Labour’s poisoned chalice

By Dave Talbot / @_davetalbot

Thursday’s YouGov poll for The Sun had headline figures of CON 37%, LAB 42%, LDEM 8% – which is very much in line with most recent polling. There can be no doubt that Labour’s position has improved dramatically since last May when we were fighting to avoid third place and crashed to our second lowest share of the vote since 1922. There is tangible evidence that Labour is recovering and remembering how to campaign. Congratulations must go to Christian Klapp and the Putney Labour team – securing a swing of 13% in one of the safest Conservative seats on Wandsworth Council is to be applauded. But nationally the picture is far from sanguine, and headline figures are beginning to distort Labour’s recovery.

Labour’s poll lead is increasingly becoming a poisoned chalice. It’s actively insulating vast swathes of the party from examining why we lost last year and what we must do to win again. It hurts to be rejected and it will take time to rebuild our relationship with the electorate. But there is an element of denial about our position. Labour’s electoral problems are deep-rooted and prolonged. Labour won the 2005 general election with four million fewer votes than in 1997. The seemingly comfortable third term majority was won on 35.2% of the votes, or an active support of only 21.6% of the electorate. No other government has been elected with so little support from the ballot box since franchise reform in 1918. Amongst the large democracies, only Turkey has ever had a majority government with a smaller share of the vote.

The annihilation of 2010 has also taken on an enhanced result in the minds of many in the Labour Party. Avoiding the existential threat that was long feared but failed to materialise should not shield us from the reality of what the electorate delivered. Dodging a bullet is not the same as a good result. And despite a healthy national lead, the most sure-fire way of gauging the will of the people suggests an altogether different picture. An analysis of by-elections in June shows that Labour has a 1.4% projected nationwide lead. This is drastically down on where the party ought to be.

It confirms what was seen in the local elections back in May. Labour’s projected share of the vote was 37%, uncomfortably close to the Conservatives a year into office. Labour profited hugely from the Liberal Democrats’ misfortune. For every one seat the party captured from the Conservatives it secured two from Nick Clegg’s party. But Labour barely laid a glove on the Conservatives whose performance in England was more or less as good as in last year’s local elections, held on the same day as the general election.

Actual votes cast are always a better judge than hypothesising. Don’t believe the polls, we’re not striving ahead – we’re not even comfortably ahead. There is a pervading sense, unfair or otherwise, that Miliband and Labour should be doing much better. There is no organised discontent against Miliband, nor as yet any tentative challenge. But rather than deluding ourselves that all is well, there ought to be a powerful debate taking place about the future direction of the party, as there should be after a defeat of such profound proportions.