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.
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142 Responses to “Labour is still struggling to leave the Brown era behind”
Newsbot9
Nope, today crime is rising, after a long fall. You are using The Sun rather than the official statistics for a reason. And yes, that’s right, crime fell when minor criminals were not sent to jail to become hardened criminals.
Why do you think what centralist Labour does affects me, as a left winger? I’m not one of their supporters, and they failed to solve housing issues. And your Tories are being far worse, they’ve made the crisis critical by deliberately limiting HB well below housing prices and cracking down on social housing like never before (in many areas, it will be above housing benefit within a few years, which is just silly)
Mick
Labour should pick their principles. And stand or fall with them. Rather than pick ’em, revise them to suit the public and then complain when they’re changed. Something many a left winger is prone to do.
Business and Industry count because, as Blair found, they’re hardly likely to co-operate with party firebrands wanting mansion taxes, windfall taxes, tax taxes and all the rest of it. Though years have gone by, they still remember Supertax, trade union militancy with the flying pickets and all the cobblers Foot came out with.
And First Past The Post? Parties are less likely to be divided, if they’re the winners, plus manifestos need not be watered down and fewer grubby backstairs deals need to be done before the supposed-governing party is allowed to rule.
And let me remind you that under PR at the last election, the BNP could have won a good few seats. And then you wouldn’t love it so much.
Newsbot9
Except, of course, with a sensible vote threshold they wouldn’t. You’re simply scared of a left-wing party with seats.
Parties are always divided under FPTP, they’re coalitions which call themselves parties. They end up badly representing a lot of voters.
And of course you want “business and industry” to control things. You can’t stand the thought of a party representing it’s people rather than inflexible “principles” of it’s rich leaders. How dare a party do that rather than be neoliberals!
Mick
Even back in 2003, Labour had a hard time shifting their soft-on-crime image. Pretty much because they were, despite much posturing and some genuine get-tough ideas. But overall, things slackened.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/2641917.stm
And whilst murders fell, as I say, violent and petty crime went up. And whilst lefties whine about overcrowding prisons and such, even that was only because Labour were incompetent rather than strict. Too many PC lunatics were prepared to go soft on criminals, as I can testify having been an ongoing victim of antisocial behaviour, as were many others in my area.
I will give you credit that Labour got to grips by the end, as even the Telegraph says. It went back down towards how things were under the Tories. But that was way way too late: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/crime/7891731/Crime-falls-to-record-low.html
Mick
Oh and here’s a few bits on falling crime under Cameron: http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/6826ab58-6614-11e2-bb67-00144feab49a.html#axzz2MKzPPnqc
In that one it also says police may have EXAGGERATED previous crime-fall figures to please Labour. And this next one’s about a fall in the murder rate, even after just two years of David Cameron.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2012/oct/18/crime-falls-england-wales