“Labour’s task ahead of May is difficult but do-able”: Douglas Alexander’s State of the Race Memo to Party activists and members

Some have accused David Cameron of taking the British people for granted given he seemed to presume victory in a general election in 2020 before a vote had been cast in the 2015 election. 

But in truth, what is more worrying about his remarks is what they say about his view of leadership and vision – or lack of it – for our country. 

His weakness is the result of a political failure to deliver his so called Tory-modernisation project. Because he knows that even after all this time the public are not convinced that he is a different type of leader or that he leads a different kind of Tory party.

The Tories have to reverse a 23 year losing streak 

I don’t deny that Labour faces a real challenge in trying to come back after just one term in opposition on May 7th, but David Cameron knows that the Tories are actually facing a battle to reverse a trend that has lasted more than two decades.

Because as someone who spends a lot of time studying the polls, for me the one number stands out above the rest is the startling fact that the Tory party hasn’t won a majority in 23 years – something David Cameron himself was profoundly aware of.

Any political strategist will tell you that for the Tories to lift the cap on their national vote share they need to fundamentally shift people’s long-held opinions of the party by neutralising key negatives that have prevented them from winning a majority for four general elections in a row.

So 40 days away from the next election, the key question for David Cameron, and his trusted election advisor Lynton Crosby, is how have they fared in this all-important task? 

Well, by any account, this month should have been a decisive one. This week the Conservative Party is launching their election campaign, last week George Osborne delivered his final Budget and yesterday we saw David Cameron set out his stall in front of a live studio audience.

And yet despite all of this, people in Tory HQ today will be sitting around staring at frustratingly flat graphs, familiar poll numbers and stubborn Labour leads on key issues like the NHS. 

What happened to David Cameron’s Tory modernisation project? 

Any Tory strategist worth their salary will be asking why? My answer to them is this: the Tory party is today paying the price for trying to implement a half-hearted modernisation project that acknowledged their negatives, but then utterly failed to address them.

Back in 1992, 15% agreed the Tories stood up for ‘people like them’ and 21% believed they were the best party on the NHS. Tory strategists saw David Cameron as the answer to these problems. Today, more than 20 years later, he is seen as the embodiment of them.

According to MORI, nearly 70% still see David Cameron as ‘out of touch’ and after 10 years of his leadership, the percentage of people who believe the Tories are the best party on the NHS is exactly the same as it was back in 1992. I’ve hardly received a focus group note that didn’t reference the fact that the words still most associated with the Tories are ‘rich’, ‘privileged’ and ‘out of touch.

Game changing moments that fail to change the game 

So what are the Tories doing about this? So far, a series of so called ‘game changing’ moments have come and gone with no impact on the polls.

Last week’s Budget, billed by some as the Tories secret weapon, only served to entrench long-held views about the party when the IFS concluded that the poorest were hardest hit and the NHS was barely warranted a mention. 

This followed last year’s Autumn Statement – touted as the launch of the Tory’s winning economic narrative, which actually ended up exposing the Tories hidden plan to take levels of public spending back to pre-war levels.

A desperate Tory HQ then billed the end of the Christmas recess as the key ‘cross-over’ moment when the Tories would establish a stable lead by exposing Labour’s economic back-hole. Instead, their spending-attack document was ridiculed and Labour maintained its position.

The problem with billing events like this as game-changing is that when they repeatedly don’t work, people start to question the strategy and not just the tactics behind them. 

The Tory’s strategy for this election is embodied by their chief strategist – Lynton Crosby. For him this election is all about mobilising the Tory base, mopping up potential UKIP voters and trying to scare voters away from voting Labour. But the missing part of his jigsaw is rehabilitating a damaged Tory-brand that has been a cap on their vote share since the early 1990’s. Without this, the Tories won’t move forward but instead risk drifting backwards. 

So going into this election, we know that not only are we fighting the same of old Tories, but even more heartening for us is that they are also still fighting the same old electoral battles. 

And even David Cameron must now be realising that although he has had over 10 years to do it, the 40 days he has left is not long for a Tory party that still needs to totally transform its image and dramatically broaden its appeal. 

Labour’s task ahead of May is difficult but do-able 

Labour’s task is different. We need to rebuild the coalition of support that won us three consecutive elections. But we need to do it by acknowledging the key lesson of Labour’s modernisers – that no two elections are the same. That is why Labour’s campaign is answering the big questions of today – how we build an economic recovery after the worst recession for a generation, and how to best protect our damaged NHS which is now top of people’s concerns. 

This week as I campaigned in Scotland, I made the case that only Labour offers the change that people in Scotland and across Britain need.

Of course we face challenges from not just the Conservatives, but also the Liberals, UKIP, the SNP and Plaid Cymru. But a simple truth endures amidst this changing electoral landscape: we will either end up with a Labour Government or a Conservative Government.

I know Labour isn’t in for an easy ride. And I don’t want to simply sit back and let the Tories lose it, again.

I want Labour to win.

I want all of us to have played our part in that. Together I do believe that we can make this election another tale of Tory decline, and a historic victory for Labour. 

Thanks,

Douglas Alexander

Chair of General Election Strategy