isolationism/protectionism being the big narrative (which has happened in France). With those who feel dispossessed voting UKIP, and no place for two big parties fighting on the same side of that debate.
“In the last 40 years, the only Labour leader to have won a general election was Tony Blair, three times. That tells its own story about where Labour needs to be if it is to win.”
Is that why people deserted the Labour party in their droves under Blair? Labour joined the tories in a campaign against Scottish independence; a catastrophic mistake.
Many polls showed rail nationalisation was extremely poplar. Labour missed that opportunity. There was popular support for nationalisation of the utilities. Nope! We’re not going to entertain that either. People were crying out for a alternative to austerity. Labour offered austerity slightly watered down.
The tories didn’t win this election – Labour threw it away!
Stevo! – I FULLY agree. Despite what some of the posts on this thread have said, Labour was nowhere NEAR radical enough, or listening enough on such matters as you have raised, and many others.
As Richard implies, there’s a majority to be built from the 35% who didn’t bother to vote, in alliance with the progressive majority (and it IS a majority), who wanted those decisive state interventions.
Labour WAS held back by its neo-liberal Blairite tendency from embracing, and arguing for, a society in which things are really run for the majority, and not the 1%.
As ever Andrew, we agree
Andrew, I agree with you and Richard on this. But the question remains, will Labour draw this lesson from the election or will it decide that its fortunes lie with the neo-liberals? From the reports we are getting in Australia, commentators are saying that Miliband had too much of an anti-rich message coming out (which we know is ridiculous). But if that’s the perception; if that’s the message being pumped out, I worry that Labour will lurch back again towards the Blair line. Hope I’m wrong.
The message from New Labour that Labour must swing right is very strong today
The neoliberal tendency is out in force
I feel that I know what this new narrative is (maybe many of you feel the same)? What I lack is a clear way to deliver it. Or even if am capable enough to be involved in the delivery of it – if I can be of any help at all in fact.
Mark
Never doubt your ability to change things
I don’t
Richard
I’ve got to say the tears welled up when I read this……………
Feeling utterly sick this morning-the most craven, selfish, thoughtless, witless, solopsistic. self-seeking behaviour has manifested itself – a victory for intellectual dearth, supine obsequiousness and profound narcolepsy and moral sleeping-sickness.
despite feeling this visceral disappointment I’m not surprised at the voters’ servile buckling to the economic narrative.
Richard-I’m sure you will turn this disaster into redoubled energy but we can expect:
More vilification of the poor and the implicit eugenicist sub-plot.
TTIP consolidating oligopoly.
An all out financialisation of social housing and Rachmanism re-visited.
Increased immiseration of already poor communities.
The augmentation of the wealth divide.
The further strengthening of the ‘Government’s a household’ myth
Possible social unrest
Fracking and the continuation of environmantal disaster
An avalanche of ego inflated verbal flatulence from Johnson!
Silver lining? greens nearly 4% and well over a million which is part of an undercurrent. let’s hope the PR argument can be sustained.
I agree. At least we threw out the Tory flat tax and A&E closure supporting MP Simon Reevell in Dewbury.
“The fourth, the remnants of the New Labour years should now lose their influence on Labour.”
Ah, I knew it would only be a matter of time – Labour lost because it was not left wing enough…
You think Scotland happened because Labour were too left wing?
Scotland is a different country electorally. The reasons for the Labour meltdown there a multidimensional and not necessarily due to their policies.
The Labour Party must resist any attempt to veer to the left. We have now had two elections in a row where the Labour leader has been noticeably to the left of Tony Blair, and the English have resoundingly said “no thanks”. There must now be real doubt as to whether it is possible for Labour to win in England on a policy platform anything to the left of Tony Blair.
It’s also worth noting that Labour has not won a majority greater than 3 in the UK parliament without a chap called Blair since 1966. Almost 50 years ago.
I really don’t think Labour will be listening to you
Or me, come to that
I think Ed Miliband’s policy platform in 2015 was reheated and rehashed New Labour for the most part. A tiny bit more radical in a few areas (eg taxation) but to the RIGHT of New Labour in other areas (e.g. Fiscal policy, social security). If Labour needs to move even further right to win elections then they might as well merge with the Tory party as they are going to be offering a facsimile of Tory policies in that case.
Your commentary on the failure of the offering before the election was very appropriate Howard
Do you really think that the lesson here is that Labour should move to the left to win?
Even with the Scotland seats, Labour wouldn’t have a majority. Is there any conclusion other than Labour need to take votes off the Tories and UKIP to win?
I do not agree
35% of people did not vote because no one speaks for them
They believe there is no one fighting for them
That’s where Labour can win
It is what the SNP have done
Fair enough.
Labour moved to the right. Result? Labour members leaving the party in droves, mainly over their complete disgust over his duplicity in Iraq, but also, I’ve no doubt, over PFI and the marketisation of the NHS.
People wanted change; Labour offered almost nothing to the voters in that regard.
To say this result is a tragedy is supreme understatement.
Leaving aside party membership and concentrating on votes, where will the votes that labour need come from? I’m talking about ENGLISH votes here, because if you assume that Labour could theoretically win back Scotland from the SNP, that does not make them the largest party – they need English seats.
Richard says non-voters, which is fair enough – turnout in Scotland was 5% higher than in the UK, that’s 2.3million ‘extra’ voters that Labour could try to win, but important to note that this wouldn’t put them into a national majority (puts them level with the Tories assuming they got all of them). I think it’s a bit of a stretch to say that all the extra voters would go to Labour though.
If Labour moved to the left it might pick up votes from the Greens, I guess. Maybe UKIP, if they got tough on immigration and you believe that UKIP took voters from Labour rather than the Tories.
I can’t believe, however, that they might get Tory and the remaining Lib Dem voters to defect to them if they moved left. I think they’d still lose England, and hence the election.
It comes from the argument
The austerity argument is wrong
And at sometime that will become obvious
The problem is that anti-austerity, once abandoned by the centre parties, *became* a left-wing stance by default. Being against austerity should be the centre-ground. There is *no* necessary incompatibility between anti-austerity and pro-business, centrist politics. How to reverse that abandonment, that’s the task for the next five years — if Labour are capable of seeing the error of their past decisions (big, big ‘if’).
@Adam – the thing to consider is that the voting population is not static, it is dynamic. Every year another 200000 or so people are coming to live in this country, potentially another million people by 2020. Equally the old generation dies off and a new generation comes through – there is always hope for change.
Add in a fair percentage of the 35% who are not currently engaging with the political process, coupled with radical new policies and its a recipe to inspire and excite.
Think about the situation in Scotland 5 years ago – a handful of SNP MP’s and all the other constituencies with massive ‘insurmountable’ Labour majorities. Change can come quickly.
Your narrative might include PR, Richard, but the likelihood that the Tories will allow that onto the political agenda if they have an overall majority (as seems likely as I write this) is zero. Its just going to be presented by them and the Tory press (who must be celebrating their role in this election like crazy right now) as the whining of a bunch of bad loosers.
No, what we’re now going to see is the nasty party, the City, the Tory media, and so on, on steroids. I was never a great believer in the Lib Dem’s claim that they put much of a brake on the excesses that the Tories would otherwise have pursued, but regardless of whether they did or not the Tories will now be rampant. So, regardless of the problems that may arise from the promised EU referendum and the disruption this may cause the Tories internally, over the next 12-18 months we can expect an avalanche of policies that many a non Tory will believe would never see the light of day. Barring some event(s) that I cannot see occurring, by 2020 we will truly live in a neofeudal state.
Depressingly likely Ivan
Regardless, I’ve just signed the Unlock Democracy petition.
Been there already
The gap for PR is there in the SNP. Nicola has said she will support it despite knowing it will cost the SNP seats, because democratically it is the right thing to do. That is the arguement that needs to be sustained and used to expose the Tories and Labour who are against it.
The media are now reporting that the Tories are bemused because the scale of cuts set out in the manifesto (though not the detail, of course, of which there was none) are and never were achievable: they were simply the starting point in what they assumed would be a negotiation with potential coalition partners.
What an absurd system we are saddled with!
Roger
The cuts are easily achievable. They return us to the 1930s. We didn’t have an NHS in the 1930s & we won’t in 2017.
We didn’t have education for everyone in the 1930s & we won’t in 2017
We didn’t have a benefits system in the 1930s & we won’t in 2017.
We’ve voted to join the 3rd world.
In fairness, this should please UKIP because no-one in their right mind would choose to come to the UK now.
Except wealthy non-doms of course.
I remember travelling in “third world” countries & being struck by the large, wealthy houses, surrounded by barbed wire enclosures, big dogs & security guards while the hungry peasentia prowled outside.
It would never have occurred to me, in my wildest dreams, that an electorate would be so stupid as to wish that situation on themselves but, hey, schmucks happen
“But I am a democrat and will work within this deeply unstable situation to promote the concerns I have pursued for many years because if anything they feel more important than ever.”
With these words on your previous blog, Richard, you shook me out of my depression with the election result and helped me recover the stoicism that has helped me through more than a few threatening personal events. Thank you.
Surely, the most important issue for the “narrative” is to sort out our antiquated and dusfunctional voting system on a cross-party basis, with principle, not party interest, as the main guide. FPTP is simply so unrepresentative of the number of votes cast for each party that some form of PR must replace it. Based on provisional national vote shares, the currently projected results on such a basis would have been:
Conservative 326 – 88 = 238
Labour 233 – 34 = 199
UKIP 2 + 80 = 82
LD 8 + 42 = 50
SNP 56 – 24 = 32
Green 1 + 24 = 25
Others 24 + 0 = 24
And, to repeat the gist of a comment made by Caroline Lucas this morning, while I’d not be too happy politically for UKIP to have 82 MPs, better to accept the challenge of arguing them down than muck around with functioning democracy.
Personally, I’m mystified as to why anyone doesn’t or can’t accept that we all get through life better together. That’s why familes work, when they work at least, so why aren’t we governed that way? It’s also why people who share that point of view, whether or not they have relgious faith, are so offended when government ministers who claim to be Christians ignore their supposed beliefs by marginalising and demonising the most vulnerable without any evidence.
To conclude, anger has replaced abject dejection, so this probably isn’t the best time to even try to make any more points; but thanks again for restoring some fight in me!
On a partisan note, Labour must restart by accepting huge responsibility for failing to challenge the Tory economic narrative over the last five years, to the point where, so many people believe, and fear the consequences of, what they’ve had drummed into them, they vote Tory because “Labour spent all the cash”. Never, ever again can Labour allow monumental lies and hypocrisy, or kindergarten economics, to go so seriouly unchallenged as to threaten the well-being of this country and ALL its people.
So agree with:
On a partisan note, Labour must restart by accepting huge responsibility for failing to challenge the Tory economic narrative over the last five years
Absolutely. Repudiating the myth about how New Labour ‘bankrupted’ Britain has got to come first.
But all I am picking up from my Sun and Daily Mail reading colleagues this morning is that they think that they have stopped the SNP from having a say in running England!! And at what cost? The NHS? Austerity? It’s as if we’ve had some form of home international or something.
It really is that base in some cases, but part of the new narrative must be along the lines of advising people that they are being thrown off the scent of the real issues by the non-issues like the SNP governing England etc.
The politics of division have won
It is very sad
Failure to challenge narrative or not, I find it profoundly depressing that I woke up this morning to find that I do, after all, live in a country where people are :
a) selfish to a degree I never imagined possible;
b) stupid enough not to look under the surface (I mean, spending five minutes reading a Paul Krgman article should be enough for anyone to realise that austerity always was a lie, and utterly ineffective in solving economic trouble); and
c) above all, utterly deluded. What this election shows is that at least 35% of the electorate are simply turkeys with a bizarre penchant for shoving sage and onion up their own backsides.
Where on earth do you start in trying to fix this?
With hard work
The outrageously biased and partisan press is also part, but only a part of the problem. OK, the influence of print media may have waned in recent years, but we’re talking about 30-35 years of propaganda. I think also that it’s cowed the Labour party. Tony Blair always realised that Murdoch’s support was conditional and temporary, because Murdoch does not back sure-fire losers. You only have to look at the Sun’s support for the SNP in Scotland, the complete antithesis of the Tories, simply because they wanted to back the winning horse to see how cynical this is.
Nick. Interesting figures. Thanks for sharing. The case for reform is overwhelming, of course. And I note that Farage has spoken out on this too, so it becomes not simply an issue of the left/progressives. But we should never forget that the Tory party and their paymasters are not interested in democracy. Their interest is in power and control, and FPTP has once again delivered them that (even while delivering Scotland almost exclusively to the SNP, which I’m sure they can live with in exchange for control in England) while maintaining the veneer that we live in a functioning democracy. I see no reason whatsoever why the Tory party and their underwriters should change their position on this – indeed after this result, quite the reverse.
Entirely agree with you last point, by the way. That was when the rot set in and it was lost.
Jeremy Corbyn is talking of labour’s need for a ‘radical economic rethink’ and Labour’s mistake in the anti-SNP ‘alliance’ with the Tories. Will this defeat allow labour to throw it’s caution to the wind and FINALLY adopt a real anti-austerity narrative???
I just don’t think this is possible, there are very few conviction politicians in the Parliamentary Labour party, most it seems to me, are career politicians. Its dead easy to capture career politicians because they have relatively few values other than self and their “price” (not monetary) is quite low. I am afraid I think we need a new party of the left, fully conversant with modern communications technologies who are prepared to challenge every utterance of the neo feudals, their media utterances, and their footsoldiers in parliament. If the Mandelsons and Blairs of this world hate it then it we know we are probably right. Whimpishness, as we have seen from Labour during this campaign, doesn’t win votes. We must be prepared however that this could mean there may need to be a few elections before such a party gains enough momentum to win. Remember if such a party could get all its constituency to come out and vote the Tories would probably never win another election.
I don’t think so. I have no reason to believe that Labour do not agree with the neoliberal economic analysis. If they believe it it explains their failure to challenge it. They are people, subject to the same (or greater) propaganda as we all are
On this day –
Don’t be on the dole
Don’t be homeless
Don’t be in poverty
Don’t be a pensioner
Don’t be an NHS patient
Don’t rent a council/housing association home
Don’t be a public employee
Don’t be disabled
Don’t be an immigrant
Don’t be a low wage earner
Don’t rent a house with more than one room
….in fact, don’t be anyone outside the privileged elite.
The tories are on course for a majority and a storm is going to hit every one of you.
Agreed
“The fourth, the remnants of the New Labour years should now lose their influence on Labour.”
Should but probably won’t. Ed Miliband rightly or wrongly was perceived as a move leftwards by Labour themselves as well as by most commentators. He will almost certainly step down and almost certainly someone perceived as being more right of center will replace him. They [the parliamentary party] want to recreate the Blair years, anything more radical will remain the preserve of fringe parties like UKIP and the Greens. Best chance for success for a more progressive agenda is electoral reform, meaning nothing short of PR.
I can’t see PR now
The Tories will block it
And when Scotland has gone they will have no reason to deliver it
Irony…http://www.theguardian.com/music/2015/may/08/we-shall-overcome-guy-carawan-who-popularised-rights-anthem-dies-at-87
Richard
In view of your obvious admiration for the Scots in so decisively embracing a true socialist party, had you not considered abandoning your Tory bastion in Norfolk, run by & for the wealthy & setting up home north of the border? Those of us who have left the land of our birth will tell you of the reward of living with neighbours one shares common principles & aims.
P.Easy
France
Who knows – if the right chance came along….
Oy.. Hands off he’s invited just north of the New Hadrians Wall to be situated just north of Nottingham !!!!!
Agree with much of what’s being said here and especially the need to look past the negative stereotyping of the SNP to why they might really have appealed
The centre-left have lacked a coherent narrative for years and have retreated to a softer form of austerity or neoliberalism. We’ll tax a bit more and spend more on health etc. They have had little to say about how decent jobs will be created which comes from proper businesses, real innovation and the kind of wealth creation that benefits everyone and not just a few. That’s a much more nuanced argument than simply state vs corporate.
An example is the huge opportunity presented by climate change and the new businesses and jobs that could be created with right investment. Probably state led or supported. It’s not too late for the UK to grab a share of what could be like the next IT industry
Just an example.
So where is that rethink going to happen? I’d love to be part of it…
Keep in touch
I doubt it will only happen in the political parties
That is not where I am going to be partkaing in it, anyway
I spent a year working on the outlines of ‘Green Economy’ for WWF worldwide. Economy that is sustainable in all senses – socially, environmentally and financially. From a slightly different perspective, Will Hutton has a lot of sensible and credible things to say. There other much more attractive and coherent potential narratives out there. Might need some fresh minds and groupings to put them together.
From what I’ve seen, there’s quite a few people who comment on this blog who could contribute…
I am aware there steps being taken amongst many groups to start this process
I am sure much will emerge
My focus will, I admit be tax, borrowing and the related economics
Depressingly, the low success of Plaid Cymru seems to indicate that the stop austerity message did not resonate very loudly in Wales. I do feel that Labour has been pathetic for the past 5 years in clearly identifying Tory failures, and about past successes. Strangely absolutely no mention of the loss of our triple A status by anyone when that was supposedly crucial last time around. etc.
Labour made no use of most recent stats on ever widening trade gap, etc etc.
Staggering isn’t it
The austerity narrative only exists in the UK
And it’s just profoundly technical wrong
I assume you meant ‘only in England’, Richard and it is staggering-there is something deeply brutalised about English society (North largely excepted) which I find deeply disturbing. The fact that a Tory nationalist card swung it for them is indicative of puerile, localised,parochial thinking.
An interesting comment with regard to PR that Laura Kuennsberg made on the BBC when the subject of share of the vote and number of MPS were discussed. The public has been asked recently (2011 I think) to vote on this in a referendum and rejected it soundly. Therefore, has the appetite changed so much? Why is it always the losing parties who carp on it so much? When there was the chance to change it, they should have made the case at the time (the percentage vote against change was 67.9%). I have to admit that the calls for change here are very reminiscent of when the Lib Dems first started to emerge as a party to challenge the Conservatives and Labour.
I think you’ll find that the reason that the Labour and Lib Dem vote collapsed is that they offered no compelling vision that people wanted to believe in or thought was possible. The Conservatives delivered a message that whilst boring and offering more of the same, people could see and benefit from. If anyone would like a dose of realpolitik, I direct them here http://www.thedailymash.co.uk and the story on “Voters surrender to their inner bastard”. If the Lib Dem campaign in the rest of the UK was as poor as it was here in South West London (Adios Saint Vince where his share of the vote collapsed with the largest single proportion going to the Conservatives) then they deserved what they got.
Another thread to follow is that voters realised that they couldn’t change the Scottish picture with the strength of the SNP and that a combination of Labour/Lib Dems/SNP/Green/etc. was possible with the SNP having a disproportionate effect on overall government policy. The only action they could take was to vote for the largest party in England and Wales to offset this.
Just a thought on this point… In my experience many people voted against the change from FPTP in 2011 more to give Nick Clegg and the LibDems the first in a series of bloody noses for going into Coalition with the Conservatives. The electorate were still very raw about that decision at the time Anand were hoping, I suspect, that it would lead Clegg to reconsider his Party’s position.
Possibly, but many potentially didn’t understand it and many who did also realised that AV was the poorest of the options for PR that we could be offered and voted against in the hope that more substantive reform be put on the table.
Personally I voted for AV, as I thought any reform of FPtP was better than none.
I can’t actually remember the campaign despite it being so recent. i think that alone is major inditement of how poorly the reform was argued for.
I voted for using the same logic
The case for PR has not been made, IMO. Oddly many on the left support it without actually spelling out what it is they wish to achieve, and why PR will achieve it. I am sure it is properly discussed somewhere, and I would appreciate a link to that debate. So far I am not convinced,and I mean that sincerely. All systems have benefits and drawbacks. What are they? Why is PR to be preferred?
With the inevitable EU referendum the progressive voices of WENI (Wales, England & Northern Ireland) have a chance to emulate the movements we had/have in Scotland. They can’t be excatly the same, becasue the discussion is not exactly the same (but close enough), but if you mobilise now you can start having the same discussions that we had (and are still having) about our place in the world and how we want our society to be.
Labour did not loose, because they were too far to the right or the left. They lost because they did not inspire, they did not create a vision worth fighting for. Even if they had Nicola in charge, instead of Red Ed they would likely still have lost.
The SNP is the vehicle the people of Scotland are now driving, not the other way round. The SNP are being carried on a wave created by us. They gave us the space during the Indyref to start the conversation, but our movements changed the dialogue and even changed the SNP.
Don’t mourn the GE result, get angry, get focussed. Grab the space the coming EU referendum throws up. Grab it with both hands and change the dialogue, form movements around it outwith the party structures.
In the first leaders debate one of the biggest cheers of the night was Nicola challeneging Farage over immigration and telling it like it really is “immigrants are net contributors and if we are going to have the discussion about immigration, let us do it like adults with all the information”. These are conversations that every Scot has had over the course of the Indyref on hundreds of differnt issues.
However, it was not the politcial parties that informed us. It was town meetings, rallies and social media where the real conversation was going on. We failed to completely to break through during the Indyref, but we kept talking after it, we kept pushing, we kept going the rally’s and meetings. It was a Common Weal event after the Indyref that I first came across Richard and his blog. We are still learning about ourselves, but also how we can beat the system and deliver something better for AllOfUs.
That is the space that the progressives need to grab, need to use and need to build from. Forget the parties and build a movement that embraces the people and makes them question themselves and their motivations.
I would live to see Common Weal down here
It is great
Damn right they are. Out with RIC, they were in my mind the most influential part of the Indy movement and are still helping to shape the movement and possibly society.
Start your own branch. Pull together a bunch of progressive friends and go for it. Robin (and the Common Weal Org) are quite happy for any progressive grouping to use the name and I’m sure if they heard that YOU had formed a group in England they would explode with pride.
I’m sure you must have plenty of friends/contacts even readers who have skills that would allow you to hold town hall style meetings, even if it was just once a month, on a barrel load of topics under the Common Weal umbrella. The iron is hot and the time to strike is now, whilst people are still angry at the Tories getting back in. You have a chance to take their anger/disappointment and help them focus it.
I know you already mentioned this a while back, but if do go for it, FILM IT. It was one of our most powerful tools during the IndyRef, it exposed through the power of social media, new ideas to people who under normal circumstances would never have sought them out. Now those people (thousands of us or more), myself included, hunger for “political” knowledge. Not party politics, but the ideas of change.
The Common Weal brand is getting better and better known up here and from what I understand there are many in the Left in England that aware of it. I would urge you to use the brand to build a local movement.
I know some in the Common Weal central team
I may talk to them
3 glasses of gin last night, consumed alone, except for dog. Partner uncontactable (grrr).
I was just getting to really appreciate Ed Miliband and have no idea who could replace him. I like Ian Lavery, but doubt he has a following.
Most English are clearly selfish and uncaring.
Being proud of what my party stands for is more important than winning elections.
If Labour decides it must turn right I will resign and probably join CPB with partner. It will be a shame because there are some wonderful people in the Labour Party.
Carol- unfortunately I think Labour needed this hammering it gives them a chance to become ‘real’ again. Of course they may not take it. My own view is that the labour/Tory thing is over and needs to be (despite the result)-we need a continually strengthening Green who have increase their vote from 0.96% to 3.8% a significant achievement despite the small figures-a sliver of hope for me. In all, I think, I think the neo-lib march onwards has a significant way to go before its demise and we can expect plenty more ‘I’m-alright-Jackism’ and poverty pornography on TV.
It’s been good for shareholders on banks and the 15% of the population (?) that are share owners!!
This is democracy. You may disagree with the policies of the Tories but 2m more people voted for them over labour. I’m afraid it’s time for labour to face reality. The UK hasn’t embraced true socialism for more than 40 years. The only way labour can/got elected was for it to lean to the right (tony Blair). It’s might be sad but it’s true
Respectfully, that is nonsense
There are now three parties on the right (4 if you include UKIP)
The problem is an absence of the old social democratic left
That’s why 35% do not vote
They know they are being offered choices not in their interests
There is absolutely nothing stopping the 35% forming their own party to champion their ideals.
Although, your assumption that 35% of the registered voters don’t vote because of the absence of “old social democratic left” is absolute nonsense. Until someone delivers some empirical evidence as to why they don’t vote, please don’t assume these were the missing voters the left needed.
And you have evidence I am wrong or are you, by your own criteria, spouting nonsense?
We didn’t get socialism from Miliband’s Labour Anth – not at all.
We had a hop-potch of ideas meant to appeal to too many people at the same time that didn’t add up.
Also, do not underestimate the politics of conflict that have been used by the Tories to win this election – scare mongery that would make Goebbels proud.
Also another observation – the Tories were truly nasty in this election – from personal attacks on Miliband (the Fallon episode) to winding people up racially about Scotland (the auld enemy).
By contrast, Labour was nice – too nice about putting the record straight about the myth of Bankruptcy, too nice about accepting that THEY had a problem with understanding immigration etc.,
So maybe in the future, Labour has to use the same tactics but to a socially useful end and everyone who is progressive (including me) has to become more comfortable with that.
And why do I say this? Because the British people – like people the world over – respond to that sort of thing and it is self-defeating for us not to recognise that no matter how unpleasant that seems.
It is incumbent on you, Richard, to provide evidence that the missing 35% would all vote left wing given you are the one making the assertion. There are plenty of alternatives around already if people in want radical left policies, the SWP etc, and they tend to get embarrassingly low shares of the vote. Even the greens only got 4%. So until you provide evidence for this 35% claim we are entitled to assume it is nonsense.
It’s not incumbent on me to prove a stated opinion: I am freely entitled to hold it
But as I noted, if proof must be offered, prove I am wrong
Until then by the criteria you have set I am justified and your claim is unsubstantiated
Maybe you should learn some logic
This election was always going to be nasty, on the tory side, why else would they employ Crosby.
He always fights dirty.
Labour tried to be everything to everybody, and ended as nothing to anybody.
There is no place for nice in politics, not any more.
I can tell you from canvassing for Labour that there are many many people in England who just *don’t know* how things work. They don’t know about economics and they believe what the media – not just the Tory press but the BBC, ITV, Sky etc – tell them. ‘Well, things are getting better aren’t they?’ ‘The last few years haven’t been so bad’. I even met NHS workers who said ‘oh they’re all the same, aren’t they, I’m not voting’…
This is deeper than just ‘Labour failed to rebut austerity’ or ‘Labour failed to offer hope’. I think millions of people are going through a spiritual malaise. We don’t know who we are any more. And I’m sorry, but sadly nationalist parties – be they the SNP (which is trendy with lefties right now) or UKIP (which isn’t) do at least offer some kind of collective message. The left’s hackneyed appeals to solidarity etc just don’t seem to cut it anymore.
I accept that solidarity is not enough – never has been
Labour did not offer to do enough
And the stone idea was bizarre
And of course the Labour bus had some trouble with its Axlerod …. got to keep a sense of humour in these sad times !!!
Well observed – but solidarity has to be created (rather than saying that it does not exist).
Solidarity at the moment exists around brands – it exists around social status (class), the BMW or Audi that you aspire to drive.
Attempting solidarities about fairness equality may not cut it. The Tories won because they found enemies and built solidarities around those. I hate to say this but it is true.
So the counter narrative we develop has to identify what we now know are threats and amplify them and use those threats to explain things like TTIP and stupid economics like balanced budgets or surpluses.
I fully realise that this will not sit comfortably with those of us who come here for intellectual and spiritual sustenance but we may need to grasp the nettle. We have to fight like with like. There are fissures in the victors that we may consider having to focus on and open.
The SNP? I fully expect Cameron to do some sort of deal with them which could end up isolating them from England so as to cut off any ‘lifeline’ for Parliamentary opposition in England. I hope Sturgeon is more canny than that but we will see.
The Scottish SNP landslide is 99.99% indicative of Scottish consciousness, pride, nationalism, whichever word you want to use.
The Left has patted Scotland on the back for standing up for itself in that way – and looked north with envy.
But have any of those feelings in England and ‘the Left’ will be down on you like a ton of bricks, with all sorts of terms of abuse.
Need to sort out that non sequitur
I think I’m already seeing in this discussion a tendency to slide back into ‘Old Labour’ vs ‘New Labour’, left-right rhetoric. For me that does not constitute ‘fresh thinking’, which is what we need to face not just today’s challenges but those of the next 10-20-30 years. Why does politics have to be so one dimensional or monochrome…?
As a (small, selective) example, why can one not combine a belief in the positive contributions that the business can make, with a recognition of the need for strong role for the state, providing the welfare and other services that are best provided collectively? And both supporting and regulating the contributions that business makes.
I’ve worked across all three sectors (business, government, and not-for-profit) and each has good and bad, strong and weak, efficient and inefficient. None of them have a monopoly on perfect ethics either… Only the idealogues believe than only one sector has all the answers. And wanting to turn the clock back to the 40s or 50’s, that might have been the halcyon days of the welfare state or the unions, is no more helpful than the 50’s based fantasy world of UKIP
We are in a globalised world, with all of the complex advantages and disadvantages that it brings. So how do we survive and thrive in that world as a small island off Northern Europe? The big industries of the future will be different, so how do we make sure we have a strong presence in those industries (as well as existing ones), that the jobs they provide are well paid and that people are equipped with the continuously changing skills that they will need? Talking about jobs before working out what industries or organisations will provide them is a bit cart before horse. Though that hasn’t stopped the ILO…
Our demographics are changing and with them collective and individual identities are changing too. So how do we deal with it and make the most of it, rather than pretending it isn’t happening or trying to stop the tide.
Read Michael Sandel on markets – and then reflect on what the criteria should really be for privatisation. Again, I’ve worked on both good and terrible. Ideology is not a helpful way to make those decisions. A longer topic…
Thats enough. There’s so much more to cover. I’d like to see, and participate in, some really fresh thinking, that moves on from the stale old stereotypical thinking that has I think, held us back. There is a void crying out to be filled
Keep contributing Robin
Appreciated
‘Old versus new labour’? Not from me you haven’t.
I think that the only nomothetic argument we are really seeing is from business Robin – they don’t want to pay a fair tax; they want the most profitable bits of our increasingly privatised public services AND also want to be subsidised to run them! I’ve read Mantel twice – it’s the business sector who needs to read Mantel – not democrats like me.
The only sector that believes that it has the answers IS the financially dominated business sector (and the markets of course).
Labour has tied itself in knots trying to balance the things you talk of to the point where it was trying to please too many people (and this is just one of the factors at play in the recent racially charged election). It is not just Labour’s attitude to business (you can’t say that the utility companies haven’t been ripping us off surely?) which even dominates the Observer (poor as it is these days).
I’d love to see some of the good stuff you’ve seen laid out here. Do it.
I like the reference to Mantel (rather than Sandel?)! Was this somehow Freudian? Who do you see as Thomas Cromwell in this version?!!
More seriously, I think you might be illustrating my point; I’ve worked with businesses who do want to pay their taxes, look after their employees and want to tackle climate change. I can think of quite a few who are hugely frustrated at the ludicrous pressures that are placed on them by a rapacious finance sector. They see the behaviour of the tax avoiders as being profoundly anti-competitive. They need all the support and even protection they can get, though I’m not expecting anything from the current government.
And yes I know others who are a disgrace. I struggle to think of many or even any in the City who I’d defend and I’ve worked with a lot of them (consultancy gets you into all sorts of dodgy places…). Perhaps Hermes in the investment world, and some of the building societies who’ve stuck to their roots.
My point is, that to dismiss the entire business sector is to slide back into a generic anti-capitalist debate. I’ve worked a lot with development NGOs and seen it first hand. For my sins I’ve done a Masters in the subject so can sing the song with the best of them. Its all the fault of capitalism, colonialism, globalisation…. Its the Judean People’s Front all over again and the Romans argument.
I’d like us to get away from those worn out simplistic stereotypes of ‘capitalist’ and ‘socialist’, hence my earlier post. Then we can really start to break new ground
PS See John O’Farrell’s ‘Things Can Only Get Better’ for a hilarious if depressing version of ‘Old Labour’ doing its Judean People’s Front routine. Lets not go there again
Whoops – Sandel it should have been – sorry!
Mind you Wolf Hall is definitely a great setting for the Tory election campaign me thinks.
I have to confess I have written this comment three times already, and abandoned it each time. I think I am just so full of grief and fear at what my countrymen have done that each time it comes out so long that, had St Paul written it, the Corinthians would have refused to pay the postage. I’ll try to stay brief. (ish)
What can the Left take from Thursday?
1) Well, firstly, ‘People like people like them’…
The catastrophic decision to select ever more Oxbridge shiny suit boys, indistinguishable from their Tory and Lib Dem rivals has weakened (or destroyed) the ability for working class voters to identify with their Labour candidates. The lesson from this is of course that any new consensual movement must draw its candidates from the area it seeks to represent. And University education should not be a deciding factor.
2)a.Secondly ‘Sell the benefits’…
Anyone who has worked in advertising and marketing will tell you that people don’t buy features (that’s for techies) they buy benefits.
A simple example is in the fact that Britain just refused a pay rise, largely because they didn’t think it would affect them.
eg Labour will raise the minimum wage to £8.00 per hour, helping to lift thousands of poor families out of poverty.
Response? How does that help me? I’m not on the min. wage and my family aren’t poor!
or
Labour will raise the minimum wage to £8.00 per hour. Why is that important? Well because increasing wages at the bottom creates a positive wage all the way up. If a bar server goes from £6.50 to £8.00 per hour their bar supervisor has to go from £7.50 to £8.50 to preserve the differential and make it worth their while to take on the extra responsibility. The same for their manager, and their manager above them.
2)b. Stop relying on discussions about ‘fairness’.
I could say (part of me wants to say) people are greedy, selfish and unkind. But that is no more helpful than it is true. ‘Fairness’ is an elastic and subjective concept that has been usurped by the neuro-linguistic programming of the Neoliberal lexicon.
Statement. Raising the minimum wage to £8.00 per hour will generate millions of pounds of extra week across the Country that will bolster local businesses. And by raising people’s earnings tens, of thousands of families will be lifted out of their reliance on Tax credits, lowering the tax burden on middle income earners.
3) Local Government is a poison chalice.
Once seen as the pathway to National Government, control of local authority is now the quickest way to get discredited.
I think it was the PCS (Richard?) who some years ago who did a detailed analysis of which local authorities would be most disadvantaged by changes to the block grants settlements- no surprises is what in the areas that were the most deprived and/or a tradition of Labour control. As a result of this, and the legally binding cap on Council Tax increases, Councils are now a proxy bogeyman for many citizens, trapped between statutory obligations to provide and dwindling financial resources. If you’re a Tory councillor in a wealthy borough, however, a word in the right ear will always help.
This is an important point. With no control in Parliament and no voice in the conventional media a new Left movement must find new ways of engaging with the electorate. The old definition of ‘activism’ must therefore be replaced with an alternative, probably altruistic, philanthropic, form of activity.
4) Never stop challenging the narrative
In the vital weeks and months, both before and after the last election, the stony silence from the surly, sulking Progress wing of the Labour Party allowed the Coalition and their pals in the media to construct the myth of Labour profligacy.
There will be much to point at in the coming years – never pass up an opportunity to apportion blame where it should squarely lie! Every time someone complains about potholes in the road, or the fact that they can’t get an appointment with their GP remind them who’s fault it is. A negative message is at least twice as memorable as a positive one
And be informed. Cold hard solid facts are a far more persuasive tool than ideological conviction.
5) Don’t be tempted to engage in civil disobedience. It will only be misrepresented in the press. I’ve already seen the ‘lefty louts’ type of comments on facebook about the anti Tory marches.
6)Forget the Media- they couldn’t muster a pound of integrity between them.
Every successful popular movement today has happened despite the MSM, not because of them.
The new media are a far more effective tool for getting the pure unfiltered message out there. Learn about those media and develop new ways of using them. Use ‘tag teams’ and platonic discussion.
7) Forget the Labour Party- they’re a dead duck (at least for the foreseeable future).
8) Work quickly to establish networks and connections between like minded groups… There is a huge amount of work to be done if the Left is to have a convincing voice between now and 2020.
9) Don’t worry about the South
I will confidently predict that George Osborne will bring about the most catastrophic crash this country has ever seen before May 7th 2018.
The myth of Tony Blair ‘the magician’ that has held the Labour Party back since his departure is exactly that.
Those of us old enough to remember the Thatcher/Major years will recall that the period when 330,000 families had their homes repossessed and tens of thousands more were left with huge negative equity (I have family in Essex who were rendered homeless and are STILL paying it off).
The disastrous consequences of Thatcher’s policies may have taken a while longer to impact the buoyant South then, but they got there in the end, and did much to ‘break the faith’ of Tory voters. Don’t be fooled, Blair was no ‘Wunderkind’, neither did he possess a formula to unlock the South. He simply happened to be in the right place, at the right time to capitalise on the Conservative’s ineptitude. When the crash does come the South and South East will be left hugely exposed and have no-one to blame but the Conservatives.
Moreover the Stevens’ plan for NHS England is predicated on ‘efficiency’ savings that the King’s Fund and the IFS have both said will necessitate the closure of many local health facilities and a withdrawal to regional population centres, which will kick the Tories in their heartlands.
10) The credibility of manifestos is defunct.
A new model is needed in order to restore public trust. An agreed manifesto, probably evolved through a ‘theory of change’ model, accompanied by a ‘red-line’ manifesto (both signed up to by prospective candidates on a legal and binding contract) would reassure voters in that respect.
So there you have it… The short version!
If anyone does see an opportunity to get the ball rolling I will gladly offer my limited abilities to help in any way I can.
I have tried to follow NEON (some may be familiar with it) on what is emerging but think by far the best thing to do is ground up – Scottish style – look at Common Weal as the model
OK Richard – Common Weal here I come.
But please – let us not just focus on one factor of failure for Labour: there are a number that need to be addressed, each one needing its own specific response.
Thanks,
Mark
Mark
I agree: blog to come
Richard
Please read MOly-Scot Cato’s analysis-it is excellent:http://www.newstatesman.com/politics/2015/05/greens-blame-tory-majority-labours-willingness-accept-narrative-its-opponents
PR in Finland has created a right wing coalition that is set on trying to manage the deficit, cutting spending and pursuing the same policies as the Tories in the UK. The Right/Left is blurred by PR but not the traditional economic thinking. It is clear that in a democracy there is fight for who is at the helm but once that person has ( or people have ) been chosen then debate tends to stop. This reinforces the need for a narrative that extends into the ‘deep future’, something that current politics cannot do. We are great at remembering past sacrifice but cannot imagine a future. Slowly, I am sure, the penny will drop, but my fear is that the Tories will ride on a slow and weak global recovery to win again in 2020. Unemployment could well become a new normal with an increase in automation and robotics and we will accept a blend of Orwellian and Victorian societies. My Quaker upbringing has taught me passive resistance and the Green mantra of reduce, re-use and recycle has now become a way of life. I do not believe in economic growth as essential as long as I have access to a means of production (soil, sunlight, water, physical health, tools etc). I feel fortunate that I have already stepped away from the increasingly automated and fragmented world I experience when I visit the UK. The clash of abundance and deprivation looks set to increase along with the increase in security and vulnerability. Cameron talking of uniting a single nation looks as delusional as Thatcher ‘bringing hope’ outside number 10. Power does seem to corrupt and the Tories now have absolute power. They will find the money to buy the security THEY need!