I’ve written a piece for the new Labour webzine Labour Uncut on a theme I have touched on before- the perils of pitching for the ‘centreground’ in a nation that is divided. How do I know it’s divided? Well, I co-wrote a report on it for Demos a couple of months back. And if you look at the outcome of the election it starkly demonstrates these divisions in action.
Here’s a key paragraph from the conclusion of that report:
“From the evidence already available it seems reasonable to question whether the crude segmentation of the electorate into ‘core voters’ and ‘swing voters’ is really that meaningful. People hold a range of political views, which can contradict one another and which shift over time. This also suggests that the concept of the political ‘centre ground’ is more complex and dynamic than is often assumed.”
This is a theme and argument I wanted to revisit and used Labour Uncut‘s kind invitation to write for them to do so. It’s always a risk publishing a few weeks before an election that can prove your core hypotheses wrong. But the report seems to have withstood the test. My only regret is that we edited out the following line: “the Conservatives will struggle to build a majority; and Labour is struggling to maintain one.” This will be the predominant state of British politics- gerrymandering aside.
So what does the next Labour have to do:
“Well, you have to acknowledge that Britain is divided and polarised. Then you need to accept that the only way to build a majority is to seek some form of pluralistic politics that builds alliances across different perspectives and social groups. And the only way to do that is with extraordinarily imaginative leadership that crafts a new and humble language, honest about the paradoxes of modern Britain.
Pitching to the centre, retail politics style, won’t work. So we may as well begin with an honest assessment of where Britain is and the real challenges it is facing, and argue for what is right. This will be both materialistic and idealistic – neither of which is better or worse than the other. And it will need a new and open politics underpinning it all.
The more it talks about ‘change’, the more Labour will sound out of touch. Does this all sound overwhelmingly complex? Yes, it kind of does. But that is the nature of modern Britain. The sooner we accept that fact, the better.”
Easy as that.
And as I’m in the habit of giving out Friday treats, here are some bullet points on Greenberg, Quinlan, Rosner’s numbers from the UK election (full presentation here):
- It doesn’t seem that Labour gained support and Liberal Democrats lost support in the final few days. In fact, the opposite seems to be the case. Labour’s advantage dated from prior to the campaign. (slide 6)
- Immigration isn’t that big an issue amongst those who would ‘consider voting Labour’ but is clearly a major issue amongst those that it has lost since 2005 (slide 14)
- …..there is a serious ABC1 v C2DE split on immigration (slide 17)
- And Labour’s support amongst C2DE voters was decimated…. (slide 18)
- Labour is now an urban and northern party in England (slide 20 and 21)
- Ed Balls and Harriet Harman have more negative ratings than Gordon Brown (slide 33).
- Those who ‘considered Labour’ want to see it in coalition (slide 38)
- Labour and ‘considered Labour’ voters want to see a cooperative centre-left project by large margins (hence my pluralism point) (slide 39)
- New Labour brand still much more preferable than old Labour amongst Labour, ‘considered Labour’, and former Labour voters (slide 40)
- …..and only current Labour voters favour a closer relationship with the unions (slide 41)
- Government intervention is favoured over ‘big society’ and leave it to the market (slides 47-50)
- And, finally, if George Osborne sees slide 57 then he will put up VAT immediately…..
Post script: Ipsos MORI have also published their tables which show a similar thing to GQR. The one additional comment to make is take a look at what happened to Labour’s vote amongst young women. Amongst 18-24 year olds it was down by 15%. Amongst 25-34 year-olds it was -5%. Amongst men it was 0% and -10% respectively.
Post script 2: Hopi Sen’s blog has also picked up the discussion (and I made a hasty iPhone comment on the tube there.)
May 21st, 2010 at 19:29
This was without question,a ‘change’ election and if these 2 studies can be extrapolated, the direction of future focus appears to be addressing apathy and antithesis in younger voters (particularly women).
Agree that immigration is an issue to address to attract wider support, a debate that will not sit comfortably with large numbers of party members pre-election (new members total 18,000 apparently). I suspect that this will not feature too heavily in the leadership contest as a result. Hard to see how this could be viewed to be a vote winner. Having said this, it appears more generally that there is a strong desire for honesty, definition and boldness in leadership decisions and party direction. Perhaps, in the near future, the next leader will face a clause IV type moment on this very issue?