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Mulder, Scully, Ed and the Fabians

May 16, 2012 5:54 pm

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I’m an odd sort of politico at times.

Like all other political obsessives, I have my passions,  my causes and my beliefs. I have a vision for what I want from the Labour Party and the next Labour Government. But within that vision, are layers of possibilities. An understanding that my utopia will not be the same as my neighbours (especially as we’re both quite loud, and have very, very different taste in music). I understand the bargaining that an appeal to electability across a mass audience can bring. But even with this understanding, I know that there is and always must be a difference between bargaining and capitulation.

I’m an odd sort of politico at times.

I see too many people on every side of any argument cherry pick evidence to prove not just that a policy will work, but that it will be popular. Clutching at those articles that reinforce your world view, while disregarding anything that challenges it. I think that to be a Socialist, you have to be an optimist. Not necessarily an unrealistic one, but an optimist nonetheless. But to be a strategist, you have to be a pessimist. Not a hopeless one - that’s no good to anyone – but able to see the bumps in the road. Reconciling the need for pessimism in favour of the greater cause of optimism is tough to balance. So it’s not that I am not easily pleased, more that my fear of being too easily pleased will send me too far in the other direction.

I’m an odd sort of politico. For these reasons, when I read something that I find speaks to both my desire for how things are, and my sense of how things could be, my first reaction is not joy, but caution. Like Mulder, I want to believe. Like Scully, I want to see proof.

This is how I felt when I read Andrew Harrop’s excellent and potential strategy changing article on Labour List about “Ed’s Converts”. If this research is robust (and the Fabians are rarely anything but),  then it supports my belief that Labour has a new space arising from the Lib Dems abandoning their left flank to go into coalition. A space to be a more openly Socially Democratic Labour Party and future government. I want this research to be be right so much. So much so that my Spidey-senses are tingling. Do I want it too much? Does the research really support a more left-leaning Labour Party? I want this research to be right and I want it proved right, and as such it will need to be tested almost to destruction. If it can withstand all that might be thrown at it, it could be the basis for a realignment of politics as powerful and successful as New Labour. I hope that the Fabian“Labour’s Next Majority” project will do that testing. I have a few questions that I’d like to offer for their consideration.

The first place I would want that testing to begin is on the idea of the current coalition of interests that make up that group. In Andrew’s piece he speaks of two core groups that make up the group: lower income communities and left liberals. These two groups are not always ones it is easy to produce compatible messages for. On areas like crime for example, they are often diametrically opposed, while both rating their issues highly. For example around surveillance and the role of the state. Would appealing to one group automatically repel the other? How do Labour chart their way through that territory.

Equally, the article states that the worst case scenario with these groups is a hung Parliament with Labour the largest Party. But if their support is as solid as that supposes, would it not be more electorally viable (if not, for me, politically desirable) to tack right and shore up some centrist floating 2010 Tory voters? What would and what wouldn’t put these voters off and how can or should they be slotted into an “Ed’s Converts” based strategy?

Finally – just as part of a starting response – what can and what should we be promising the left in order to keep it united? When does the left’s optimism become the naivete of stereotype? I think we have more scope than some, but we’re not going to be living in or building a brave new world come 2015. Many of the problems that are stymieing Governments of all kinds all over the world will still be ongoing. It will not be simple and it will not be perfect. If this is the framework for a new coalition of the Left, forged under a Labour banner, how do we make sure it doesn’t just win, but lasts?

Those are a few questions I think need to be looked at as an ongoing part of the Fabian’s excellent work. I am incredibly excited by this, and the way you can tell is that I’m questioning it. Strengthening through questioning is – to my mind – the best possible way to support the growth of an idea. I’ll be hoping to contribute further to the Fabian’s ongoing work in this area, and I look forward to more like this.

I want to believe!

This post was originally published here.

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  • Jayne54

    I do not see anything remotely ‘left’ about the Labour party hiearchy. There are about 3 Labour backbenchers I have any time for. I note just recently that Ed Miliband is courting Blair? Have they learnt nothing? Why would anyone in the party be happy about that? Except of course the right wingers who still control the party. Vast numbers went nowhere near the ballot box recently and part of that is because all three main parties are stuffed to the rafters with grasping careerists and hangers on. Most of the ‘Progress’ lot in Labour would not know anything about a days labour for a start!

    • john P Reid

      Vast amount of voters didn’t go near the ballot box recently not becuase the 2 parties vie the centre ground, but becasue coucnil Elelctions have low turn out, even the Mayor election Boris vote fell by 450,000 and Kens by 50,000 but tehy were still alot higher than 2000 and 2008, the rigth wingers may still control the party that’s because there’s alot of them and alot of them are backed by grass route members who recall Tony blair was the only perosn to get labour more than 40% of the vote since 1966, so that’s not only the right of the party but the millionsof peopel who only ever voted labour when he was in charge, the reason that Ken lost was he was too left wing. regarding the progress lot never having had a proper job, and How many on the far left’s oinly jobs before politics were union communcation reps or writing for the Morning star

      • treborc1

        John the Tories are that way mate. you have got lost again

        • John Reid

          sorry you’ve lost me.

          • treborc1

            Your a New labour Tory, you have not come to terms with Blair leaving he’s gone, and it’s hurting.

            But life goes on you have two  choices accept that Labour will morph into something else maybe Newer labour, or you can go and join Cameron.

      • AlanGiles

        Good morning John. I don’t think Livingstone lost because he was too left wing. There were several reasons why he lost – the “confusion” about his tax affairs his alleged “anti-semitism”, both factors not only exploited for all they were worth by London’s only evening newspaper, plus most of the rest of the press, but, also, by “Labour” supporters (allegedly) like Hodges, Marchant, Hutwal and many on LL.

        I can understand why some felt “grateful” to Blair in 1997 (though lets be frank, the Tories were in such low esteem between 1992-97 almost anyone could have won that election for Labour), but by 2001 the signs were all there that Blair was a hypcrite – we had already had Ecclestone and Mandelson soiling the “whiter than white” image. After 2001 we saw ever more right-wing policy, culminating in the Iraq war, which was engineered in Downing Street with the aid of the dodgy dossier compiled by Campbell, based on a 12 year old PHd thesis. Desperate stuff.

        It is time that those remaining in the “Tony-Can-Do-No-Wrong” brigade woke up to the fact that he was vain, manipulative, “used” that disgusting war to bolster his own bank account, greedy, self-serving a hypocrite and a liar. Time he was forgotten rather than rehabilitated.

        People have such short memories, I think: does nobody remember how vast swathes of the Labour party itself breathed a sigh of relief that day in June 2007 sachayed off – even if he was created a “peace envoy” the following day!.

        Honestly, if Labour continues down the road it has gone with the right wing, the best that will happen will be that it books itself a place in a “government of national unity”, but traditional Labour supporters, perceiving (correctly) that there is little difference between the coalition and Progress/Purple/name your own colour “Labour”, will stay at home in May 2015 in their droves. It will be a long long time before any gov ernment gets a landslide again, because all three main parties are chasing the same audience.

        * Tadd Dameron (1917-1965)

        • john P Reid

          What happened with Ecclestone , it was impossible to ban advertising of foreign cars racing in otehr countries with cigareete advertising on them and Labour refused teh £1million anyway, Mandleson, the first time he borrowed £370,000 off of Geoffrey robinson without telling his bnak manager, teh second time he didn’t do anything wrong, I have to disagree about anyone winning in 97, Both Philip Gould Kinnock and Brown all fel thad john Smith lived the tories would have still one but only with a one figure majority. #

          there was vast majorty of “old labour” who swayed a sigh of releif when blair went, although for the first  9 years of the Government  (short of a few days) (blair was ahead in the opinion polls) and he was only A couple of points behind the polls in his last year (so the electorate as A whole disagreed), and with in 3 months of Brown we spent the next 2 and a half years 20% behind in the polls.

          the reason the votes fell in 2001 and 2005 was because the tories were that far behind lots of laobur people satyed at home as they knw there side would win, recall theee was A great deal odiffernce between LAobur in 92 and now and that was the biggest turnout ever.

          did Marchant and Hutwal back Boris?, I know Brownites Lord Winston and Sugar sayed at home, and Lord daris a Big ken fan did, I know sunny hundal and Diane abbot fan Alex hilton, backed others and that The Kinnocks, Micheal cashman and Denis skinner voted for Ken to not be reinstated in 2004, I also Know that Ken’s biggest supporters were Blairites Denis Mcshane, Steven Pound ,Tessa Jowell and David Lammy.

          • AlanGiles

            John, The sober truth is the Tories started to lose the 1997 election on September 16th 1992 (Black Wednesday) with the problems with the ERM. At that point the Tories started to turn in on themselves and each other, and even the press were not kind to Lamont and co.

            As for Mandy, well he gave false information on a mortgage application, that (a bit like the expenses scandal) had a mere member of the public done the same thing, could have resulted in a criminal prosecution. The man was a disgrace, a snob and a liability.

            Anyway Blair is five years in the past now – he has been well rewarded so there is no need for the party to still feel obligated towards him.

            * George Handy (1920-1997)

          • AlanGiles

            One other point, John, if I may.

            Blair won the election on May 1/2nd 1997. His first real day in Downing Street  was Monday May 5th.

            At that time one former Labour P.M. was still living (Jim Callaghan) and so was Michael Foot. But who was the first invited guest ? – Margaret Thatcher. Wouldn’t it have been a nice gesture to have invited JC or MF first? after all they were far older than Mrs Thatcher.

            Blair was toadying to Tory supporters from day one. He was the best leader they never had. or didn’t they?

            * Steve Race (1921 - 2009)

          • Jonathanmorse

            You guys don’t like Blair because he got us elected, so proving we can’t keep blaming Murdoch and the Mail for losing elections, but also because you believe Labour should be a party that doesn’t want power.

          • AlanGiles

            Oh dear, here we go again. 

            Blair compromised the party on so many issues. He pandered to the Conservatives, even to the point of having Mrs Thatcher in No 10 on his first working day, when James Callaghan was still alive. He kept “RIGHT” on to the end of the road.

            He got into bed with the Murdoch empire (which may come back to damage him before too long), and he ended up taking us to war on a false prospectus and making a lot of money for himself on the back of it.

            But Phoney Tony is history – or should be.

            Drag him back, remind decent people of him,  and he will lose the 2015 election for us.

            End of!

            * Dave Pike (1938 –   )

          • treborc1

             Your not in power now mate what are you going to do invite Blair back

          • John Reid

            Thank god tony Benn, after convincingt te Labour party they lost the 1979 election becuase it wasn’t left wing enough, Didn’t say that Labour lost the 83 election because it wasn’t left wing enough too, Oh No wait…

          • treborc1

            well you stick with Blair, one day he might just send you a letter thanking you for being his follower

          • John Reid

            the tories were 18% behind both the SDP liberal and labour on 39% each to the tories 21% in MAy 81, the Tories were on 23% to laoubr on440 in 1986 and the Tories were on 22% to laobur on 48% in the Summer on 1990, they always came back, a week before John Smith died the tories were 1% behind in the polls, I recall A day before the 1992 election when they were 2% behind in the polls the polls upto 15 years ago were inacurate to giving us a bias, the Police said there was no need to anwser for lying about a secret oan when he had his mortgage, it’s differnet to claiming false expences, so I don’t think he would have faced prosection if he were A member of the public.

            I just don’t buy the idea that the Toires were finished after black wednesday, Yes the Falklands helped them in 1982, as did ousting thatcher,but these were little things liek there huge poll lead in 1987, (even if that election tebbit and the Sun Invented the loony left to help Labour get massacred in london) 

          • treborc1

             Loony left is that like the loony right within labour who wrecked the bloody country

          • John Reid

            Apart from the economy which was Brown (who of course was appealing to the left of the party in 2007 to get Bair ousted, I odn’t know why you think the country is ruined when the left Of the party let the tories win 4 elections they ruined the NHS, let crime double, and let unemploymnt and Poverty triple, If there is a loony right in the laobur party it was repsonsible for Laoubr getting 27% in 1983 and doing worse still in london in 1987.

          • treborc1

            Ah well who cares.

          • John Reid

            the 8.6 million who voted labour in 2010 as opposed to the 8.4m who voted labour in 1983,

          • treborc1

            Well yes but labour is now out and I suspect in all honesty for a very long time, you had better write to Tony asking him to come back

          • AlanGiles

            ”
            I just don’t buy the idea that the Toires were finished after black wednesday,”

            With the greatest respect, John, you must be one of the very few who feel that way. The ERM debacle opened the floodgates to Mr Major’s “b*stards” forever trying to undermine him – Marlowe, Cash, Gorman – are those names familiar?. Redwood mounted a challenge in 1995.

            Even John Major himself in a broadcast interview some years ago admitted that he believed the 97 election was a lost cause long before May 1st 1997.

            You seem to be making a reference to the Mandelson case again. I think you will find in law that by making a false declaration on a mortgage application form you are “uttering a forged document” and you certainly could be prosecuted for it, just the same that Tony McNulty, had he been a benefit claimant rather than a minister when he pretended his parents home was his second home (bless)  would have been prosecuted for making false statements.

            I cannot see how you or anybody else can defend the indefensible, also do you seriously think staying on the right will get Labour back into power?. The LibDems have moved to the right and look where it has got them.

            Finally, I would put it to you that the fact that Blair took our party so far to the right, has made the coalitions work that much easier for them. N ever forget it was labour who instituted Freud and made the bullets for Duncan-Smith and Grayling to fire, however much Byrne now pretends to a Damascian conversion

            * Vic Feldman (1934-1987)

          • John Reid

            Even John Major himself in a broadcast interview some years ago admitted that he believed the 97 election was a lost cause long before May 1st 1997-

            it was lost the day blair went to see murdoch in Australia in 1994, not sept 1992, as for the leadership challenge Major resigned put himself up for re election to say ” put up or shut up” and major won comftorably, do a few back benchers like Gorman or teddy taylor or cash really result in the public feel the tories were dis-unitedf, I’d say the usual suspects  of Jeremy Corbyn, Diane Abott, Or John Mcdonnel did more damage between 1997-2001 and that didn’t do blair any harm, Plus when they voted agianst Maastrict in 1992 there were more Labour backbenchers Like Livingstone and Skinner and Benn who voted agasint it than toires, and Teddy taylor and Co, had tried to undermine ted heath or the left of the tories tried to undermine thatcher in the mid 80′s (westland) A few back benchers who are form the fringe of their parties don’t bring down government’s it’s the mood swing and the oppositon party looking like A gov’t in waiting and No disrespect to John Smith But it took gordon brown saying that Laobur woulnd’t put the higher arate of tax up to 50p in 1994 and  stick to tory spending plans for 2 years that clinched it for us.

          • AlanGiles

            Come off it John. When did John McDonnell go cottaging on Clapham Common, or when did Jeremy Corbyn borrow £373,000 and failed to declare it or when did Diane let her husband watch dirty DVDs at our expense?

            You dismiss the Conservative dissenters, in that case your argument against these three is equally weak.

            Most of the damage done to New Labour throughout it’s run was by Blairites:  Byers, the taxi for hire, Milburn and Hewitt holding down private health company consultancies at the time they were Health Secretary, Blunkett and his philandering  – boasting about getting another mans wife pregnant, writing a mithering diary for publication (and in the Daily Mail), coupled with his hypocrisy for being at the same time a “Methodist Lay Preacher” (unless “lay in this sense means something else).

            You might not like the left wing but they rocked the boat far less than your precious Blairites.

            * Jim Hart (1979 -   )

          • John P Reid

            I think Diane abbots “all white people are racist” comment or Jeremy corbyn supporting Palestinian terrorists or those who killed atxi drived David wilkie in the miners strike or all 3 of them saying either it was good the IRA blew up the Tory party hotel in 1984 or sharinga stage with A bavaclava’d member of the IRA lost more votes than the embaressment of Jacqui smiths husband watching a prono on pay for view putitng it threw expences by mistake and reclaiming the money, Porn islegal you know, as for Cottaging I wouldn’t have called Ron Daives A blairite, he’d left parliament by 2001 and with In a year was in PLAID CYMRU

          • treborc1

            back to the past again

          • John P Reid

            JohnmMCdonnell sadi IF he ahd a time machine he’d have gone back blown thatcher up at the IRA  hotel bombing to stop her scrap the GLC and shut the mines (in his leadership 2 years ago )I was going to vote for him for leader before he said that, I notice you were going on about mines being shut in the other post ,so you go on about the past too.

          • AlanGiles

            Come off it John. When did John McDonnell go cottaging on Clapham Common, or when did Jeremy Corbyn borrow £373,000 and failed to declare it or when did Diane let her husband watch dirty DVDs at our expense?

            You dismiss the Conservative dissenters, in that case your argument against these three is equally weak.

            Most of the damage done to New Labour throughout it’s run was by Blairites:  Byers, the taxi for hire, Milburn and Hewitt holding down private health company consultancies at the time they were Health Secretary, Blunkett and his philandering  – boasting about getting another mans wife pregnant, writing a mithering diary for publication (and in the Daily Mail), coupled with his hypocrisy for being at the same time a “Methodist Lay Preacher” (unless “lay in this sense means something else).

            You might not like the left wing but they rocked the boat far less than your precious Blairites.

            * Jim Hart (1979 -   )

          • treborc1

             The reason John mate, people walked away from labour is if Blair put on a  dress and head scarf  he would have been Thatcher. Irf you think Bernie was  just about adverts fine by me.

          • John Reid

            and Blairstill won 2 more victories unlike when you had your goes in 1983 and 87 when you got 27% of the vote.

          • treborc1

            John your looking back again a habit you have, Blair has gone he left the party, now where are you and your new labour  mate.

          • John Reid

            And unfortunatley if we lose the next election ,we will have to look back to see why Blair won, You say I keep looking back, but its facing reality unlike as I just said saying that we lost the’ 83 election because it wasn’t left wing enough.

          • treborc1

            Yea if you say so.

        • Ian Stewart

          Alan, Livingstone lost because he was not trusted. He was wide open to charges of cronyism, hypocrisy and to promoting communalist politics of the worst kind. From the moment his candidacy was announced, the electorate were presented with a re-run of 2008, and they cared lees for him than the equally unpleasant Mr Johnson.

          The press attack were horrendous – although a few of them did indeed have a grain of truth. Labour party members in London simply did what we were expected to do – we loyally campaigned for our party, but with that awful sinking feeling. After all, our candidate had proved his lack of loyalty to us not just once, but also in Tower Hamlets.

          Running Ken Livingstone means that we have another four years of Banker loving, tax-avoidance advocating, right wing populist Boris Johnson. A man who plays fast and loose with facts, and shows no sign of being anything other than a highly partisan Mayor. He will prosecute the class war with vigour against the majority of Londoners, and dress it up as a jape.

          Much as I may disagree with Rob Marchant (and I was outraged by his open letter to the ES), Dan Hodges etc, just because they say something I disagree with at first sight does not make it untrue.  

          • AlanGiles

            Ian, with all due respect, the gravamen of my argument was that, Livingstone didn’t lose because, as John claimed – he was too left wing. You may well be right in your opening paragraph, about trust, but my feeling is that there are too many deluded right-wing Labour types who think that, despite all the evidence to the contrary, despite Blair losing half his majority in 2005, despite the low esteem the likes of Byrne is held in by traditional labour supporters, despite losing the 2010 election, there are STILL people who think all we need to do is to keep drifting to the right, and bring back some of the expenses swindlers. Sometimes, it makes you just want to give up.

            Would the return of James Purnell and Tony McNulty guarantee election success in 2015?. Of course not.

            Elliott Lawrence (1925 -    )

          • Ian Stewart

            Alan, there is some truth in your argument, but I think that we now have to look to the future. One thing is for certain – Livingstone will not get my vote in the NEC elections.

            On you point about political delusions, you have a point, but we are all guilty of those, which I think is one of the points made in Emma’s article.
            Oh, and why not Albino Red???

          • Jonathanmorse

            Ken lost because he did not put to bed the lies being told about him and I expect us to loose the next GE because the 2 Ed’s won’t learn from this. I suspect the Tory attack ran the London mayoral campaign as a dry run for the next GE because it was everything I would do against the 2 Ed’s seeing what their main weakenesses are. I’m surprised Ken didn’t deal with the lies better but maybe he was held back by the idiots at head office who wanted to prove they could loose elections, having not been that good at it in the past and since it’s where Labour feels it should be. Labour likes to loose, see the previous comments on this debate, loosing under Brown was easy, under Blair difficult, under the Ed’s, well, it’s working so far.

          • AlanGiles

            Red Rodney, Ian – another fan!

            Today I was using pianists who were also composers/arrangers, but just for you:
            * B. Bopstein   (1946 recording)

  • Brumanuensis

    That floating Ed Miliband head is truly terrifying. I don’t even want to know how you created it.

    And yes, I agree that the research data will be interesting. I suspect the interpretation might be a shade on the optimistic side, but really all politics is a matter of shifting that Overton Window in your direction.

  • Peter Mandaciousson

    We’re all Thatcherites now.

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