Labour can’t be a “One Nation” party if we’re letting the Tories take seats uncontested

Labour’s messaging about One Nation is compelling, and is a prism through which Ed Miliband can argue that Labour speaks for the South as well as the North, and across class boundaries. The downside of course is that when Labour fails to perform well somewhere that the party has never had a cat in hells chance of winning – like Eastleigh – the media whine on about how Ed Miliband isn’t really serious about One Nation because the whole country isn’t turning red and the shires aren’t resounding to the refrain of the Red Flag.

What nonsense.

And yet all too often the party does itself damage on this score. Tomorrow Tory candidate Paul Spooner will be elected as Ash South and Tongham ward councillor in Guildford. That’s not a “David Miliband has won” style prediction, it’s a cast iron certainty. Bet the global economy on it. Because no other candidate is standing.

A local Labour councillor told the press that, “We made a strategic decision not to contest it.” So a strategic decision was taken not to even stand a paper candidate. Presumably the chances of the people of Ash South and Tongham swinging their support behind Labour was a long shot, but at the very least, they should have been given the choice.

I feel bad picking on Guildford Labour Party over this – they’re a hard working and dedicated bunch, fighting hard in Surrey (a county where even in 1997 we didn’t win a single seat), and they have two other borough by-elections on the same day. They are far from the only local party in the country who have failed to put up a Labour candidate in recent months and years. It’s an endemic problem in some parts of the country.

But for a “One Nation” party, repeatedly failing to field even the most paper of candidates to at least give the electorate a choice is completely unacceptable.