Labour did not lose the election because it was considered 'Tory-lite'
1) Labour did not lose because it was considered ‘Tory-lite’
On austerity, Labour did not lose because it was ‘Tory-lite’, rather it lost because the voting public believed a Labour government would not live within the country’s means. This is invariably a hard pill to swallow, but there it is. As John Cruddas, chair of the report, writes on Labour List today: “58 per cent agree that, ‘we must live within our means so cutting the deficit is the top priority’. Just 16 per cent disagree. Almost all Tories and a majority of Lib Dems and Ukip voters agree.
“Amongst working class C2DE voters 54 per cent agree and 15 per cent disagree. Labour voters are evenly divided; 32 per cent agree compared to 34 per cent who disagree.”
The anti-austerity thesis is, I think, a persuasive one; the problem is that the Labour party lost that argument in the previous parliament. Simply shouting the same thing louder this time around will not, I suspect, produce a different result. Why would it?
2) The idea of a grand anti-austerity alliance with the Scottish National Party is a fantasy
As Cruddas puts it, “The idea of an anti-austerity alliance with the SNP is unacceptable to a majority of English and Welsh voters.” According to the research, a majority (60 per cent) agreed that they ‘would be very concerned if the SNP were ever in government’. This compared to 15 per cent who disagreed. A majority of Conservative, Lib Dem and Ukip voters agreed where almost half (40 per cent) of Labour voters also thought so.
And anyway, the argument that Scotland sits significantly to the left of England, Wales and Northern Ireland is not a convincing one. UKIP policies to cut overseas aid, reduce immigration and barrel down on benefits claimants are backed by a majority of Scots, according to a massive survey commissioned last year by Dundee University. Meanwhile according to the recent British Social Attitudes Survey, a third (36.4 percent) of voters in England and Wales wanted tax and spending to rise, compared with 43.8 per cent of Scots – a 7 percent difference, but hardly a yawning chasm.
3) There is still hope
Don’t despair, for there is a good deal of encouragement to take from the inquiry. There was strong majority support for the redistribution of wealth from rich to poor (43 per cent to 22 per cent), and a majority (60 per cent) agreed that ‘the economic system in this country unfairly favours powerful interests’. Among Labour voters this figure rose to 73 per cent and amongst UKIP voters to 78 per cent.
In sum, then, there is ample scope for radicalism from Labour; but only if the party first wins back trust on the economy. Voters are largely with the left in viewing the current state of Britain as unfair and unequal; however but in order to see inequities tackled they want to see some evidence that Labour can run a tight ship economically. That doesn’t sound like a particularly unreasonable demand.
James Bloodworth is the editor of Left Foot Forward. Follow him on Twitter
47 Responses to “3 things we learned from the inquiry into why Labour lost”
leftfootfwd
Thanks. When we want analysis on how to win elections we’ll be sure to listen to a Trotskyist.
Jacko
Translation: voters who don’t want socialism are either evil or ill-informed. We can’t do anything avout the evil ones (that’s anybody with money, no matter how acquired) but for everyone else we need to speak slowly and patiently, in simple words, as you would with a rather dim child, until they understand the simple truth that socialism is only for their own good.
charlie bley
The Cruddas Reseach is not impressive. It seems the survey questions weren’t as neutral as they could have been and I would question how many respondents differentiated between the deficit and the debt. I suspect that few faced with a survey question have time to appreciate that deficits and debts are a feature of many economies – the issue being the purpose and size of these deficits and debts, NOT their existence. Even if we put aside these concerns there is still a huge leap in the interpretation of the research findings. As it happens, I (and a good few respected international economists) believe the deficit should be reduced BUT that this could be achieved by increasing tax revenues by collecting a greater proportion of tax and increasing tax rates for the highest earners; by reducing spending on defence; by investing in the economy in such a way that we increase the number of full time well paid jobs so increasing consumption and tax revenues and reducing the human and economic waste that is unemployment, casual working and low pay (etc). In other words, it is entirely possible to be in favour of cutting the deficit AND opposed to the Tories austerity polices. If the Cruddas research persists in assuming that tackling the deficit can only be achieved by the kind of austerity politics offered by the Tories and that those who oppose austerity measures are deficit deniers the Labour Party really is dead. Surely, Labour needs an analysis and a vision that goes further than a fairly modest (and obvious) piece of polling and a conclusion that, broadly, current economic policy is more or less inevitable? If the Labour Party can’t conceive an economic strategy that is different to the increasingly failing austerity politics and a strategy that will create a stronger, fairer and better economy for all then it will fail to re capture those who have deserted Labour.
stevep
TROLL ALERT! TROLL ALERT!……….DO NOT FEED THE TROLL!!
I'm very cross about this.
Despite what ‘working class C2DE voters’ think labour lost the election because its policies didn’t match the aspirations of the electorate, Ed Milliband was and remains a liability and Ed Balls alienated the vast majority of voters with his childlike gesturing while sat on the Labour front bench. Labour will lose again; and in even more dramatic fashion, if Jeremy Corbyn is elected leader.