As party conferences begin, is Labour’s lead for real?

You need to revise the links you post to the two questions asked.

To the question “Now think seriously. Which party do you actually want running the country?” you posted a link which the question asked was “Do you approve or disapprove of the Government’s record to date?

To the question about which party “is led by people of real ability” you linked poll results on party image !

Labour needs to start being a bit more forceful about how it will change the country for the better. Too many Labour supporters are complaining that the party has been too quiet, particularly in regard to the NHS assaults, welfare & education.

If MPs started talking to us about what changes & when, they may well find that the poll leads increase hugely but its up to Labour to make their voices heard.

Good article.

Populus for the Times lastets polls giving Labour a 15% lead on 18th September.

I would have to agree with Leo, that the Labour lead is fragile, even when it gets to 15%. This is not like it was in the run up to 1997. Then the Labour leader and the Labour party was seen as having being good with the economy and rather importantly, better than the Conservatives.
What is telling in Leo’s article is that large number (31%) who know that Cameron and Osborne are really bad news for the eceonomy and yet feel that Labour would be even worse.

That overall is the huge challenge that the front bench must get to grips with. It is also caused by the negative “they are the same” feeling that swept the country ever since the expenses row. It is very dangerous because while being untrue, it actaully gives the Conservatives a licesnse to really screw up without consequence.

The reasons for this (I think) are
1. The general distrust of all polititions, therefore however bad the government of the day, there can be no hope of better coming from the opposisition.  One manifestation of this has been 36 degrees and other groups who like to fight for political outside of the political system, on issues that classically would be natural ground for Labour.

2. We cannot underestimate the damage that weak Labour leadership since 2010 has done in terms of allowing the Conservatives and their media friends to drip feed the notion that the whole worldwide economic crisis was Labour’s fault. Therefore whatever happens, for a while for many, the Tories are safe because they are not the ones who caused it all in the first place. The truth is that Labour, the Tories and every government and opposition group in the world didn’t see the banking crisis coming. It is also the case the while Labour’s banking controls were woefully inadequate, the Tories opposed any controls at all. After the crash happened Brown did much to lead the world (esecially the USA) in a response which limited the damage. It is also the case the worse seemed to be over, unemployment (which was low) continued to fall, and there were signs of recovery even if fragile.
Yet for all of this Labour did not stand up and argue its corner but left the stage to “refound itself”. During this time, not only were Labour off stage when the battles over selling the forests off took place, and the dabates about the NHS began, worse the Labour party spoke about a new start and “Mistakes being made”. Rather than a new start, this seemed to those outside of the party to be Labour saying that they really agreed and thought that they were crap too, and that it really was all Labour’s fault. And even worse seemed to think that by not facing these myths down, they would somehow win the next day when tomorrow the public had forgotten all about the recession.

3. The role of the media cannot be underestimated either. However good a Labour government might be, or however strong a leader might be, no Labour government could have broken promisses on the NHS, screwed up on education, failed to deliver on a recovery and seen all economic forcasts fall short, as well as have Liam Fox et al behave as they did; without the sky falling in on them. Simply on any one of a huge list of this government’s failings, the media would not have allowed it to rest and would have hounded well beyond the resignation of a minister, but gone on and on  and on damaging the reputation of the leadership. Simply, as we know, Labour and Conservative do not compete on a level playing field.

4. Back in the mid 1990′s, Labour had a leader with a sense of being on a mission. Just about everyone in the country knew what Tony Blair was about, what he stood for and what direction he wanted to go. While that position was broadly popular, even those with reservations about it knew where he stood and where they stood about him. Generally it is easier for anyone who comes over as purposeful and focused to beat a vague fog. Like it or not, a leader has to project their thinking to the electorate and use the media to do so. In any case the media cannot work to project a philosopher over a doer.

I like to think pictorially, and for the image that comes to my mind is that of mildew which grows in dark and damp places. The pressent conservative set up is like that, with its U turns and its toxic policies that have no political mandate. Were there now a strong Labour party and leadership, it would be as impossible for Cameron et al to operate as it would be for the mildew to continue to grow if there was fresh air and direct sunlight.

The row about cuts is to me a classic example of how the Tories are winning the public over with flawed argument. Most will say that ”there is no money” and therefore we need to cut. Many also accept the parallel that it is like a household which is badly in debt and needs therefore to reign in their spending for a year or so. The argument is flawed because the household is isolated and has income(s) which is a given, and outgoings some of which can indeed be cut for the benefit of the household. Cutting spending in that model does not impact the given income. Of course in the case of a country, cutting spending means reducing economic activity and therefore shrinking the economy. In this model, even if the cuts saved money (and there is plenty of evidence that most of this government’s cuts come with costs which outweigh any saving), reducung economic activity will reduce revenue and therefore you cannot pay the debt.
A better model is that of a business in trouble. Yes there may be a few overheads that could be cut, but more importantly the business needs to win new work and more business. The best and only way out is to increase the revenue, as no business ever shrinks its way to success.

Back to the matter in hand and the fragility of the labour lead.
1. Labour needs to work harder on its economic record and economic policy. That is what wins elections, and many of the electorate will forgive injustice if they feel that their jobs are on the line, and that the unjust ones are going to deliver better economic prospects. The truth is that the Conservatives are not better for the economy but are wrongly getting credit for being better than Labour on this.
2. The Tories are not really small business friendly. For all of the agenda about suspending employees rights and the odd tax cut, what the small business really needs is a good customer base and the ability to grow new business. Many of the business that I see, the building trade, home improvement, plumbers and electricians etc. are all vulnerable to the effects of economic slowdown and are directly hurt when cuts force their would be customers to cut back over fear for their own jobs. While the Tories once were friends of the “small shopkeeper” etc. those days are gone and the Tories are now the friends of the rich carpet baggers of large corporations and the shareholders. Labour should be attracting the support therefore of the small buisiness community, as it would seek to create the market conditions in which these hardworking groups could thrive.

3 Labour needs to be clear as to what exactly it really says on the packet. And that which it is must be distinct from the other parties.

Finally, an area where I beleive that Labour is really vulnerable is if the Tory party should lurch even further to the rigth. There is considerable pressure on the current Tory leadership to swing right, pull the UK out of the EU and thus try to win (back in some cases) the support of another 10- 12% of the electorate that currently supports UKIP and even the BMP.

And there you have set out the problem (much more concisely than I did above)
It is like a conversation that runs like this:-

[Labour] “Look at the NHS, the lack of recovery, and an endless list of not doing what they said they would, and look at some of the antics of the Tories themselves”  
[Jo Public] “Yes the Tories are really damaging us”
[Labour] “vote for us just look at how bad this government is”
[Jo Pubilc] “Okay, but what would Labour do?”
[Labour] ………. Silence

[Jo Public] according to the papers though it was all Labour’s fault in the first place and the Tories are only trying to clear up your mess although they are doing a pretty bad job of it…
[Labour] …..silence…
[Jo Public] No answer then – so you are admit that it really was Labour’s fault?

[Labour] Our leader Ed is a very nice man and he was saying that in the past mistakes have been made…

Now can we see why any Labour lead might be frigile? It doesn’t quite cut it does it!