I’ve written an article for the latest edition of Fabian Review on how Labour needs to rethink its ‘middle Britain’ electoral strategy in light of the changes over the last 15 years in demography, geography, values, and politics.
I argue that “There is scant academic evidence that the focus on ‘Mondeo Man’ worked in electoral terms” and that the “most damning critique of the Middle Britain strategy is that it created no organisation able to support its aim and, instead, haemorrhaged support.” I go on to say:
“Building a new movement will not be easy. But the task will be harder still if the party doesn’t think hard about what has changed since 1992. While the mixed record suggests it would be wrong to continue without questioning the Middle Britain strategy, it would be equally foolish to hark back to a romantic notion of class-consciousness. Changing demography, geography, values, and political reality should all have a bearing on Labour’s next strategy.”
Ed Wallis has some kind words to say about it on Next Left as does Alex Smith on Labour List. The purpose of the essay was not to describe a new strategy but to set out the questions that the Labour party should ask itself in thinking about this election and those to come.
I’d be very interested to hear your views.
21 Responses to “Labour needs a new electoral strategy”
John Gray
Interesting article Will but I think that if we ignore (I think it’s now “People Carrier Person” not Mondeo man) the aspirational working class there is a danger that then we will just end up in permanent opposition. They are supposed to be a key part of our core vote. To win we need to get everybody out next year. Yes, do more in terms of social justice and squeeze the rich but we ignore those “who want to get on” at our peril.
BTW – I think some of the Anons who have posted comments above ought to check out http://www.tomharris.org.uk/2009/12/23/land-of-angry/ and see what most of us actually think about your views.
Anon E Mouse
John Gray – Who cares what you think of us? Who are you?
If you actually believe that we have a cats chance in hell of winning a general election with Brown as leader you are truly delusional.
People like you have destroyed our core vote – Crewe and Nantwich tells you that. People like you have allowed the Labour conferences to become stage managed freak shows.
You say I am in the Land of Angry… damn right I am John. What I’d like to know is why aren’t you?
Why aren’t you raging in anger at what this Labour Party has done to it’s voters?
All the comments on that blog mention not speaking to or ignoring “nutters” as you describe them. Why not try answering their points?
Just justify removing the 10p tax band John. Tell me that you think that’s ok because I don’t.
While the Labour Party has supporters of your ilk with your sycophantic weak views we will deservedly be consigned to opposition. Get angry John – a long time in opposition in awaiting us.
Tom Chance
I think the most important insight is that Labour shouldn’t rely on outwitting the Conservatives, using tools like Mosaic to target the latest version of the swing voter. It’s unstable and alienates the so-called “base” (which I suspect is itself a plurality of interests). Labour’s failure to connect it’s local party organisation to wider community interests is also more than just a national electoral problem. If you are genuinely concerned to make progressive changes to people’s lives then you need action all the way up from tiny community issues through councils up to Parliament and Millbank. Parachuting an MP into a constituency with a lacklustre local party and little connection to local issues is only going to produce a Parliamentarian, unless you have a very talented constituency politician.
So yes to pluralism and electoral reform. Trying to simultaneously guarantee a hegemony of the left vote whilst focusing on areas where you have no intention or ability to build a community base just drives instinctively leftist voters who aren’t tribally Labour away. It also really pisses off local community activists who are unaligned, and potential allies in other parties who have to put up with Labour’s own version of “can’t win here” nonsense.
Anon E Mouse
Tom Chance – You make some fair points but I fear you underestimate the scale of the problem Labour have.
Because of our behaviour towards people, especially since Blair was forced out, we have alienated whole swathes of the general public towards Labour (New or Old).
The problem I see it twofold. Firstly we have a severe lack of councillors with all the problems regarding activists that produces.
Secondly what are activists in marginal seats going to tell the public on the doorstep? Try it where I live in South Wales, traditionally Labour and if you tried to justify Gordon Brown you’d be lynched.
We need the same type of change that New Labour brought to the party in order to get elected.
It’ll happen after the next election I’m sure but with Brown in place we have no hope and for the life of me I cannot understand why the activists don’t put the needs of the Party before the needs of Brown and his bullying cohorts and cronies.
willstraw
Fascinating comments. Thanks to everyone for sharing their thoughts. Here are a few responses from me.
Core vote vs aspirational voters
In my view, we clearly need both and, as John Gray points out, aspirational voters should be part of our core vote. But we need to be very careful not to confuse aspirational voters with an ill defined “Middle Britain”, its proxy “Mondeo Man”, or to try and reach this pool through papers like the Daily Mail which is not actually read by many people in the middle 5th of the income distribution anyway.
We also need to be careful not to court aspirational voters at the expense of the other parts of our core (eg traditional working class or Guardian readers).
We managed this in 1997 with a manifesto which combined the minimum wage with a ceiling on income tax. But this withered as Blair defined himself against the “forces of conservatism” and made the Warwick agreement on new worker rights appear to be a capitulation to union interests rather than a celebration of the union movement.
Policies & a message
Of course, we need these as well but it seems to me that in a democracy, a political party has to start with a set of values, then work out who these values appeal to (the answers to the questions raised in my essay), then seek the policies that meet these voters’ concerns, and finally craft the message/narrative that articulates the policy platform to the target groups.
Going straight from values to policies without thinking about the audience can lead you to come up with some wonderfully well crafted policies that don’t actually have an audience (and therefore offer no chance of gaining power).
Tom S’s point here is important. Labour’s values (as articulated on the back of the membership card) could lead to many different policy priorities. But if we know that our audience includes more pensioners now than in 1997 then we need to focus more on policies that meet their concerns eg care.
The movement
The greatest failing of new Labour has been its failure to create a vibrant movement. My book “The Change We Need” sets out some of the reasons why I think this has happened but any new electoral strategy has to empower local activists, be more pluralistic to encourage the unaligned community activists that Tom Chance speaks of. The simple economics of a cash-limited campaign means that some use of targeting technologies like Mosaic will be necessary (Obama certainly made use of them to great effect). But this is no substitute for hard work on the doorstep – the Keith Joseph point that Rory raises in instructive here and tallies nice with what Obama also did with his 50-state strategy where he said there were no “no go” areas.
The leadership question
Gordon Brown does appear to be an unpopular leader and, as someone who worked as a civil servant for the Treasury during his final 4 years there, I have been disappointed by the lack of vision and decisiveness about where to take the party. But to say that he is the most unpopular party leader since records began is plain wrong. UK polling report shows that his unpopularity has come down from -60 in the summer of 2008 to -40 now. This is the same level that Blair was at from 2005-07: http://ukpollingreport.co.uk/blog/leaders/brown
It is also lower than the -55 that Thatcher suffered during her final year in office. Major was at -50 for much of 1993-95: http://www.ipsos-mori.com/researchpublications/researcharchive/poll.aspx?oItemId=2438&view=wide
Those who advocated removing Brown now often suggest that doing so would save Labour 30+ seats because polling shows that this is the bounce that AJ or David M would deliver. But would the public (in practice rather than theory) really tolerate a second leadership change in 3 years. And what if someone less popular became leader?
So in my humble opinion, we are where we are with the leadership and we now need to rally for the election.