John Harris has a fascinating analysis of what's wrong with Labour in the Guardian this morning: I recommend it.
I think that the piece includes a compliment from which I can take a little credit (no more) when under the heading 'Labour has missed the digital revolution' Harris says:
Exploitative "work experience" schemes. Corporate tax avoidance. The campaign to outlaw Page 3. These issues have all flared into life in the past 18 months, and proved that left politics in the UK is alive and well. The Labour leadership has had almost nothing to do with them: instead, far away from Westminster, they have been put on the agenda by people and organisations who understand where civilisation is headed: towards more "horizontal" organisation via social media and activity that can amass huge momentum in a matter of hours. Labour feels as if it is light years behind, playing the political equivalent of progressive rock, while the world turns punk: Miliband's favoured method of getting his message out still centres on set-piece speeches and coverage in the print press, and even such bog-standard things as viral videos seem to be beyond his party's grasp.
I'd agree with all that. Labour's messaging is bad and any organisation that cannot get such basic things right now is going to fail. And if I can do some of this stuff candidly Labour should be able to do it. But it seems unable to do so. Even basic things like tweeting seem beyond it, as Harris points out. To keep an audience happy and engaged that's not an optional exercise: you do it.
But whilst messaging is important content is key and let's be clear that this is what labour is really lacking. There simply is no vision. When half of Labour wants to outdo the Tories in kicking social security claimants, whilst another part lives in aw of choice and the market which people quite clearly do not want or need (because whatever the focus groups say people want to use the bit of the NHS on their doorstep - which is where they expect to have it) then unsurprisingly people have no clue what Labour is for.
They have known what tax justice is about.
Tax justice is about big business paying its fair share.
It's in fact about everyone paying their fair share when they can, and getting the help they need when they can't.
It's about a level playing field for all business - large and small.
It's about honesty and being opposed to cheating, whether that cheating is legal or illegal.
It's about professions acting in the public interest as well as for private gain.
It's about government being accountable for the decisions it makes - and admitting mistakes.
It's about business doing what it does best, and government doing the same.
It's about standing up for a country's right to tax whilst also cooperating with others and their right to collect what's legitimately owed to them as well.
It's about being efficient when it comes to tax systems, but also about being compassionate.
It's about helping those in need, here and elsewhere.
It's about recognising there's such a thing as enough.
It's about saying society matters - as much as we do as individuals.
And it's about equality for all before the law.
No doubt I could add a few more things - but they'd all reiterate the point that it's not hard to work out what tax justice is about, why it appeals and what is implicitly right about it.
Labour should be able to say something like that. But it can't. And that's why it's in trouble.
Content matters, communication matters. But principles matter even more.
Thanks for reading this post.
You can share this post on social media of your choice by clicking these icons:
You can subscribe to this blog's daily email here.
And if you would like to support this blog you can, here:
I think John Harris’s piece is spot on. If you went onto the doorstep and asked 100 people “what does the Labour party stand for” would anyone be able to give a coherent positive answer (as opposed to just repeating what the Tories have said about Labour e.g. “the people who wrecked the economy”, “the welfare party” etc.)
I’m increasingly wondering why Ed Miliband ran for the leadership in 2010 – and I say that as someone who was a very strong supporter of Ed at the time and indeed for some time after he won. There seems to be a complete disconnect between Ed’s instincts – which seem to be highly critical of neoliberal capitalism – and the actual policies which Labour is coming up with – which seem to be feeble to non-existent.
It’s almost as if the Labour party doesn’t realise how high the stakes are. If the Tories win an overall majority in 2015 – which is not the most likely outcome but is certainly possible – they will complete the destruction of the welfare state and public services while rigging the electoral and party funding systems to give themselves a permanent majority, thus consigning the UK to a future as a one-party state. It amazes me that anyone in the Labour party could be relaxed about this and yet the Labour front bench increasingly looks to me as if it is just going through the motions, if it is doing anything at all. One has to ask: where’s the heart and where’s the fight? It’s not good enough in any way and I have to say that after doing my best to give Ed Miliband the benefit of the doubt for 3 years, I’ve pretty much given up on him. He will stay in place until the election because the right wing has no obvious alternative leader, but he desperately needs to start looking like he means business, or the election is as good as lost.
Agreed, as usual
It’s worth noting that the anti neo lib forces are not just populated by ex-Labour voters and we need to see that the left/right paradigm has shifted to a crony capitalism/communal wealth creating capitalism paradigm. Unless we grasp this we ex Old Labour people will be left behind and become irrelevant.
“I’m increasingly wondering why Ed Miliband ran for the leadership in 2010 — and I say that as someone who was a very strong supporter of Ed at the time and indeed for some time after he won.”
I was very surprised too and have no idea what he thought he could offer – other than not-my-brother. But I already knew something about him before, having had a meeting with him at the Treasury and heard him speak from fringe meeting platforms subsequently where he confessed complete ignorance about the subject I went to see him about. My partner also saw him speak at a Co-op Party conference. He said he sounded like a poor imitation of Blair. He was impressed by Andy Burnham though.
I attended a couple of Labour leadership hustings. At the first Ed was really poor, but at the later one he had sharpened up his act (well they all had after many repeat performances) but there was never any substance over presentation.
I think it’s really too late for a coup now and things will be bad if Labour wins or not.
Carol ,
If there had of been an outstanding candidate for the Labour leadership I’m sure you would have recognised them and voted for them .
I’ve always been a floating voter and think Ed was the best of a bad lot which seems to be the choice in most elections , here and abroad .
We need a great statesman and I just don’t see even one on the horizon . I had hoped that Farage might be that but he’s too enamoured of the city of london and has got it wrong on land value tax .
Howard Reed “… while rigging the electoral and party funding systems to give themselves a permanent majority, thus consigning the UK to a future as a one-party state.”
This was the reason I voted Conservative in 2010 . Labour were becoming entrenched . Mandelson and his coven had gone through the numbers and worked out that it was possible to stay in power indefinitely if one changed the make up of the electorate sufficiently.
Mandelson clearly got it wrong then
The Tories greatest wish is, of course, an end to the Union
I didn’t mean Scottish independence .
I meant that Mandelson’s only aim was to stay in power and if that meant importing probable Labour voters or trapping people in unemployment and giving them the false hope that his NuLabour party was their ally then so be it .
With Mandelson I have severe doubts that there would ever have been (as far as the people he was supposed to represent are concerned) any end to justify the means .
Well-put Richard. Labour is finished and so it should be. My own feeling is that social justice is not just a left issue but is now being sought by die-hard free marketeers who are challenging crony capitalism as much as the traditional left and arguing for bank reform/wealth circulation/an end to housing bubbles. We must all get together on this. labour fails to grasp the real issues at every juncture while it tries to limbo dance to whatever version of the vox populi the Tories seem to be manipulating. It is likely that the Tories will romp in in 2015 with the Neo-lib project raping the whole country with no holes barred! Thanks, Labour!
Labour is also suffering because the conservatives emulated labour tacticss of the Blair era: occupying the ground that labour needed to.
Plus, their [labour] failure to aggressively use the electronic communications available, and use it effectively, leaves them trailing because the print and broadcast media are almost entirely conservative.
But, as you said, having policies comes first. But then you need to refer to “occupying the ground that labour needs to”. Because the conservatives will move to poach any policies they may need, while blocking ones they don’t.
But basically, labour, under Ed, are inept.
Somebody needs to get hold of him and give him a quick slap, and tell him he’s paid as opposition so get opposing. Or get out and let someone else get a move on.
If this is what he’s like in opposition, as a PM he’d be a piece of wet string.
Johnm ,
“Somebody needs to get hold of him and give him a quick slap, and tell him he’s paid as opposition so get opposing.”
Ultimately it is what Labour are proposing that matters and they don’t seem to know that themselves .
Totally agree with all the above. Milliband seems to miss the boat every time, I’m not sure whether this is accidental or deliberate. However, I have to question whether there’s anyone in the Party at the moment who is willing to take Labour back to its original principles, who has the guts to stand up to the doubters and deal with the divisions within the Party, and who will be perceived as strong enough to be PM.
“Somebody needs to get hold of him and give him a quick slap, and tell him he’s paid as opposition so get opposing.”
Absolutely, it is not like they are short of subjects currently, so much is simply not making it through to the wider public due to the BBC and others showing they are simply on one side of the “argument”, I have yet to hear on the MSM TV News that the Universal Credit scheme is in chaos after staff working on it called it “soul-destroying” and “unbelievably frustrating”, blowing £1.3million on staff to carry out checks for its Âflagship benefits cap because the computer system needed to do the job has yet to be built, and then paying out £44 million in bonuses, not to mention the “distortions” presented as fact by lie DS. Labours silence is deafening, whilst I feel much of that silence has been enforced on them they could still do more with the tools available to get around that.
Labour, from time to time, have leaders, whom the man in the street can never see as prime ministers
Michael Foot
Neil Kinnock
Ed Milliband?
It’s nothing to do with their qualities, but I guess it’s that they do not sufficiently correspond to how they think a prime minister should be . The sooner they realize this the better.
It’s not just Labour
Michael Howard
IDS
William Hague
I saw some footage of the early Michael Foot when he was a newspaper editor and he was absolutely electrifying !
His suit obviously fit him well but he still managed to look trademark scruffy but endearingly so . Just couldn’t reconcile it with the man in the duffel coat and the CND badge .
Edit with regard to “whilst I feel much of that silence has been enforced on them they could still do more with the tools available to get around that.”
After a day long barrage of attacks and criticism of Bryant and his speech today on the BBC and Sky News (The BBC’s idea of a balanced debate was James Kirkup and Dan Hodges both singing from the same Hymn sheet), with no real look at its substance, if Labour don’t find new ways in this digital age to get their message out, bypassing the likes of the BBC then they will never get the message out.
“Miliband’s favoured method of getting his message out still centres on set-piece speeches and coverage in the print press, and even such bog-standard things as viral videos seem to be beyond his party’s grasp.”
Never a truer statement on this subject.
‘they will never get the message out.’
What message? Did I miss something?
🙂
Yep, that about sums it all up 🙂
I agree totally with Stringer, Burnham and others about the “deafening silence” from the shadow cabinet on policy matters, and rebuttals to the spin being put out by the ConDems. The Labour PR machine should be pushing dangerous obesity levels gorging on the smorgasbord of opportunities to attack the ConDems on just the chaos and shambles in the DWP (Department of Whitewash and Propaganda) and the distortions and plain flat out lies from IDS (or Lie DS or [I] [D]istort [S]tatistics). Ch4 had Gloria De Piero on last night, she was asked about the apparent silence, she claimed as just a normal viewer there was plenty of Labour MP’s getting the message out. I work mainly from home and have the news on most of the time, instead of listening to the radio whilst I work and I can say shes wrong and be 100% confident in that statement. A few token cameo appearances outside of prime time is “silence”.
Why doesn’t Graham Stringer play a more prominent role ?
He would have made a far better Minister for Energy than Ed Miliband or Shadow Minister for Energy than Tom Greatex .
Is it that he took Chemistry at Sheffield University rather than went through the Oxford PPE brainwashing machine like both Milibands , Ed Balls , Mandelson and so many of the current cabinet?
Has he upset someone ?
I’m no apologist for Miliband, but I wonder how fair it is to focus on him. Isn’t it the reality that there isn’t a Labour PARTY anymore? I’ve never been a Labour member, but the increasing control of Labour’s policies and direction by an ever shrinking clique has been apparent for decades. It has become increasingly remote from the principles and values that once drove it and from a membership that once underpinned them. If there has been one consistent goal of the Labour leadership all the way back to the 70’s, it has been to free itself from its principled, but unruly, membership. It seems to have succeeded.
At the same time it has become evermore comfortable with the neoliberal/neofeudal consensus and has indeed paved the way for most of what the Coalition is doing.
So where on earth would poor Ed find a coherent set of values with which to oppose them?
What is needed is a new movement for social justice.
I think many here agree with you
Now can that be the Green partty?
Or the NHA Party?
Or something new.
Oh dear Chris Bryant isn’t helping Labour’s cause!
Another set piece speech disaster
Disaster? That’s what I like about you Richard your charitable nature 🙂
Why on earth did Bryants advisers think leaking details of the speech to the press would be a good thing? The Tories do it so the press can big it up .. did they think they would get that sort of help from an obviously hostile press? Not only that they then changed the speech because of a hostile medias response, thus making the changes the story not the content. Fair play to Ch4 though, at least they dug into the actual claims, as did Newsnight.
http://www.channel4.com/news/tesco-labour-immigration-row-next-bryant-worker
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b038m897/Newsnight_12_08_2013/
What I find hypocritical, is when the right wing want to make the case for leaving Europe they use the argument, amongst others, about foreign workers taking British jobs BUT when it’s pointed out that many are being used by large companies to cut pay and conditions and the use of tied accommodation to undercut the minimum wage, those same people claim it’s because the British are lazy and don’t want to do these kind of Jobs so the poor companies are forced into this.
Indeed, why on earth is Bryant – presumably with Shadow Cabinet/Leader approval – wittering on on a sub-BNP/sub-UKIP narrative about foreign workers crowding out British workers in the week after an academic report was published (flagged up by William Keegan in the Observer) that exonerated the last Labour Government and its handling of the economy from ALL the Tory lies?
THIS should have been, and continue to be, the theme of EVERY intervention by Labour.
The Tories imprinted “We’re all in this together” in the collective sub-consciousness by repeating this ad nauseam, and Labour need to do the same with “We got the economy (and welfare right?)”
I’ve long said to my local Labour Party that0 if we don’t win the battle of the past, we won’t win the batle of the future, and with a golden egg/open goal like this report, wittering on about pressure on British jobs, like a mini Nick Griffin – especially when you have to bacltrakc on your main thrust, and withdraw specific allegations, AND just create an “own goal” for the Tories to attack Labour’s “uncontrolled immigration policies” is NOT the way to do it.
Hopeless – just hopeless!
Andrew – agreed
It doesn’t help that replying to Eds’ tweets in any manner that disagrees with him gets you blocked. Closed minds means closed thoughts. Or, in the case of labour, no thinking.
Never mind the green party, or any proposed new party….if the conservative party win in 2015 there will be, barring insurrection, a conservative government for many decades. Probably with Ed and co as willing participants. Looking at the “common ground” between labour and conservative policy, I realised that them having different names is the greatest difference.
We are now living in a democratised dictatorship.
And if Scotland leaves the UK then we will have a Conservative government ad infinitum
That’s not actually true. Scotland has no meaningful influence on the composition of the UK Parliament. That’s why we have to leave.
The 67 years since the end of World War 2 have seen 18 General Elections to the Westminster Parliament, with the following outcomes (sources below):

1945 Labour govt (Attlee)

––––––––––––

Labour majority: 146

Labour majority without any Scottish MPs in Parliament: 143

NO CHANGE


1950 Labour govt (Attlee)

––––––––––––

Labour majority: 5

Without Scottish MPs: 2

NO CHANGE

1951 Conservative govt (Churchill/Eden)

––––––––––––––––––—

Conservative majority: 17

Without Scottish MPs: 16

NO CHANGE


1955 Conservative govt (Eden/Macmillan)

––––––––––––––––––—

Conservative majority: 60

Without Scottish MPs: 61

NO CHANGE

1959 Conservative govt (Macmillan/Douglas-Home)

––––––––––––––––––––––––

Conservative majority: 100

Without Scottish MPs: 109

NO CHANGE

1964 Labour govt (Wilson)

––––––––––––-

Labour majority: 4

Without Scottish MPs: -9

CHANGE: LABOUR MAJORITY TO HUNG PARLIAMENT


1966 Labour govt (Wilson)

––––––––––––-

Labour majority: 98

Without Scottish MPs: 77

NO CHANGE

1970 Conservative govt (Heath)

––––––––––––––—

Conservative majority: 30

Without Scottish MPs: 55

NO CHANGE


1974 Minority Labour govt (Wilson)

––––––––––––––––-

Labour majority: -33

Without Scottish MPs: -50

NO CHANGE

1974b Labour govt (Wilson/Callaghan)

–––––––––––––––––—

Labour majority: 3

Without Scottish MPs: -8

CHANGE: LABOUR MAJORITY TO HUNG PARLIAMENT


1979 Conservative govt (Thatcher)

––––––––––––––––-

Conservative majority: 43

Without Scottish MPs: 70
NO CHANGE

1983 Conservative govt (Thatcher)

––––––––––––––––-

Conservative majority: 144

Without Scottish MPs: 174

NO CHANGE

1987 Conservative govt (Thatcher/Major)

––––––––––––––––––-

Conservative majority: 102

Without Scottish MPs: 154

NO CHANGE

1992 Conservative govt (Major)

–––––––––––––––

Conservative majority: 21

Without Scottish MPs: 71

NO CHANGE

1997 Labour govt (Blair)

–––––––––––—

Labour majority: 179

Without Scottish MPs: 139

NO CHANGE


2001 Labour govt (Blair)

–––––––––––—

Labour majority: 167

Without Scottish MPs: 129

NO CHANGE

2005 Labour govt (Blair/Brown)

––––––––––––––—

Labour majority: 66

Without Scottish MPs: 43

NO CHANGE

2010 Coalition govt (Cameron)

––––––––––––––

Conservative majority: -38

Without Scottish MPs: 19

CHANGE: HUNG PARLIAMENT TO CONSERVATIVE MAJORITY
Sources:

All UK general election results

General election results in Scotland 1945-2001 (Table 1e, p.13)

General election results in Scotland 2005 and 2010
And the last is the only one that matters
IN what looks likely to be an election with only 30 seats deciding the result, the loss of 41 labour seats can hardly fail to have an effect.
Richard, the last one may be the only one that matters to you, but they have all mattered to us. England will have to sort out its own route to democracy and social justice, you really can’t bind us to you for your own occasional electoral benefit.
Furthermore, we already know that even if Labour wins the next GE, their policies are still going to be well right of centre. They are just another flavour of neoliberal dictatorship.
The fact remains that, with or without us, you need a coherent English social justice movement.
I’ve never disagreed
Read The Courageous State
“The link between economic depression and far right extremism in the 1930s is also well documented. Yet I suspect there is a tendency to assume that this kind of thing only happens in ‘immature’ democracies. This assumption is wrong, as both the Netherlands and the UK currently show”
http://mainlymacro.blogspot.co.uk/
Hmmmmm….
http://mainlymacro.blogspot.co.uk/2013/08/bringing-economics-back-into-fiscal.html
Actually, I can hardly believe that you could say the “last is the only one that matters”. For decade after decade we’ve had to put up with government after government that we didn’t vote for. And even when we’ve had Labour governments, they’ve been diluted to neoliberal uselessness by the need to win in England.
I really though you were a democrat Richard.
I was making the point that things have changed – and the aggregate does not show that
It’s nothing to do with being a democrat
@ Robbie and Richard – Robbie, things have indeed changed regarding the Scottish Tory vote. It was, I think, the 1955 General Election that marked the Conservative high-water mark in Scotland, when they won over half the Westminster seats, whereas now I believe there isn’t a single Scottish Tory MP. No wonder the English Tories want shot of Scotland – rather as someone would wish to have a gangrenous leg amputated, since for the Tories that is what Scotland has become.
I repeat what I have said before – if Scotland goes, so will Wales, and then the whole of England north of the Trent will seek to follow, with Cumbria, Northumberland and Yorkshire likely to succeed in doing so, or certainly carrying out a very determined campaign of civil disobedience, in which people will be willing to go to prison for their beliefs – as we have seen in the case of the Revd Paul Nicholson of the Zacchaeus Trust in Hackney in recent days.
Labour simply has NOT woken up to the real issue, which is the survival and continuance of the integrity, prosperity and civilized nature of the WHOLE of the UK – for be assured, a Con-Dem austerian, neo-liberal England will NOT any longer be civilized (as is daily ever more apparent), and those parts that seek to break away from the rule of the tyranny of rule by the feudal Barons of the Financistan of South East England will exert every effort – hopefully peacefully, but that cannot be assured – to succeed in doing so.
It seems to me that we are hearing the sound of the bombardment of our latter-day Fort Sumter (for elucidation see http://www.nps.gov/fosu/index.htm)
Labour has effectively 3 main constituencies, who are broadly (and forgive the broad brush):
1) The urban bourgeois professionals. Think Tony Blair, Polly Toynbee.
2) The true working class, mostly in low paid employment or self employment.
3) The underclass, who are just that.
Labour was originally set up for group (2) above but has been utterly swamped by group (1). It is effectively their party now, to do as they please with it.
We in group (2) resent group (1), for a number of reasons:
– We feel their concern for us is fake.
– We resent being patronisingly lumped together with group (3) as ‘The Poor’. There are deep divisions and resentments between Group 2 and Group 3 which Group (1) prefers to ignore.
– We feel Group (1) thinks they know better than us what we want and think.
Does John Harris really think the Page 3 issue is much on our minds? I’d be surprised if it made even the Top 100 Issues for many of us in Group 2. Gay marriage? Never heard it discussed in our circles, not once. Corporate tax avoidance? Sorry, too complex. I’d be surprised if too many of us in our Group 2 understands it. I don’t, and frankly I am a little suspicious of the motives of anyone calling for a crackdown — what’s in it for them?
– We resent the stream of sneering and snobbishness from some of those in Group 1. They look down us as racists for our views on immigration. They look down at us for some of our socially conservative values (e.g. marriage and family, affection for the country and its institutions, such as the Monarchy etc.)
I think the cracks are showing for a split.
Thank you for the chance to have my say.
You’re welcome
Although clearly by your analysis I am in Group 1 with my concern for a crackdown on corporate tax abuse
I won’t be apologising for it
That’s my point.
Group 1 will go its way, and will presumably have corporate tax abuse as part of its agenda. Along with gay marriage, getting rid of Page 3, getting rid of smoking in pubs, minimum alcohol pricing, Republicanism, climate change etc. This group would mainly target seats in places like Islington.
Group 2 will go its way, and is unlikely any of these issues high on its list.
This group will target the traditional Labour heartland (eg major northern cities, Wales etc).
Group 3? Who knows.
Georgia
It’s an interesting idea but I think wrong: those groups are not clearly defined
And group 2 is having problems finding seats anywhere and group 3 never has
The Unite issue is about group 2 – and is a real concern
Richard
What about Andy Burnham as a potential leader?
http://liberalconspiracy.org/2013/08/13/this-is-why-andy-burnham-could-one-day-be-labour-leader/
He’s the only shadow cabinet member who supports land value tax. What’s not to like.
Most of the working-class self-employed do not vote labour.
A lot of the working-class don’t vote for anyone
If labour went into the next election saying they’d end the travel concession for old[er] people, and keep the state pension at its presene. Wt level with no rises….and the tories then said they would keep the travel and rise the pension 1% each year….labour would lose most of the pensioners. Too many people think “core voters”, there are no core voters for labour, and they’re about to lose (no, about to force away) the union support. The problem, for labour, and people know it, is that their leaders have no interest in labour (the party or workers) and, if they were honest, they would take their sad bodies away and try to join the conservatives (which is what I suspect will happen if there is another “hung” parliament).
Labour may win the next election, but the writing is on the wall for the present party, grass roots and leadership are heading away from each other at an increasing rate of knots.