“People deserve a better campaign than the one the Tories are running” – Douglas Alexander’s State of the Race Memo to party activists and members

Here’s Douglas Alexander’s latest state of the race memo  – which LabourList readers can read exclusively before anyone else. We’ll be posting these each week to give you a unique insight through the final weeks of the campaign.

Dear Friend,

THE TORIES CAMPAIGN TACTICS EXPOSE THEIR FALTERING ELECTORAL STRATEGY 

This week we saw some frankly embarrassing interviews by Michael Fallon which I think said a lot more about the parlous state of the Tory campaign than they did about our national security.

A few days on, I think most people feel that the Tory tactics actually backfired on them and exposed the hint of desperation already surrounding their faltering campaign.

But even if the way the Tories conducted themselves this week actually ends up benefiting us and harming them, I still would have genuinely preferred that they hadn’t chosen to do this in the first place.

Because as politicians we all share a responsibility to police the parameters of decent political debate. This is hardest to do during the heat of an election campaign, but it is also the most important time to try.

We know the Tories have been long waiting for the promised cross-over moment. When it failed to come, Lynton Crosby was let off the leash and the Tories are resorting to tactics which I simply don’t think will work for them, and frankly undermine trust in all politicians.

In a campaign as tough as this and an election as tight as this, of course you would expect some heated and passionate exchanges. But even as someone who has worked on tough and testing campaigns in the past, I was genuinely surprised by the campaign decisions the Tories took this week.

And the truth is, this type of politics just doesn’t work. Remember the last gasps of John Major’s election campaign in 1997? The Tory posters of Tony Blair with so-called ‘Demon Eyes’ not only backfired with the British public, but also proved just how desperate the Conservatives had become.

I still believe that David Cameron wanted to run a different kind of campaign. For a leader who started out saying ‘let sunshine win the day’, the relentless negativity of the Crosby campaign must be a long way from where he thought he would be at this stage.

So here’s a bit of free advice – concentrate on what you have to offer, like Ed Miliband has this week with our announcement on non-doms and the battle against tax avoidance or our Future Homes Investment Fund.

People not only deserve a better campaign than the one the Tories are running, they will make a choice about two visions for the future, not desperate speeches that are simply a means of character attack and demean the accuser more than the accused.

DEFENDING THE INDEFENSIBLE – HOW FAR WILL THE TORIES GO?

As the fog of battle this week is clearing, I think the choices at this election on the issues of fairness in our economy are crystallising.

On May 7th the choice will be between a Labour government willing to take on the difficult but deliverable issue of making the tax system in this country fairer, and a Tory government willing to defend anachronistic tax rules for UK residents while proposing a tax cut for millionaires.

This week the Tories were desperate to paint the issue of non-dom tax rules as a right-left issue, but to most people who examine the details, it is more a case of right and wrong. That is why, as the journalists, business people and independent experts took to the airwaves to make the case for reform, the Tories were forced to try and change tack.

They went from dismissing the policy as too left wing, to suggesting it didn’t go far enough, then queried its deliverability before admitting they would have to further examine the details.

The truth is, the issue of non-dom taxation will be seen as a key litmus test policy in this election. Of course it’s not necessarily the policy that personally affects most voters directly, or one that was top of people’s minds before the campaign got started. But I do think that the public will look at the issue now as a key test of the motives, priorities and judgement of any future government.

The question at the election will be distilled down to whether you want a party willing to ensure that people at the top pay their fair share while millions pay less, or a party willing to defend the indefensible on non-doms while advocating the incomprehensible on a millionaires tax cut.

INCREASED COVERAGE WILL BRING INCREASED SCRUTINY 

At the start of the week, a lot of the campaign coverage was focused on some of the other parties, like the Greens and UKIP. I think some of this coverage has been revealing, but at times it has also obscured one key fact about this election – that afterMay 7th there will be either a Labour or a Conservative Prime Minister.

That said, I don’t deny that all mainstream parties face real and difficult challenges. At the 1951 general election, 96 per cent of the British electorate backed either Labour or the Conservatives. In 2010 the two parties combined got just over 65 per cent on a turnout of 65 per cent.

In recent years we have seen a very different kind of political business model emerging. One which sees grievance as a commodity to be quarried, offers a cry of protest to people who feel voiceless and amplifies concerns too often without any pretence that they can be resolved.

In recent months some of the other parties – like UKIP and the Greens – have benefited from increased coverage, but without necessarily facing increased scrutiny. But I think the start of the short campaign has changed that.

All parties will now be increasingly forced to answer questions not just about what they want to deliver, but how they will deliver it and how much it will cost. When the leader of the Green Party – Natalie Bennett – failed to answer a question about how one of her manifesto pledges would be funded, it wasn’t because she was asked a killer question that couldn’t have been anticipated, it was just that she hadn’t ever really been asked it before.

During an election campaign, amplifying anger is not enough. The public, rightly, demand concrete and clear answers.

That is why Labour’s campaign for the weeks ahead is built on three key pillars. First, acknowledging and engaging with the depth of the anger and concern among so many voters today.

Second, telling a deeper national story about the kind of vision we have for our country’s future.

But thirdly, we will also work to match public anger with policy answers that address voters’ concerns. From our pledge to fund our NHS to our promise to raise the minimum wage and make work pay. With concrete changes we will deliver, from zero hours, ending non-doms to neighbourhood policing. And every one is paid for.

On the other hand, today the Tories are announcing billions of pounds of promises that they have no plans to pay for. These totally unfunded commitments are on top of all their existing unfunded commitments – including £10bn of unfunded tax cuts. So ‎what we have seen this week is a desperate Tory campaign that has spent a day defending tax avoidance and the next launching increasingly desperate negative attacks. Today they are just making promises they have no plan to
keep.

Labour have the policies to help change Britain into the country we know it can be. But we also have a plan for delivering this. I am confident that this will be the key to winning people’s trust and winning voters’ support, on May 7th.

FIVE SOURCES OF TORY INSTABILITY, FIVE YEARS OF CHAOS 

We already know that the Tory campaign strategy is based on trying to paint this election as a choice between competence and chaos. In other words, stability and instability.

I know you are not meant to engage with your opponents ‘frame’, but let’s follow the Tories’ case for just a moment. Take a step back and imagine that you wake up on May 8th with David Cameron as Prime Minister. It’s not hard to see how the seeds would have already been sewn for five sources of Tory instability that could lead to five damaging years of political instability for the country.

First, as soon as David Cameron put a sell-by-date on his leadership of the Tory party, we now have the unavoidable reality of potential leadership contenders all starting to jostle for position, anticipating the inevitable switch over moment.

Second, if David Cameron gets a second term, even his closest allies and strongest admirers would admit that Britain would face at least two years of damaging instability in the run up to an unpredictable and uncertain referendum on our membership of the EU.

Third, and perhaps most worryingly, would be the morning after the night of the referendum – whatever the result – when the governing party could face a huge split and bitter political row about how to move forward.

Fourth, now that David Cameron has fired the starting gun on his own departure, the pressure would inevitably mount on him to name the date and set the wheels in motion as soon as the referendum was
over.

Finally, a Tory leadership race in the run up to 2020, with a growing ideological divide within an already divided party, would not be the ideal circumstances for restoring stability and security to Britain.

That’s not a choice I want our country to make. As Ed says….”Britain can be better than this”.

That belief will keep us going in the crucial days ahead.

Thanks as always for your support and hard work.

Douglas