New polling by YouGov for Demos shows why Labour lost the last election. But it doesn't mean - as Janet Daley - claims that the right has won the argument either.
Telegraph columnist Janet Daily claims today to have won the argument over cuts because a YouGov poll published by Demos shows that Labour voters lost faith in the state.
While she’s right that voters who deserted Labour were more likely that the voters that Labour retained to see the state as “part of the problem, not part of the solution”, the overall view of voters was slightly more positive about the state – 32 per cent to 29 per cent, with 18 per cent saying government “doesn’t have much impact on my life or that of my family.”
This does not represent a victory of the right over the left, but it certainly does help explain one of the reasons why Labour lost the last election. The poll shows that a significant number of voters recognise the need for cuts and that many people who had previously voted Labour felt that Labour was spending too much, too wastefully.
When asked about the NHS, a third of voters that Labour retained thought the priority was to “avoid cuts” but among the voters that Labour lost that proportion was just over one in ten. More than half of voters that Labour lost thought that the priority should be to “seek greater efficiency and end top-down control” in the NHS, compared to just under a third of the voters that Labour retained.
More than one in three voters who left Labour felt “people should have more choices and control over local services”, compared with just over one in four who stuck by Labour. Almost one in five voters that Labour lost felt “central government interferes too much in local services,” almost twice as many as those who remained loyal Labour voters. Voters lost to Labour were also more likely to see government as “part of the problem not the solution” and to reject the idea government was “a force for good” improving their lives and the lives of their family.
Pat McFadden was absolutely right to argue last month that if Labour only opposes cuts there is a “danger of being tuned out by the electorate.” This poll shows that in many ways, the electorate has tuned Labour out already and the challenge now is to tune them back in.
Being credible on the deficit is now a hygiene factor for Labour’s next leader. All the candidates are campaigning on their opposition to the unfairness of the Budget and of the cuts to come in October’s Spending Review. This is politically necessary but not politically sufficient. Labour will not get elected again on the determination of its opposition but the credibility of its alternative.
The perceived wisdom of the 1992 Shadow Budget is that setting out proposals in opposition for necessary tax rises – or indeed, spending cuts – is political suicide. But Labour had been out of office for 18 years and were not being blamed for the health of the public finances.
Calculations by Demos show how the Government could have used a 2:1 ratio of spending cuts to tax rises and reduce the deficit by £34 billion above and beyond the March Budget without raising VAT. Think tanks don’t have to get elected but the package of rises in income tax, CGT on primary residences, and taxing carbon is a reasonable, realistic and realpolitik alternative.
There is no need for Labour to do it’s own Spending Review before the Government does theirs but the response from the Shadow Chancellor has to include both welcoming necessary cuts as well as opposing unnecessary ones.
The left have to accept that the last Labour Government allowed the space to open up for the Tory ‘Big Society’ to march into. But the right have to accept that while they have turned the public mood against the state the Tory Party have not won an argument about the alternative. The role of the state, in the context of deficit reduction, is all to play for but Labour must start it’s argument where the public are, rather than sit it out and wait for voters to ‘come home’ in the way that Hague and Howard failed to in 2001 and 2005.
Labour’s new leader must reposition and they must do it within a month of taking over. They need to win two arguments at the same time. The first is that the deficit was not mismanagement but a decision taken to prevent recession turning to depression. The second is that Labour can now be trusted to reduce it. The public will not accept one without the other.
15 Responses to “The right didn’t win but the left did lose”
Open Left
RT @leftfootfwd: The right didn't win but the left did lose by Richard Darlington (@openleftproject) http://bit.ly/aWyH8R
Tish Nadesan
"Labour will not get elected again on the determination of its opposition but the credibility of its alternative" YES http://bit.ly/a13Cd0
Tish Nadesan
great blog by @lefootftfwd @wdjstraw on Labour's need to offer credible alternatives in opp., starting with the deficit http://bit.ly/a13Cd0
Anon E Mouse
Richard Darlington – The Tories won the election with the most seats which is why they’re in government. The fact they brought the Lib Dems in instead of running as a minority government is genius.
I (for once) completely agree with Peter Mandelson there.
Labour came third in the Europeans in 2009. Third.
Labour achieved the same result in 2010 as when Michael Foot ran the party.
Your final premise acknowledges that the deficit occurred under Labour – please tell Ed Balls that ASAP – but no one cares why. It is just typical Labour excuses for wrecking the economy and to try to say that it was to avoid depression will be treated with the contempt it deserves by the electorate: especially those facing unemployment this year.
If Labour don’t have a rapid change in their thinking and presently there seems to be no sign of that happening, they will be in opposition for a long time to come.
No Forgemaster bribes to win marginal seats will be possible next time….
Billy Blofeld
“In 2001 NuLab won 10.7 million votes and the Tories won 8.4 million. NuLab had a majority in the Commons of more than 160. In 2010 the Tories won 10.7 million votes and Labour won 8.6million. NuLab won 258 seats and the Tories were 26 short of a majority.”
We voted for cuts.
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