A poll conduced at the end of February by Ipsos-MORI for The Economist shows that the economy continues to be the public's most pressing concern. This is potentially a double-edged sword for Labour. The public still blame Labour, rather than the banks for the deficit. Moving beyond that will be easier said than done.
A poll conduced at the end of February by Ipsos-MORI for The Economist shows that the economy continues to be the public’s most pressing concern.
This is potentially a double-edged sword for Labour.
With the increasingly influential presence of Lynton Crosby in the Tory camp, not to mention the loss of the Eastleigh by-election, David Cameron will come under increasing pressure from Tory backbenchers to shift policy further to the Right.
Nothing new here of course.
An excellent (separate) piece for the Economist today notes that in the run up to the 2005 election, an emboldened Tory Right sought to “shift…emphasis [in the party] away from public services towards immigration, crime and, of course, Europe…”.
They largely succeeded, resulting in a calamitous electoral defeat for Tory leader Michael Howard in a winnable election.
Backbench ideologues rarely learn lessons from history, so expect Cameron to face similar demands as worried MPs sense weakness on the back of humiliations like that in Eastleigh.
Labour can, indeed, take a degree of solace from the prospect of the Tories scrabbling around to prevent their core vote indulging Nigel Farage’s protest party.
No more than a degree of solace, though.
While Ed Miliband has been wise to turn his attention to economic concerns of late in the form of (largely symbolic) policy proposals on the mansion tax and the 10p tax rate, Labour is still suffering badly when voters are asked about the economy, as a poll for YouGov this week showed.
Q a) Which party would handle Britain’s economy best?
Q b) Who would you trust more to run the economy?
| a) Which party? | b) Which team? | ||||||
| Con | Lab | Other/ Don’t know | Cameron/ Osborne | Miliband/ Balls | Not sure | ||
| % | % | % | % | % | % | ||
| Apr 2012 | 28 | 27 | 45 | 36 | 28 | 35 | |
| Jul 2012 | 27 | 26 | 47 | 34 | 31 | 35 | |
| Oct 2012 | 26 | 28 | 46 | n/a | n/a | n/a | |
| Dec 2012 | 28 | 27 | 45 | 37 | 26 | 37 | |
| Feb 2013 | 27 | 29 | 44 | 35 | 29 | 37 |
As Peter Kelner phrased it:
“Almost three years after Gordon Brown left Downing Street, more people still blame Labour rather than the Conservatives for the state of the economy and the public spending cuts that Osborne has imposed. Secondly, when asked who they trust more to run the economy, more people still prefer Cameron and Osborne to Miliband and Balls.”
While Labour is right to focus on the economy – it is voters’ main concern and Osborne is the government’s biggest liability – doing so is a double-edged sword. It is potentially Labour’s strongest area of attack, but it also risks a damaging boomerang effect.
Moving beyond the fact that the public appear to still blame Labour, rather than the banks, for the deficit will be easier said than done.
In the public mind, the party is still stuck in the Gordon Brown era, and the failure to win the argument in 2009/10 that it was the banks rather than the government which was to blame for the crisis still hangs around the party’s neck like an albatros.
142 Responses to “Labour is still struggling to leave the Brown era behind”
Newsbot9
Wikipedia itself is, thus, not a valid source. There is NEVER a good reason to use it. This is not “leftie”, it’s basic knowledge of research.
Newsbot9
Refunds bus fairs? Where? And the benefit caps are to split up families, they’re rarely applied for that reason (families are splitting up rather than suffer them).
The Scandinavians, both in and outside the EU, have been successful. You’re using the EU as an excuse, when it hasn’t affected the Nordic Model’s success.
And you keep on harping back to something it never was, and never will be. It’s a democratic supranational organisation. The EU Parliament is legally equal to the Commission, which is explicitly elected by the Parliament. You don’t have any idea how the EU functions, you’re simply lashing out against things like basic worker rights as usual.
And of course the tens of billions lost in trade would “help” you destroy the NHS and social infrastructure. A lot of the EU, in good part thanks to the obstructionist role your Tories have played, would take great glee in seeing us bow out of a modern trading economy.
Mick
I know they will refund your tickets at A4e if you’re doing some kind of work thing through them. Though I couldn’t be positive if it’s strictly workfare. Either way it’s balls.
And back to the EU, Nordic governments may well not be as pleased with the EU as its mouthpieces gloat. Denmark, for one, was ready to give them a Thatcher-style handbagging through being screwed over: http://www.euractiv.com/specialreport-budget/denmark-ready-veto-eu-budget-get-news-515680
We or the Germans or French put in more but get back less. The Germans are particularly rattled on that from time to time.
And the EU democratic? When most people here want to have a referendum on it, half want to leave it but our masters chicken out on the referendum time and time again? Plus, I mentioned nothing about destroying the NHS or crap like that.
Mick
Well you’d know all about emotional reactions. ‘Blood of the workers’ indeed.
Jail? Well there would be crowing that ‘prison doesn’t work’ when sentences get shorter and shorter, with extra privileges. Thugs ’round my way would beat people up and only go inside for a few short months. That’s like an inconvenience. Then they’d come out for business as usual. So it’s either that or community service, when again they re-offend.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2011/may/10/reoffending-rates-short-jail-terms
Me and people like me, at bottom, almost couldn’t care less what works. But what we’re given hasn’t worked much. If having scum dig flower beds cured them then we wouldn’t care. But it evidently doesn’t. So we complain.
Newsbot9
Ah yes, the equivalence attacks start again.
And of course you want far more expensive prisons to generate even more crime. Repeated violent criminals like you and your friends are the sort of people who should be inside, not people who nicked a can of something from a supermarket.
And no, apparently the community service didn’t cure you. Crime’s far too low for you.