Labour, forwards not back

By Tom Miller / @tommilleruk

5%. 3%.

These are the numbers that Labour found itself ahead by in polls announced on the 16th and 18 of November, by Yougov and Ipsos MORI respectively. The latter was the highest result Labour has achieved with that polling firm in three years.

Not bad, considering that we lost an election this year.

So if you were a senior member of the shadow cabinet, the obvious thing to do would be to have a rebellion. Or two, as it happens. Ed’s absence was greeted by Alan Johnson, who presumably was repaying Ed for his generosity in awarding him a position over the heads of competent and experienced economists Yvette Cooper and Ed Balls. Both of whom topped Johnson in the shadow cabinet elections. What a wonderful way to demonstrate gratitude and solidarity. What a compelete gift to the government.

That’s the price of pluralism, perhaps.

After intervening in the leadership contest to slam Ed’s policy on student fees (but without putting his own policy to the popularity test), Johnson moved for Labour to back an eventual income tax cut for top rate payers, i.e. those earning over £150,000 a year. “Haven’t the rich suffered enough?“, whines the ever oppressed Lord Mandelson.

Public services are about to be utterly devastated in this country, and we have a deficit to close for future spending, so I am not sure I really understand a policy of reducing the overall income, inheritance or corporation tax takings within the next couple of decades.

At a time when working people are struggling under Cameron and Clegg’s completely unmandated increase in VAT, and swing-voting ‘squeezed middle’ earners are feeling more squeezed than ever before as the cost of living continues to rise, I also have no idea why Labour’s priority, if tax cuts have to be made, should be those earning under 150,000. And the policy is a popular one too.

Maybe it is us doing well in the polls Johnson objects to?

Why does Johnson decide that now is the time to ‘rock the boat’? Ed Miliband has been in the leadership position for just a couple of months, and Alan Johnson is a practised, cabinet level political operator who owes his continuing career to the patronage of the new leader. These things are not said without intention.

From the point of view of he and Blairites more widely, it seems tactical madness to allow themselves to be seen as undermining Ed, but especially at a stage where they have given him no opportunity whatsoever to prove his mettle, leadership or popularity. I genuinely don’t get why this was timed now, whether their motive was noble or base.

If Dan Hodges’ New Statesman piece is anything to go by, the Brownites are also not without sin in this regard. If this is really true, all of ‘continuity New Labour’ are making themselves look outmoded. However, given Ed Balls’s brave and perhaps counter-intuitive stance on civil liberties, perhaps he is ‘on message’ after all – certainly compared to others this week.

After fees and tax, Johnson then got stuck into the unions and their debatable power to massively influence public life. Apparently that’s a priority problem in Britain. Regardless of what the papers say, most people down my road are more worried about jobs and the cost of educating the kids, but there you go.

Ed Miliband was the second most popular candidate out of five among MPs and rank-and-file members.

He received tens of thousands more individual votes than David Miliband, as Labour’s leadership college limits the votes of affilliated members to one third of the total, even though they far outnumber constituency members, even once cut down to turnout level.

Much has been made of MPs votes being worth hundreds of those of ordinary members. But the votes of ordinary members are also several times more powerful than those of trade union and socialist society members, who under this argument are surely the most under-represented part of the Labour Party in leadership elections.

The vote itself actually came out as being very close across all fronts, though less so among the Parliamentary Labour Party. Tightly balanced. So the last part of the Blairite critique of the system I simply don’t understand is how an election which actually produced a very close result, after a number of rounds, can be described as being ‘dominated’ by one part of an electoral college.

Indeed, how do this section ‘dominate’ at all, given that David actually did almost as well as Ed? If he had won to his brother’s right, on the back of a union vote, you can bet the media debate would look rather different now. I will declare a bias. I think the unions are a valuable voice and want their little remaining influence protected. This does not make any of what I write incorrect.

David Miliband knew the system – and in fact pledged to protect it – though Johnson, Hodge, Mandelson et al strangely decline to mention this. Hodge does not even appear to understand the system.

David failed to reach out to the elected representatives in Trade Unions quite enough to make his slightly better vote in the other sections make the difference. Sad, but tough. That is his problem, and a problem for his team.

They did not do enough to improve their image as Blairites, and in any event, they did nothing to stop the image within the party of Blairites worsening over the years, to the point where other parts of the party feel unincluded, unempathetic, and unable to work with them.

David Miliband was not a strong enough leader to change this perception. The people he is associated with have been annoying rank and file members for years, along with trade unionists. If they hadn’t, as the older brother, and a very well presented speaker, he would have won by miles. But it has all happened.

Even if he had won, it was he who promised to ‘defend the union link’. Perhaps he is a little left of Ed? Why will Johnson respect neither?

There is an obvious reason that Blairite faction-fighters like Johnson are now being so vocal is that after the victories of Ed Miliband (soft right/party centre), Ken Livingstone (no need for explanations), and several party centre victories in local selections, they feel gutted. Fair enough, but they need to learn to deal with it as everyone else has for years. If only they were as used to being beaten as the rest of us in the party.

Blairism, as far as its adherents concede that it exists, is sometimes marked by the belief, as naïve or indeed sinister as it seems, that a formerly centre-left party can win infinite elections by aping its opponent. At the harsh end, this can be seen as a feeling of permanent entitlement to rule. Naturally, therefore, some shock can result.

In a similar fashion, it is almost as if more factionalist Blairites believe in a permanent right to control Labour. ‘We disagree with electoral systems which don’t turn out the way we like. The answer is not right. Change the question’.

In their mind, the Labour Party must always, always be ruled by its hard right flank, no matter what its various types of member think. It must be publicly pitched in opposition to working people rather than in a frank and complex friendship with them. Pitched in opposition to grassroots Labour activists, never in an open or honest relationship. Their friends in the media don’t even understand that a friendship can be complex and sometimes difficult. If you are cordial, ‘the unions control your agenda’. What a missed opportunity for geniune insight.

Ten years ago the Labour right used to control bigger chunks of the unions than it does now. Alan Johnson was General Secretary of one. They were alright then. Not dinosaurs, as they are now unfairly cast by the John Rentouls of this world, but modernisers. Tom Watson explains a bit about that period here.

It was the smiley chap with the ears, after all, who argued that ‘the goalposts have moved’. Perhaps this is why leadership loyalty comes and goes so quickly among his fickle parliamentary devotees?

This whole union argument is just a repetition of the nonsense certain personalities gave London region over the mayoral selection.

In real communities, most back 50% tax, and hardly any care about or understand the electoral college. But the fighting that has resulted from Johnson’s interventions has all been deeply unhelpful.

We sounded like a post-football phone-in. People moaning over unexpected results, and bickering about whether the ball crossed the line.

5% and 3% cent have now vanished, with YouGov announcing a 2% Tory lead. I’m going to use a bit of license and thank Johnson & co for that.

They should all be falling in line.

Labour members and MPs, as well as Trade Unionists, should always feel free to speak out over anything they like. But it makes much more sense for them and the party itself to do that when we are doing badly in the polls, or shifting away from our values. Not when things on both fronts have been moving in the opposite direction and so little time has passed.

No part of Labour has a right to permanent control, or to freedom from scrutiny. But none has a right to be free from all responsibility.

After a week of dischord and sniping from the party’s less responsible right wingers, Ed now returns from paternity leave with the Tories back in front, and his platform under attack from individuals with a far weaker mandate than the leader himself. He needs the party centre with its moderate soft left and soft right wings to rally round him.

He has not been in office long. Some do not like him, or the programme he stood on. This is natural, and Ed has showed maturity in working to include them. But there is a bottom line. Ed is now leader. His profile might have been a little low, and he might need a little polishing, but he has been doing well. Under rules we all agreed on at the time, he has a fresh mandate. Who elected Alan Johnson to be shadow chancellor?

Keep nerve, and stay true to values. Take some responsibility. Until he has had a chance to prove himself, let the leader lead.

Ed Miliband is that Labour leader. His brand of modernity might look a little different. It is supposed to. It is time the previous generation of Labour politicans understood it, accepted it, and opened themselves to what it means.