If you read the Observer today you would think that the Tories will rule in the UK until at least 2030.
You would also believe that Labour has taken leave of its collected senses to even have Jeremy Corbyn as a member.
And that a triumvirate based around Liz Kendall, Chuka Umunna and Tristram Hunt is the only group in touch with reality.
It goes on, and on, and on, all based around Andrew Rawnsley's jaded perspectives, an appeal to people to believe the findings of a small set of focus groups (Really? After all Labour's experience of them?) that say some people might never return to the Labour fold after 2015 and a poverty of analysis that belittles the paper.
What do I mean? Take this example (and there are so many more in today's paper it could provide enough material for a PhD thesis) from the editorial, where it is said that Labour must learn that:
Parties can help shape ... questions, but they can't tell voters what they should be and certainly can't ignore the ones that they don't like.
And yet only paragraphs later the same editorial notes:
Even as the Conservatives are masterfully shaping the territory on which the 2020 election battle will be fought, Labour is focused on an introspective conversation with its members, not a dialogue with the country.
When the paper cannot even be internally consistent on what is politically possible from the left and right - one of which can apparently define the whole agenda for discussion, and so opinion, and yet the other can't - within the same editorial its inability to construct an argument becomes painfully clear.
The whole paper is riddled with that inability today. Take this wonder from Alistair Darling from today's edition where he says:
We want people to get on, each generation building on the achievements of the last.
Quite right Alistair. And then he adds:
That needs a strong stable economy, but also needs investment. Borrowing to provide housing or a decent transport system is a good thing and we should say so.
I agree. And then he offers this next observation:
And yes, we need to get debt and borrowing down, as I have always said. I'm glad Osborne was able to meet my target.
Any you wonder why people aren't voting Labour? Let me explain it as a non-party member who looks at politics but does not partake in it at a party level.
The problem is threefold. First what Alistair Darling says is incoherent economically unless you say a) that you are going to screw the electorate for large sums of money to pay for the investment or b) you're going to do more of the much hated PFI that is shifting vast amounts of public funds to the private sector or c) you're going to do what I call Green Infrastructure Quantitative Easing but which Jeremy Corbyn calls People's QE (as far as I can tell they're the same). But Alistair did none of those things. I don't suppose he has a clue what that form of QE is so he looked stupid, and deservedly so. And people, even people who know little of economics, have rumbled that. Until Labour talks economically literately it has no hope, and it is not.
The second problem is also implicit in Darling's comment: he ended up playing on Osborne's territory. That's because Labour has no story of its own. This myth of the middle ground is nonsense. It's a fabrication. It's a lie that there is such a thing. The middle ground is simply where people are in the prevailing narrative. It's where that narrative has taken them, but let's not pretend that parties cannot move where that is or should not want to do so: the Observer editorial recognises implicitly - but without the candour or wit to admit it - that this is what the skill of the Tories in the last decade has been: they have been able to move the middle ground their way. But what they then argue is that Labour should not seek to change that fact, or where the middle ground is. What the Observer is saying is that Labour must play by Tory rules on the middle ground the Conservatives have created.
But why would they do that? If sending people into poverty, deliberately; slashing funding for the NHS; cutting investment in education; sending undergraduates deeper into debt; holding wages at near poverty levels; offering tax cuts for the richest and no one else; threatening to end the BBC and going to war without bothering to tell anyone is the middle ground then the Observer has clearly lost the plot. And anyone saying that this is where Labour needs to be, or thereabouts, has also lost any scintilla of reasoning they might have once possessed. It is this loss of reason so that they are even unable to identify the true nature of the problem that they face that is the third problem the likes of those in the Observer who think that they are on the left face.
It is this lack of intellectual capacity to reason that impoverishes Darling, and it is the same problem that cripples the Observer: somewhere within it (I can't be bothered to re-find the link) it is said that all parties die in the end and so, it is claimed Labour must die if the left is to go forward. But implicit in that statement is the glaringly obvious fact that so too will the Conservative Party and its current narrative die, and yet there is not in any one the many articles the Observer publishes today (with the single unifying theme of attacking Jeremy Corbyn) any hint of this possibility. What is astonishing is that when the Tory narrative on Europe is close to shredding itself and that people may reject the whole Tory edifice when they lose parts of the NHS, education, the BBC, or just the nation as Cameron shatters the Union which was supposed to be the basis of his party, the Observer seems quite unable to notice any such possibility, at all.
So let me offer explanation for what is happening. What the Observer is really saying today is that it thinks there is one hegemonic narrative in UK politics and that it thinks it is neoliberalism.
It is saying that any threat to that narrative, from wherever it comes, should be challenged. So Corbyn is unacceptable.
And it is saying that Labour must oppose the Conservatives from within that constraint of subscribing to neoliberalism when the whole basis of neoliberalism is the shrinking of the state, the increasing division of reward, the privatisation of gain and the outsourcing of risk, all of which should be antithetical to Labour as I understand it.
So let me tell the Observer a simple fact: opposition on that basis is not possible. If the middle ground is neoliberalism a policy called neoliberalism lite is not going to work: from the outset that is by definition both a failure and bound to fail.
Opposition now is to take control of the narrative. Opposition then, when neoliberalism has become so universal in apparent appeal (except, that is, in Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland and significant parts of the North), is about offering a different narrative. It has to be: neoliberalism is a totalitarian logic of exclusion. The Observer's logic is not just appeasing that totalitarianism in that case, it is in the process supporting it. This is not a situation where ambiguity is possible. You're either for or against neoliberalism: there is no possibility of sitting on the fence and the Observer has made clear today on which side it fits.
So what is the alternative narrative? Is it some bizarre logic, as all Jeremy Corbyn's opponents would wish to suggest? Without wishing to be involved in party political debate - because, I stress, that is not my bag - I suggest not.
Instead it is a narrative that says people are the foundation of wealth, whoever they work for.
That means this is a narrative that values people equally whether they work for the state or private sectors.
And it is a narrative that says let each do what it is best able to deliver.
But which also says that if markets are best able to deliver then they have to be based on certain rules, like transparency, accountability, paying taxes, the prevention of monopoly power and the promotion of enterprise and not rent seeking speculation, because in case the Observer has forgotten it, these are the qualities that make markets work when the concentrated power of neoliberalism is simply about reward extraction by a few from the effort and assets of the many, and is as far removed from real market theory as Soviet tractor factories were.
None of which then says that this alternative narrative is opposed to business: far from it, this is a more pro smaller business agenda than anything that the right has put forward for decades because of the right's bias towards wealth, big business and globalisation, all of which are the antithesis of small business success.
And that narrative has to recognise that effort is and will be rewarded but that the right to enjoy that reward is dependent upon complying with the democratic wishes of the society of which a person is a member, including its expectation that redistribution to deliver greater equality is not just the right thing to do, but a basis for enhanced prosperity for all in the long run.
That narrative also says that the state must and will use the powers available to it to deliver these goals if it is to be responsible. So it will invest when it thinks fit, and create the money to do so (back to QE) when the market will not deliver the scale of economic activity that the country can sustain. Wouldn't anything else be wholly irresponsible?
And it will regulate to correct market failure, whether by banks or in the environment.
And it will foster employment by reducing the taxes on labour and increasing them on unearned income.
And it will not waste resources paying housing benefits when it would be better off building houses.
And nor will it penalise the young and lay a lifetime burden of debt upon them when they are the basis of our future prosperity.
There is much more to the vision, of course.
But for heaven's sake, if the Observer cannot see that it is only by talking about alternatives that Labour (or any other left of centre party) can put together the necessary coalition of interests to create change in this country then no wonder they back Labour leaders who might, like the last shadow chancellor, feel comfortable discussing VAT on replacement windows but ducked big issues like the tax gap.
Or to put it another way, if a debate is to take place, shall we make it about something more than the positioning of deckchairs whilst neoliberalism steams on?
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Great piece of journalism Mr Murphy. Labour really just keep morphing to suit the day, the weather, with no honesty or appeal.
I think they are embarrassed by their wonderful history because it stemmed from workers being acknowledged and now those workers
are incidental and not useful to them. And how awful that those floundering will feel useless, such wonderful potential lost.
We all have to adjust to changing times, but some of us are simply left behind. More R and D money for our universities, and keep the benefits for all. Oh it gets your dander up doesn’t it.
It beggars belief, doesn’t it?
The neo-liberal Labour Right are like rabbits transfixed in the headlights of an on-coming car – the neo-liberal Tory juggernaut, actually – frozen in position, unable to move, but mouthing banalities, and quite unable to see that if they don’t move out of the way, they will become mere roadkill!
They have three choices:
1) stay where they are, accept the current parameters and become roadkill (the Kendall/Hunt/Umunna choice, which I predict would lead to even FEWER Labour seats in 2020, as even more of Labour’s core vote defect)
2) Move right, and become a sort of “nice” version of UKIP and Le Pen’s Fronte Nationals (again, I suspect this would result in fewer Labour seats, and a strange bunch of undesirable bedfellows)
3) Take the risk, along the line you have outlined, Richard, of seeking to redefine the centre ground to the left of where we are now – a poisonous, vitriolic, anti communitarian state, built on hatred of the vulnerable, impoverishment of the many, and obscene enrichment of the few – and reach out the Labour’s core voters, who defected in greater numbers in 2015, but who began to do so as long ago as 2005, when Blair won on fewer votes than Milliband got in 2015.
As to the “Observer” and the triumvirate (not a good historical parallel, given that the first triumvirate ended in Julius Caesar’s dictatorship, while the second led to Octavian (Augustus) Caesar’s creation of an imperial autocracy), I have two observations:
1) They’re running scared that Jeremy Corbyn might win, and in their panic, like latter day Corporal Jones’s, are shooting off inanities in all directions.
2) The Michael Foot parallel is ill-judged: it wasn’t Thatcher who defeated Foot, it was the Falklands War. Prior to that, and without that, Thatcher was so unpopular in the wake of the 1981 riots, and the savagery of her early budgets, and the doubling (and more) of unemployment, that Foot COULD have won.
To the end of my life I’ll disagree with the whitewash of the Franks Report, and hold that Thatcher deliberately challenged Galtieri by withdrawing the Navy from South Georgia, expecting to provoke some useful Argentinian sabre-rattling, and was caught out by Galtieri’s chutzpah in invading. Thatcher was shocked, but rose to the challenge, won the War (though the sinking of the Belgrano was undoubtedly a crime), and ensured 15 more years of Tory rule.
So, as MacMillan said, the toughest challenge for a PM is “events, dear boy!”, and the EU Referendum, plus a likely revival of the 2008/9 crash, will leave everything to play for by 2018.
Andrew
I always wonder why no one remembers the Falklands
That was the issue in 83, and Labour had no hope for that reason
Richard
The Falklands was probably a factor, but even so, the Tory vote actually went *down* 2 percentage points (from 44 to 42 percent) in 1983 compared to 1979. A bigger factor was probably the creation of the SDP when the “Gang of Four” split from Labour in 1981. The result was that the centre and left vote split between Labour (28 percent) and SDP/Liberal (26 percent). The result under FPTP was a Tory majority of 144 (if I recall correctly). Members of the right-wing Progress group planning to do an “SDP Mark 2” and split if Jeremy Corbyn wins the Labour leadership should remember that they will be enabling a Tory landslide if they do so.
Maybe that’s what they really want
Barring their own egotistic desire for power
Richard,
The formation of the SDP in 1981/82 (by the political ancestors of Blairism) and the subsequent splitting of the anti Tory vote in 1983 and then 1987 can’t be discounted.
Your comments on the Falklands Mr Dickie echoe my thoughts of the last 3 decades.
Well said and thankyou.
i think said rabbit will dance around on the spot like a wobbly-legged Bruce Grobbelaar in a desperate bid to keep anyone from knowing which way it’s going whilst simultaneously pinning all it’s hopes on a wheel falling off the Tory juggernaut.
Apologies for the lack of clarity in the above.
Where is says “They have three choices” it SHOULD say “Labour have three choices”
Where it says “They’re running scared” it should say “The Labour neo-liberal Right and the Observer are running scared”.
Apologies for the lack of precision.
It may have been a pity that Gordon Brown didn’t have three weeks rather than three hours to come up with a solution to the banking crisis, to enable him to consult with Steve Keen, because in effect we have arrived at the stage where printing money is okay – whereas it always used to be thought as economic suicide. Don’t think Darling has moved much from this idea – and of keeping the City ‘on board.’
The crux of the argument is for whom the money should be printed.
Osborne wants to keep the City on board to secure his party’s wealth and panders to them by saying the government and the people – but not the City – must economise.
In my view the opposition need to expose this in very simple terms.
If Labour could admit to having saved Capitalism they could then show their entitlement to direct how it should work better.
I’m sorry to say the biggest problem is opposition parties cannot grasp the concept of relentlessly beating the same drum and sticking to a path they believe correct to follow, but always fade to become a bunch of lilly livered vote chasers.
This I would suggest is one reason why vote turn out is so poor, besides making it easier for the government to manipulate the argument.
Cliff
Fair shout. What no-one seems to mention is that we won’t have another election until 2020,
All the Labour Candidates, except JC, seem to be assuming that the next 5 years, under a Tory Government, will work out well,
This, of course, brings us back to the fundamental point. The one Harriet can’t, somehow, grasp.
Let me, therefore, put it again in the most simplistic terms
“I AM NOT REMOTELY INTERESTED IN ANY POLITICIAN’S CAREER. THE NAMES OF THE PEOPLE WHO RULE US ARE, TO ME, OF NEGLIGIBLE INTEREST. IF IT HAS BEEN DECIDED BY THE ELECTORATE THAT WE WILL PURSUE NEO-LIBERAL ECONOMICS THEN THAT’s THAT. IT WILL. I’M SURE, END BADLY BUT THE PEOPLE HAVE CHOSEN.
IF WE’RE GOING TO PURSUE NEO-LIBERAL ECONOMICS THEN WE MIGHT AS WELL GO WITH THE PARTY THAT MEANS IT.
I’m as convinced as I can be that neo-Liberal Economics is a disastrous path to misery & hopelessness, but I could, I suppose, be wrong.
One thing I KNOW from sport is that if you don’t commit whole-heartedly, that’s when you get hurt. So if we’re going to go with neo-Liberal Economics we always should vote Tory.
Well said
I have to disagree about the centre ground. This is how Blair won the election. Who wouldn’t vote for a party based on enterprise and growth which used the tax receipts to protect the vulnerable and invest in infrastructure and the nhs
If burnham wins the labour will be finished for years to come. They really need to learn the lessens from electing ed miliband
I agree Anth – isn’t Andy Burnham the elephant in the room in this contest? He appears to me to be a Liverpudlian version of Ed Miliband – nothing more and nothing less. The similarities are striking, and yet virtually no one has picked up on it. And Labour could well elect him to succeed Miliband.
I’m certainly not boasting about this, rather the reverse, but I’m VERY old. Old enough to remember 1997.
To be absolutely clear, Tony Blair did not win by moving to the central ground. Tony Blair won because, by this stage, the Conservative party was full of people who took power, over elections, over parliament, over everything, as theirs by right.
I remember people like Neil Hamilton, being confronted by clear evidence of their wrongdoing, responding, essentially, “so what, nasty little plebs like you don’t judge me”.
I remember Jonathan Aitken ending up going down for perjury.
I remember the continual low-level internecine conflict between the ‘decent’ Tories lead by Major & Ken Clarke & the “by most standards indecent, verging on frankly obscene” Tories lead by Ian Duncan-Smith.
If John Smith had stayed alive he’d have won. If Gordon Brown had got the job he’d have won
The Right-wing of the Labour party are re-writing history
This is so true
The Tory Party was by 1997 a complete shambles
A disaster asking to be removed
The landslide was the sweeping away of corruption
Not policy choice
And it was true, to some extent things could only get better
I think a left wing Labour Party would have still lost the Blair elections no matter what state the Tories were in but clearly we will disagree on that
i read the Guardian’s article on the study you mention and what struck me was how the views expressed by the focus groups perfectly reflected tabloid opinion. slagging off ‘people on the social’, moaning about ‘the nanny state’, saying how ‘They’ve got to sort the unions out’, insisting that ‘we can’t let them (refugees) in while we’ve got two million unemployed’.
there’s nothing ‘masterful’ about the Tories ability to influence public opinion, just like there’s nothing ‘Teflon’ about Dave (shiny appearance and flaky nature aside). the media moguls are the ones framing the debate and it’s them that Cameron has to thank when the shit doesn’t stick.
fortunately the generation that’s coming up now get their news from a far wider range of sources (usually via their smartphones) and as Corbyn has recently said it’s those people who Labour need to get behind. if Labour lets the tabloid press cow them into chasing the votes of Daily Mail readers, they’re as good as dead.
Well expressed, Richard. I suspect people like Rawnsley might subconsciously fear that Corbyn’s views DO represent the concerns of many and as a result it has to be rubbished.
Darling is clearly revealing himself as an inarticulate scoundrel. recently (whilst shamelessly advertising his book) he described the banks as being in ‘much better shape’. The foul and psychopathic Blair toryised Labour, with Corbyn there is a chance to pull the other way but I suspect the stranglehold of financialisation that still has its tentacles asphyxiating Greece will, via the bought media, finish off Corbyn and we will be left with the interminable TINA scenario that will have to go on until we’re left with scorched earth.
I think that what makes Richard’s perceptive observations resonate with me is that since I’ve spent more time talking to people face to face (as a means to deal with my frustration over these issues – not because I’m saying such blogs aren’t effective) I’m picking up a lot of unmet ‘ideological need’ out here (forgive the terminology but it is the closest I could come to in order to describe it).
This is the unmet need of REAL social justice based on the many sensible alternative ideas that dominate this blog (and others). What I’m trying to say is that an alternative is out here already, waiting for someone or a collective that is courageous and tightly knit enough to mobilise this group behind it and achieve real change for THE PEOPLE. Not the rich. Not the corporations. Not the financial sector. THE PEOPLE.
And Labour as it is, is NOT ‘it’. They are finished, believe you me.
Well said. I was also fuming at yesterday’s Observer. The Rawnsley piece was dreadful. But so too was the double bite of the cherry handed to Toby Helm (“political editor”), ranting on about the views of the 2% of the electorate who supposedly voted Labour in 2010 and Tory in 2015. Based on a series of focus groups.
Helm claimed that unless Labour became more attractive to this litle sliver of opinion it would fail to get elected ever again. He failed to mention Scotland (and why would you?) or the fact that the Labour vote was up overall on 2010. So for every defector to the Tories, there must have been others (more in fact) coming to Labour. Let’s not even consider the possibility that Labour could mobilise any of the 30-odd percent who did not vote.
The panicky anti-Corbyn hysteria has reached fever pitch. Baby-eating story next week?
So spot on Richard.
Whats really sad though is that Corbyn is against electoral reform.
A truly radical Labour leader would see this is an absolute prerequisite for the revival of democracy the UK is crying out for. Without that Labour really are (rapidly) heading for the dustbin.
Let me be clear, I am not speaking for Jeremy
I do not know how many people here read Wings Over Scotland. That blog is so demonised for talking sense and presenting facts, that even to link to it produces incredulity on twitter, interestingly enough. Those who label it abusive turn out not to have read it, at least those I ask say so.
For those who do not read it you might be interested in a few recent posts there, which mirror some of Mr Murphy’s positions, and my own, and put some numbers on it
http://wingsoverscotland.com/the-death-cult-of-tony-blair/
http://wingsoverscotland.com/the-uks-most-popular-party/
I was brought up in a labour supporting family, like so many in Scotland. I have not voted for the party since Blair became leader, because it no longer represented me or anything I value. Because of a rather unthought out commitment to “internationalism” I was for a long time unable to support the SNP, and I well remember the complete sense of being disenfranchised that entailed. Labour apologists in the media, notably David Aaronvitch and Polly Toynbee, recommended I hold my nose and vote labour, regardless of what they were doing, as the lesser of two evils. There is no merit in that argument at all, when the lesser evil is still evil. It is the choice between voting for a party which pledges to murder the first born, or for a party which pledges to murder the second born: choose the second because not everyone has two children, they say, and so that is the lesser evil. Well thanks, but no thanks. I will not vote for infanticide at all.
I am Scottish and I vote SNP. I do so not because I am Scottish but because I am a social democrat with traditional positions labour used to represent, and which are now the province of the SNP. There are millions like me, and unlike the rUK, there is little voter “apathy” here. SNP are not wholly on that ground in some respects: but they are light years away from the current red tories and they present an alternative narrative which is not reflected in the MSM at all.
I firmly believe that if there was such an alternative in rUK it would obliterate labour, and I think it will come. English voters are not so different from Scottish voters; in that respect the unionist narrative is somewhat correct. But they do not follow the logic of that at all: and as Mr Murphy says, they are unable to construct a coherent analysis because of their faith based certainties. But Westminster and media certainties are not reality no matter how consistently promulgated. The media is powerful, but it is not so powerful as it believes. If it were the SNP could not have the results they have achieved.
The labour party has abandoned their core vote apparently because they take it for granted that those voters have nowhere else to go. That is true in England at present but it will not always be true. It is not true in Scotland and we see the results. This article from John Curtice is also interesting from that point of view
http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2015/may/21/pollster-john-curtice-warns-labour-majority-2020-election-improbable-politics
Thanks for this comment
Thank you, Richard, and others (useful reminders of recent history from several of you, particularly about the longest suicide note mythology). I couldn’t think where to begin in responding to yesterday’s Observer, even when i’d calmed down. You have said it perfectly. Any chance you might offer the paper your blog as an article? I’m certainly proposing that in a letter to the editor and when they ignore the suggestion I cancel my subscription.
I strongly suspect they would not take it
Richard
It’s a great article Richard and for me illustrates how Labour has collectively lost its mind, its shambling on like a zombie, bereft of reason, purpose, intellectual curiosity, courage and enthusiasm.
It feels like a hollowed out diminished husk waiting to be put out of its misery.
Hunt, Umunna and Kendall are an embarrassment, intellectual empty suits trying to ‘meet the public where they’re at’ regardless of whether its coherent, logical or reasonable to do so.
There is a huge swathe of the population crying out for a party or movement that will be guided by principle, social justice and evidence based policy making. Show me a single UK politician with the guts, intellect and instinct of a Varoufakis or Lapavitsas? Instead we have lawyers and timid managerialism, intellectual pygmies, triangulation, reliance on focus groups and unashamed careerists who fill the ranks of all the parties bar one or two exceptions.
Sadly, for me, none of the candidates come up to scratch for varying reasons, although quite what Liz Kendall is doing in the Labour party is a complete mystery to me.
As others have so eloquently put, this mythical centre ground does not exist – its called shifting baseline syndrome and Labour will never get there playing the neoliberal game.
Unless it wakes up quickly, stops listening to focus groups and neoliberal talking heads it will wither and die, and it will deserve to.
Well said Jeff. That the Observer and rest of the mainstream media actually take these people seriously just shows how much of a joke they are too.
Like Nick C said, the Observer article was a disgrace. What codswallop. As far as I recall there was no mention of the 30 ish % who didn’t vote. Surely the disaffected Labour voters who are tired of presentation politics, and Labour playing catch-up with the Tories are more naturally Jeremy Corbyn voters??
Tony Blair saying ‘I wouldn’t want to win on an old fashioned leftist platform. Even if I thought it was the route to victory, I wouldn’t take it.’ convinces me even more.
It’s not old fashioned at all, it’s progressive – unlike neo-liberalism. I recommend this: http://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/jul/17/postcapitalism-end-of-capitalism-begun?CMP=share_btn_tw