COMPASS: Lessons for Labour after Crewe & Nantwich
compassoffice Fri May 23, 2008 at 12:04:21 PM GMT 
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Though Labour's loss of Crewe and Nantwich is a blow for Labour and an unwelcome boost for the Conservatives, it hardly represents a surprise. The Brown government's serial mistakes - most notably, the recent watershed abolition of the 10p tax band - and failure to develop a convincing political narrative were always going to make success difficult, but the death blow to the party's chances was delivered by an inept, negative and poisonous campaign.
Previous byelections have found the party ill-advisedly demonising its opponents, speaking the crass language of authoritarianism and clumsily trying to close down the issue of immigration, but Crewe represented a new low.
Labour needs to have a long-overdue look at issues of class, inequality and social mobility, but in its absence, decrying Cameron Conservatives as "toffs" simply looks desperate (indeed, what remains of the British gentry is not the central issue - if any layer of society symbolises what is increasingly wrong with the post-Thatcher settlement, it is the tiny array of super-rich financiers who dominate the City Of London).
Though the party has been right to be mindful of the issue of anti-social behaviour, encouraging its candidates to come out with such lines as "I want the Police to harass yobs and get in their faces" not only heightens people's fears, but sits uncomfortably with a government recently heard paying tribute to the British tradition of liberty, and bemoaning Britain's "unlocked talent". The hysterical maligning of young people must stop. And what is a Labour government doing advocating police harassment?
Perhaps most poisonous of all was the Crewe campaign's attempt to make political capital out of issues involving Crewe's large Polish population, via a claim that the Conservatives are opposed to "making foreign nationals carry ID cards". This smacks of the poison spread by the far right. In addition, it misrepresents the debate. The Tories are opposed to making anyone carry or be issued with an ID card. So, in the face of massive public unease about the project, should be the Labour Party.
What is the alternative? Labour needs to call time on scorched-earth politics, realise the failures bred by triangulating to the right, and offer a positive vision not just of its record in government, but the Good Society at which it should aim.
The Tories are now stampeding towards such issues as the rising cost of living, social exclusion and poverty. Labour needs to understand the shift that represents, but also shine light on the futility of the solutions they offer: essentially, a shrinking of the state, the cutting of taxes, and a refusal to look at the pivotal issue of equality.
Most importantly, however, the party needs a clear change of direction and message. It needs to turn its recent claim to be "on your side" into incisive political action that speaks to 21st century concerns. The government's half-hearted moves on temporary and agency workers are a small step in the right direction, but much more is required. The issue of housing needs to be returned to centre-stage, and pursued even if an economic downturn renders private solutions impossible.
Labour has to be bold enough to open up the issue of tax rates at the very top. Low pay and insecurity at work have to be at the very centre of policy. The government needs to start taking action on such issues as rising prices and snowballing household debt, which are eating into the lives of people across society.
All told, it has to seize on the fact that fixating on supposedly "affluent" marginals while ignoring the so-called core vote is yesterday's strategy. As the recent local elections proved, Labour's one-time electoral base is deserting the party in its droves. So too are the parts of Labour's electoral coalition that finally came aboard in 1997 and ensured victory. But Labour need not be paralysed by this potentially toxic political cocktail: if these anxious economic times prove one thing, it is that middle and working-class Britons increasingly have a common set of concerns and aspirations, and that a more social-democratic Labour government could speak to them.
As some voices have been suggesting, the current debate is not a matter of ultra-Blairites battling with left-Labour traditionalists. To move in the direction required will mean the jettisoning of both assumptions rooted in Labour's far-flung past, and the now-redundant formulae of the 1990s. We need a left-of-centre politics fit for the 21st century. As we have long said, the problem with New Labour is not just that it is not Labour enough, but that it's not new enough either.
COMPASS: Lessons for Labour after Crewe & Nantwich | 11 comments (11 topical)
COMPASS: Lessons for Labour after Crewe & Nantwich | 11 comments (11 topical)
