A West country balancing act

By Luke Pollard / @lukepollard

Some people thought Labour would roll over and spend its first few months out of power hampered by civil war, finger pointing and internal division. It hasn’t happened. Instead, we’ve focused our attacks on where the new coalition is weakest – on helping the poorest in society and in particular the Liberal Democrats. This has been a successful strategy to date, but is not without its risks and unforeseen consequences – especially outside of metropolitan areas.

Labour has a difficult balance to strike in the south-west when it comes to Liberal Democrat attack. For the past thirty years the Lib Dems were all that stopped the Tories from sweeping rural West country seats from Cornwall to Somerset. The Lib Dems held fast against Tory attack at election after election.

Not so much in 2010 though. The Clegg effect had buoyed many Lib Dem activists into believing that they could mistakenly turn more constituencies yellow and take Labour seats in Plymouth and Exeter as well as eating away safe at Tory majorities elsewhere. They were wrong, and their lack of focus on their safe and marginal seats helped the Tories win in places they really shouldn’t have.

Political pundits will recall Julia Goldsworthy losing the redrawn Camborne, Redruth & Hayle seat (no doubt helped in part by some frankly outrageous furniture expense claims) but there were two more Tory gains in Cornwall alone: South East Cornwall and Truro and Falmouth.

I am pleased to see Labour on the attack highlighting the Liberal Democrats sell out on virtually every key principle they fought the election on. Just days before the general election half of Plymouth’s Liberal Democrat executive defected to Labour. I wonder if the other half are now tempted because of Clegg’s slaughter of Lib Dem sacred cows? I know from the number of emails my campaign team in south-west Devon are still receiving from disgruntled Lib Dem voters that many are not comfortable with being allied to the Tories and being set up as their fall guys.

There is a clear window of opportunity for Labour to attack the Liberal Democrats and this is being seized upon by Labour activists and rightly so. Let’s be clear, in selling out on VAT and so much more the Liberal Democrats deserve all the policy scrutiny, outrage, disappointment and attack that they are getting and much more when the cuts and VAT hike begins to bite come Christmas. VAT is a regressive tax that will hit the poorest in Britain – many of whom live in the low-wage economies of the south-west. Voting through a VAT hike is a knife in the back for these families.

But in Labour’s haste to highlight Lib Dem errors and poor judgment let’s also be mindful that for many years the Liberal Democrats were the only party stopping the Tories sweeping the West county. This is important because an outright Tory majority might well be aided by gains west of Bristol.

Labour must find a careful balance between winning more votes and activists and letting the Tories in by the back door. If Cameron is indeed setting the Liberal Democrats up as scapegoats for the coalition’s progressive agenda then it will be in places like the West country where he hopes to complete the deal by winning Lib Dem seats.

Labour has our own fights in the West county and in many Tory/Lib Dem battleground seats frankly we can do little to influence the final outcome. Should that stop us from fighting and highlighting the Lib Dem’s betrayal of ordinary West country folk? Absolutely not. As far as I’m concerned they’re fair game but let’s remember for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction – and we might not always like the consequences.