2011 must be the year Labour realises the scale of its electoral, political, and philosophical defeat and finally articulates a different future.
This year has been a year of displacement activity for Labour. 2011 must be the year that it realises the scale of its electoral, political, and philosophical defeat and finally articulates a different future. Let’s recap briefly. The year started off with a botched attempt to make amends for failing to hold a leadership election the previous Summer. It was too late and so failed.
Within a few short breaths the election campaign was underway. It never got off the starting blocks. That Labour staffers were celebrating a paltry 29 per cent – the party’s second worst showing in living memory – on the morning of Friday May 7th shows how utterly hopeless the cause had become.
Labour was then- mistakenly- thrust into a leadership election before it had any time for reflection. This was the third displacement activity. Ed Miliband had a bit more verve and freshness than his rivals and deservedly won. The contest itself had no context. There was no analysis of Labour’s predicament or the challenges that it faced. Those things were left unsaid.
No sooner had the leadership contest finished but the final displacement activity set in. The Spending Review and the cuts- most particularly those that affecting higher education and students – became the final diversion of 2010.
And so the campaign goes on. Is this what people mean by perpetual campaigning? Rather like a grieving widow, the Labour party is keeping itself occupied. Surely at some point it will have to face its loss?
Meanwhile, the coalition (Tory-led!) has defined Labour’s recent past for it. In this framing Labour was profligate, economically incompetent, and authoritarian. Just saying ‘no we weren’t’ mixed with frenetic and exhausting activity won’t be enough. And if Labour thinks a Republican opposition strategy of ignoring the past while digging your heels in will work then it will have another thing coming.
There is no UK equivalent of the Senate super-majority and the left has no Glenn Beck etc backed by a multi-million dollar message machine. In fact, the reverse is the case.
Labour is not going to stop the coalition in the short term. They may grab the odd straggling gazelle- Vince Cable looks fair game- and provoke the odd u-turn and that will feel good. Civil society might slow it- and the likes of False Economy are more than capable of mobilising dissent. The politics of reform may weigh too heavily as all sorts of unintended consequences take hold- keep a close eye on the NHS.
The harsh truth, however, is that no matter how uncomfortable they are with many of the coalition’s policies, as things stand people want David Cameron as their Prime Minister. If there were an election tomorrow, he would become leader of a majority Government. The fact that the Liberal Democrats would be wiped off the electoral map is scant consolation.
Labour needs a policy review for sure and it has one. What it doesn’t have is a vision in which the review can sit. What this means is that there is a risk that the party will end up with spring freshly washed clothes without a washing line to hang them on. They will remain damp and become musty in time.
The greatest dramas turn on events that shift everything from one state to another. Politics is a dramatic pursuit where the weakest players pretend it is a rational enterprise. Cameron is prime minister because he a sense of the dramatic and the bold. His play changing event happened on May 7th; Labour became mere extras at that precise moment. Leadership sprang from apparent defeat.
Ed Miliband must, in time, respond with a similar sense of drama. He has so far sought to reconnect the Labour party to the lost leadership of John Smith. It was a noble and moral leadership and would have almost certainly still have returned Labour to power in 1997.
However, it was Tony Blair who was the first leader since Harold Wilson (Mark I) to make Labour a party of the future once more. Three Labour leaders have won majorities in the party’s history. Each of these majorities was secured on the basis of Labour cast as the party of a bright and optimistic future (not the party of being nice and fair!)
So this is less a prediction than a plea but 2011 must be the year when Labour ceases the restless displacement activity. It should have stopped in 2010. It didn’t. It should have stopped in 2009. It didn’t. Quickly though, it must then spring forward with a different vision: of an economy that provides good jobs in new creative services and industry; that re-defines public value and values for the post-austerity age; and makes real the promise of the Big Society as a new citizenship that tangibly improves communities and lives.
Do not under-value the decency of John Smith. Equally, do not forget that Labour wins when it is the future. 2011 must become the year when Labour is finally honest about its recent past and then with a sense of drama and panache, it imagines and articulates the different future that it can create and turns it into a poetic conviction. The alternative is a third year of frenetic displacement activity. Surely now is the time to move on?
57 Responses to “Labour wins when it is the future”
Jonathan Gunson
RT @leftfootfwd: Labour wins when it is the future: http://bit.ly/fQX9X4 by @AnthonyPainter
Hitchin England
RT @leftfootfwd: Labour wins when it is the future: http://bit.ly/fQX9X4 by @AnthonyPainter
Daniel
http://danieljfrost.blogspot.com/2010/12/labour-and-digital-future.html
Here are my ideas on just how we should do this =]
Mr. Sensible
Mr Mouse I’m afraid we have been there before.
I think the Lib Dems are helping Labour a bit…
Matthew I agree, add to that the fact that the Tories failed to win an overall majority from 20 points ahead in the polls. I think we now know why…
Chris
@Eoin Clarke
Very interesting and intelligent analysis, as you demonstrate with the figures the narrative that after Blair went Labour went down the toilet is total bollocks. In his book, Blair attempts to back up this narrative by claiming 2005 was the election Labour would never lose – conveniently forgetting he had to dump Milburn and his entire campaign strategy at the start of the election. And instead spend almost the entire election with Brown at his side.
@Boring mouse
Yawn, your endless parroting of the same old tory attack lines is growing ever so tiresome. You’re like the fat, ugly, bald bloke who sits at the bar all afternoon who knows nothing yet having an opinion on everything and believes he is always right. Its a pity this site is polluted with your pathetic comments.
“The same man had the unions cheating in their literature”
Everything the unions did was within the rules of the contest.
“(my missus is in Unison and the literature had his picture in the outer plastic bag it was delivered in) to get him elected”
The unison ballot pack was extremely fair to all candidates, it had all their pictures in the outer envelope. It went beyond what was called for in Labour Party rules and provided exactly the same amount of extra space in its Labour leader supplement.
” – by a majority of just 1.3%.”
In terms of individual votes Ed got 30,000 more than David, Ed has the biggest electoral mandate of a Labour leader in modern times – no block votes or coronations.