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Labour is not a changed party – not yet

April 12, 2012 1:52 pm

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When times are tough, people want to see “change”. Often they’re not sure exactly what form that change should take. What they’re really looking for is “hope”. They “hope” that someone can “change” their situation. In some way.

We know that elections can be won and lost on the basis of hope and change. The Obama campaign was built on little else (aside, of course, from a once in a lifetime candidate and stellar organisation). In 2010 Cameron tried the same trick. No hope though (Broken Britain didn’t allow for that), but he adopted Obama’s “change” mantle, despite having backed John “continuity” McCain in 2008.

One of the reasons that Cameron failed to win outright was that he did not successfully change his party. Or at least not enough. It was superficial change, skin deep, and not enough of the public were willing to buy it.

Cameron promised change, but when people look at his party they still see the same out of touch faces making decisions that affect millions without looking like they understand how those same millions live. People were promised change. Some of them voted for it. Few have seen it.

That could be deadly for Cameron in 2015.

Although Labour haven’t caught the imagination of the public yet (a huge understatement), neither have the Tories. They have barely – even during poll surges – reached far beyond their 2010 vote. Labour meanwhile is exceeding the (admittedly disastrous) 2010 vote by 10-12 points on a regular basis. Polling isn’t perfect (see Bradford West), but the consistency of the polling tells you something about perceptions of the Tories at least, if not much about Labour, yet.

Cameron’s failure to achieve genuine lasting change in his party (and therefore in public perception) is clearly something that Ed Miliband is aware of, judging by his speech today. He has said that he is leading “a changed Labour party” and that “Our party is recognising the real changes we need to make. Not hugging a husky then betraying the environment…Real, deep, genuine change, infusing our party, our ideas and our organisation.”

The problem is that whilst this certainly seems to be Ed Miliband’s intention as leader, the party is by no means there yet. He and the party may be “recognising” the changes that need to be made, but the evidence isn’t there yet to argue that such a change has actually taken place.

On party – it’s only 24 hours since we were talking about old fashioned fixes and stitch ups.

On policy – our agenda currently feels like a modified version of the 2010 manifesto, lacking a big, new, attention grabbing idea. And the man leading the complicated, seemingly endless policy review is about the leave the Shadow Cabinet. The trust gap between the two parties is narrowing – but because the Tories are trusted less, not because we are trusted much more.

On organisation – it’s only two weeks since we lost a “safe” seat, activism amongst members is still limited to a hardcore few in most areas, and the party is often limited to counting the dwindling number of potential voters rather than trying to win the support of the millions who have stopped voting.

I’m glad that Ed Miliband appears to understand the scale and scope of what needs to be done. But to argue that Labour is a “changed party” is a significant rhetorical overreach.

There’s still time for those changes to happen – the next election is three years away – but we’re 18 months into Ed’s leadership of the party. And we’ve not changed.

Not yet.

Not enough.

He too promised change. Like Cameron, he is yet to fully deliver. If (unlike Cameron) he wants to win a majority, then deliver he must. If he does it sincerely and relentlessly, he will have my support. But that change needs to be real, not superficial, not rhetorical. And it needs to be happening now – or in 2015 people will still be telling him that “we’re all the same, all as bad as each other, and that they’re not going to vote at all”.

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  • AlanGiles

    “But that change needs to be real, not superficial, not rhetorical. And it needs to be happening now – or in 2015 people will still be telling him that “we’re all the same, all as bad as each other, and that they’re not going to vote at all”.”

    Mark, do I need to remind you of Palmerston’s advice to Queen Victoria again?:

    “Change, change, change…all this talk of change!. Are’nt things bad enough already”?

    One of the problems the Blair and Brown governments had was that they changed things too much and too often (I once recall a schoolteacher saying that there seemed to be a major change every term). I imagine Gove is going to be an even bigger problem with his meddling.

    For Labour to change it needs to start remembering who it’s core vote are, and to be ready to defend the poor the sick and the disabled, not get the dismal Liam Byrne to say that he “agrees with three-quarters of the Coalition’s Welfare Reform Bill” (no surprise since after all he and his mate Purnell were the ones that instituted Freud, the coalition just took him over).

    It needs to stop being pestered by ex ministers  who had to resign in disgrace wittering on about “celearic” whatnots.

    Labour List could start the process of disinfecting the brand by refusing to publish articles by people like Tony McNulty (as it did a few weeks ago) and Kitty Usher – the expense scroungers.

    For Labour to change it must return to it’s roots and just as importantly dead wood ought to be removed from the shadow cabinet. Backbench MPs who aid the coalition should be forced to make the choice of stepping down or else fighting a by-election in their current constituencies as a Con/LibDem, while the Labour party finds untarnished candidates.

    How can you make a fresh start when you are still surrounded by the stale scroungers and opportunists of the past.

    I am afraid I am one of those people who begin to believe all three main parties are the same, because they are – I never thought that would happen in my lifetime.

    • http://twitter.com/northernheckler nilsinela boray

       I once knew a head teacher who in response to a comment that staff never wanted change said that he found that in his experience, everyone always wanted change  – the bigger the better, – providing it didn’t involve them doing anything any differently to the way they’d always done it

  • http://twitter.com/bencobley Ben Cobley

    I like the phrase “significant rhetorical overreach”. Very nice.

  • http://twitter.com/northernheckler nilsinela boray

    I like this  article, and I want the changes too – but I have to wonder – what are those changes likely to be ? The buzz on Twitter etc (for buzz read ‘low drone’) doesn’t seem to extend much beyond  return to the roots / lurch to the left / stick to the middle – which seem like insider distractions rather than anything that would make non-members turn around and vote for us if they already didn’t.

    Tough decisions on direction are overdue.

    Some big leadership is needed – I hope Ed’s up to it

    • AlanGiles

      The point is though that Labour has lost a lot of it’s traditional support because it has concentrated far too much on trying to regain the Conservative/LibDem support it had. This might have worked when the Conservatives were going through a leader every couple of years and were in dissaray, but you can’t just hope they go back to the days of Hague and Duncan Smith – they now have a leader who is going nowhere (in more ways than one) and you have some Labour figures who treat those of us on the left with more hostility/contempt than they do Conservatives (just read Marchant’s articles and replies for prove of that)

      • Lestockmarket

        When labour becomes labour again, then we will win any election hands down. Old labour = real labour. You don’t need a 9000 pound a year uni education to work that out.

        • madasafish

          Yes old Labour were very successful under Wilson and Callaghan… so successful that they and Heath crewed up the economy big style, and lead to a 19 year period of Tory rule…

          Blair proved you need to win the middle ground.

          With Scotland looking less and less like a Labour stronghold, any majority Government needs seats in Southern England outside  London.

          • AlanGiles

            Heath screwed up the economy – do you not remember the 3 day week that could so easily have  ruined this country, and did, indeed, do so to a large part of the manufacturing industries?.

            Harold Wilson inherited a terrible set of books in 1974 – far worse than the ones Blair inherited. When you think of the billions of pounds Blair squandered on unwinnable wars, it makes you wonder how anyone can have a good word to say for the war-mongering old fraud.

          • madasafish

            Agree on Heath. McLeod was one of the worst Chancellors of the Exchequer – ever. His “dash for growth” was a disaster.

            Having said that, no party covered itself in glory in that period and  the failure of In Place of Strife led eventually to Thatcher’s labour laws: which have not been repealed.

            I can remember the 3 day week: it was a disaster…

          • AlanGiles

            Actually MacLeod was Chancellor for about three weeks. The election was on June 18th 1970 (I remember that day so well!) and he died at 11 Downing Street early in July. If I recall Anthony Barber replaced him.

          • http://twitter.com/reddeviljp jaydeepee

             Wasn’t Barber the singularly most inept chancellor who has only recently been replaced by Osborne?

          • Peter Barnard

            @ Alan G,

            Although I wouldn’t put it in those terms (“Heath screwed up the economy”), his biggest mistake was the adoption of “Competition and Credit Control,” which led to an explosion of credit, the secondary banking sector, house prices out of control 1972-74 (it was unfortunate that C & CC was unleashed at the same time as the first wave of the post-war “baby-boomers” were reaching house-purchase age) and NatWest having to issue an unprecedented statement about its financial health, as its ordinary shares fell below par value.

            Added to which was the quadrupling of oil prices in late 1973.

            The much-maligned Dennis Healey (his bark was much worse than his bite) was actually a great friend of the corporate sector. In November 1974 he introduced a “crude but effective form of relief from tax on stock appreciation …. for the rest of the Labour government’s term of office, the manufacturing sector enjoyed a tax holiday as never before … For those who could read the signals, private ownership of capital was no longer a lost cause under the Labour government. Thereafter Dennis Healey arguably fought a better rearguard action for the rich and investors, institutional or otherwise, than any other holder of the chancellor’s office since the war” (from John Plender’s “That’s the way the money goes” ; 1982).

          • AlanGiles

            I seriously bow to your greater knowledge on matters fiscal Peter. It is just that so many blame Harold Wilson for the way things were mid 70s, nearly everyone forgets about the part Ted Heath played in it. I think some Conservatives fell asleep sometime early in 1973 and didn’t wake up again until the Blessed Margaret’s 1979 victory!

            Actually there is a BBC2 series starting on MOnday evening April 16th at 2100, which is going to examine the seventies  “in depth” – it says here. The first programme covers the years 1970-1972.

          • Peter Barnard

            No need at all to bow, Alan. I’m happy to assist and, perhaps, “spread a little knowledge around.”

            You are right that the 1970s have been much mis-represented – well, you don’t actually put it in those terms, if you don’t mind my presumption that that’s what you meant.

            I did write to FT contributor Gillian Tett making points about the 1970s after an article of hers … she responded that I was making “excellent”points and saw to it that my letter to her was published in the FT magazine – some weeks ago, now.

            I wonder when Mr Know-it-all will make an appearance on this thread? The scuttlebutt has it that he’s going to publish a paper next week, “On the origin of matter.”

          • AlanGiles

            No seriously, Peter, you are marvelous with the figures, marvelous grasp and an excellent way of explaining simply – a real gift.  and yes I did mean that the 70s have been misrepresented. I just hope the BBC are going to make this a serious series (they have described it as “major”) and not just an excuse to trawl through the archives for excerpts of Top of the Pops and Nationwide.

            I got into trouble on LL some time ago (when I do anything OTHER than get in trouble?) for mentioning the National Enterprise Board, but it came to the aid of one of the companies I worked for at a serious time and we survived – which we wouldn’t have done without it’s assistance.

            It is sad that even Labour supporters try to downplay all the  achivements between 1964 and into the 70s (after the Ted Heath hiatus). Like you I await our expert on everything under the sun to make his inevitable appearance on this thread :-)

          • Peter Barnard

            @ Alan G,

            To be kind to Ted Heath, he did rescue Rolls-Royce after it got into a spot of bother with its RB-211 contract – performing a massive U-turn after his declaration of “no lame ducks to be rescued.”

            Boy! Has that paid dividends since … of the industrial sort, I mean, not the financial sort, although those have been paid as well. 

  • Johndclare

    Sorry, but I’m more with Darrell Giidlife on this one:
    http://momentsofc.wordpress.com/2012/04/12/how-much-is-labour-really-changing/

  • treborc1

    God it was an awful speech, but worse of all as his delivery, he droned he did not articulate his words or the meaning he drones on. Then suddenly I thought I know what he sounds like, a supply teacher filling in for a lesson talking to kids while looking out the window dreaming of going home.

    He does not talk to people he talks out the bloody window and he has not life in him, if he had banged the table or screamed listen to me I’m telling you, it just went on and on and on.

    Gone now is the squeezed middle in come the hard working families, bet some families looked at each other and said maybe we are not hard working enough for labour.

    he spoke yet said nothing, oh he told us about how labour would cut, labour would not be like the last look who spent, nope labour would be the party that did not spend.

    But labour did spend on schools and hospital he was happy with that, even though we ended up with a PFI bill worth many millions over the real costs.

    So what did it say, well New speech writer, new spin doctors maybe Campbell is back or one of his underlings. But in the end it was trust labour because we are not paper thin

  • Chrismat

    All this talk of “change” is all well and good Mark, but the real contribution, the real debate, is made and led by people who put forward proposals for what we should be doing differently.  Can I ask that instead of calling for change without specifying what that entails, you make positive suggestions as to what we should be doing differently, or use your position as Editor here to call for suggestions.

    • Quiet_Sceptic

       I think that is spot on.

      Change is like movement or motion, you need a destination or target for it to be purposeful.

      What seems to be missing at the moment is the diagnosis of where we are and the vision of where we want to go, until you’ve defined those two parts you cannot really have any purposeful change.

  • http://www.facebook.com/people/Mike-Homfray/510980099 Mike Homfray

    I don’t actually think you can push this sort of change. It takes time

    Blair changed a lot of the rhetoric, but a lot of the dissatisfaction in consequence came from the fact that the changes he wanted to see weren’t actually wanted by most of the party (that’s not meant to be a criticism, its just a fact that Blair often led against his party rather than with it)

    And this is the difference with Ed’s approach: he wants to take the party with him and I do tend to agree that the rhetoric is rather overblown. But surely its a much more necessary aim than another ‘fix’ which people will see right through anyway?

  • lilgame_0007

    way outta content. weak. send free text messages at textme4free.com

  • aracataca

    This article has just given the green light to commentators on here like Alan Giles who have called for people to be banned from contributing on LL.Of course there are some of us who would like to see him banned but unlike him believe in free speech even for those with whom we disagree.
    Is it not clear that the party has moved beyond New Labour? Has not our leader said as much? The fact is we have not yet fully developed a future direction of travel and that direction won’t be developed by carping on about Liam Byrne or any of the other Labour ministers from the last government, especially within a narrative that confines itself to personalised abuse. Furthermore, is it really that unusual that our party has not yet set out its future direction- given that it is only 2 years since our second worst election defeat since 1918? If it is to be any good,  setting a future direction for our party in response to fast changing conditions and circumstances will and should take much longer. 

    • AlanGiles

      If you want me banned go ahead and start a petition .

      Just because Ed has SAID we have moved on from New Labour doesn’t mean to say that we have – too many of the ghastly old Blair/Brown waxworks still sit around the shadow cabinet table, and too many disgraced ex Mps and ex ministers still come out of the woodwork to remind us of the past. It’s time for the McNulty’s and Jacqui Smith’s to shut up – they are part of the problem, not the solution.

      While Byrne, to take your example, remains in the shadow cabinet the past is with us.

      Sorry to upset you so much.

      • http://twitter.com/reddeviljp jaydeepee

         Byrne should be thrown on a skip.

  • Dave Postles

    The Labour Party could make a start by twinning with the left-of-centre state of Vermont, learn some lessons, and get some guts.

    http://www.sanders.senate.gov/newsroom/news/?id=17260249-1ba6-45ed-a6f7-770d9dd2d557 

  • Politique

    Mark, I in a very good position to understand why Labour needs to change. Its glamour and spritz all specifically designed to keep parliamentary members in their  position of power.

    Ed Miliband has no idea of the scope. He refuses to acknowledge that change means change. It is soul destroying to see the same usual suspects attending LP meetings and campaigning to keep the MP in power at the expense of using councillors and members. It not about community Mark, it not about the people they should genuinely represent. it is about them, their families and their small circles of activists.

    Ed Miliband talks change. In order to stop all this cynicism and negativity he needs to be bold and reach out witha belly full of passion, wear his heart on his strings and get rid of three quarters of the Shadow Cabinet. They are not only not good enough but they are not appealing enough. Lack of talent comes to mind.

    I do like Andy Burnham and Jon Trickett. After that I scraping the barrel.

    There needs to be real change. This feels like another rollercoaster ride for a leader who fails to see the real issues.

    nepotism is rife in the party and it constantly overlooked and accepted 

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