We can’t win by being less bad than the others

By Lisa Nandy MP / @lisanandy

Last night’s resounding victory for Labour in Barnsley Central was notable for the hollowing out of the Liberal Democrat vote as they plummeted from 2nd to an astonishing 6th place. But Barnsley wasn’t the only by-election that took place last night. In Salford, Labour held on to the Walken North Ward, with an enormous 15.9% swing from Conservative to Labour; in the Riverside Ward of Cardiff, Labour took a seat from Plaid Cymru and I’m proud to say that in Wigan, Lawrence Hunt sailed to victory, taking his council seat from the Conservatives.

The headlines this morning have been dominated by the failure of the Liberal Democrats to poll well in Barnsley and it has been the same across the country. In Salford, their share of the vote fell from 762 in May to 62; in March North in Cambridgeshire, they dropped behind Labour to third place and the Cardiff result was almost certainly a consequence of their partnership with Plaid Cymru on Cardiff council.

Martin Kettle makes the point that in traditional Labour areas, like Barnsley or Wigan, you cannot overstate conclusions from the collapse of the Lib Dems who, despite sometimes polling well, have never really had a strong core of support there. What is perhaps more significant is that the Liberals, undeniably the junior partners in the coalition are bearing the brunt in the polls. The Conservatives have taken a hit but it is nothing compared to the hammering the Liberals are getting.

Having been out on the doorstep I think it is because the Liberals have been exposed. They fought the last election, just as they have fought every election for the last twenty years, on the basis that they were ‘none of the above’. People may not have been entirely sure what they were voting for but they knew very well what they were voting against. But it is symbolic of the national mood that people want their politicians to stand for, and not just against, something.

On the basis of council results last night, May will be a crisis point for the Lib Dems, forcing their parliamentary party to confront the growing differences their spell in government has exposed between their leadership and their members. The reason they have buckled under such pressure is because they have no underpinning ideology to rely on; no unifying value system on which their policies are based. I’ve seen Liberal Democrats try to out-left Labour ones in the latter’s natural heartlands and I’ve seen them compete on neo-liberal terms with Conservative candidates; for years they were successful in being all things to all people.

The Conservatives’ approach to government is exactly what we expected of them: small state, divisive, neo-liberal. Few can be surprised at the wrecking ball they’ve taken to the public sector. But the Liberal Democrats have disappointed thousands of their voters across the country. Will they recover as a national party? I would imagine so but they’re going to have to make very clear what they stand for, not just what they stand against.

There are clear lessons in this for Ed Miliband’s Labour Party. The coalition’s programme is dividing people into clear camps, and has some support because the likes of Osborne, Gove et al have a clear ideology, which some share. Labour must have a vision that is clear, different and positive if we are going to win the next election. We will never win simply by saying ‘we are not quite as bad as the others’.