Things Can't Only Get Better

As I read this opinion article by Dan Hodges in The Telegraph a tune jumped into my head - D:Ream's 'Things Can Only get Better' which became the Labour Party anthem in the run up to the 1997 general election.

Tony Blair won by a landslide, of course, ushering in 13 unbroken years of Labour rule during which time the party had a working majority of MPs at Westminster.

How times change! 

Because all those years ago Brian Cox played keyboards with D:Ream, but is now a major TV personality and Professor of Physics who can make quantum mechanics interesting and exciting.  

In the meantime, Labour's membership has continued to drop like a stone and morale within the party seems to be at an all time low. 


Things are bad for Labour – but they could get a lot worse

By Dan Hodges - The Telegraph

Photo: AFP

Just how low can Labour go? Yesterday I was chatting to a Labour MP about the Ed Miliband issue. “Forget about Ed. He’s the least of our problems,” he said ruefully, before launching into a litany of his party’s woes.

It’s now 18 months since I wrote a piece revealing Labour was pursuing a “35 per cent strategy”. At the time it was rubbished by Ed Miliband’s advisers. "Aiming for 35 per cent suggests we'd settle for less, which is one of many reasons why it would be stupid to have that as our strategy,” one of them dismissively told the New Statesman.

It was a view that was endorsed at the time by Lord Ashcroft, and his analysis of the post-2010 political landscape. “While the Conservatives struggle to piece together two fifths of the electorate, Labour’s core support plus Left-leaning former Lib Dems could theoretically give Ed Miliband close to 40 per cent of the vote without needing to get out of bed,” he said.

On Monday Lord Ashcroft’s weekly poll gave Labour 32 per cent of the vote. A week earlier it had them on 30 per cent. Today’s UK polling report average has Labour on 34 per cent (although admittedly that is an average that clusters around the post-conference, pre-Clacton Tory bounce).

There is no one – not even within Ed Miliband’s inner circle – who believes Labour is remotely in with a chance of breaking 40 per cent next May. Nor is there anyone outside of that circle who now seriously argues with the proposition Labour has indeed been pursuing a 35 per cent “core vote” strategy.

With precious little success. Labour is struggling to secure 35 per cent of the vote now, seven months from polling day. Again, there are few serious analysts who expect Labour’s vote share will actually rise as polling day approaches.

So just how low can Labour’s vote share fall? Until now there has been a solid floor which all political observers, regardless of their perspective, have agreed upon. We all assumed it was inconceivable Labour could drop below the 29 per cent they scored in 2010. The party couldn’t be blamed for the nation’s woes, Gordon Brown was no longer leader, the Lib Dem collapse meant Labour’s vote share had to rise.

It’s not inconceivable any more. After the events of the past month, any Labour MP or activist that regards 29 per cent as the absolute bedrock of Labour’s vote share does so at their peril.

First, let’s take those fundamentals I mentioned earlier. Labour will actually go into the next election with an even more unpopular leader than it did in 2010. Gordon Brown was a polarising figure, but he was liked by Labour voters. Ed Miliband is not a polarising figure. No one thinks he is up to the job of being prime minister, including a majority of potential Labour supporters.

Next, people do still blame Labour for the nation’s woes. Most people assumed Labour would deploy the normal strategy adopted by any party ejected from government – acknowledge your mistakes, apologise for them and move on. But Labour hasn’t. Instead the strategy has been to acknowledged little, apologise for less and pledge more of the same.

Then there is the Lib Dem security blanket. Yes, a proportion of the 2010 Lib Dem vote has defected to Labour. But look at where Labour currently sits. Labour is on 34 per cent, with the Lib Dems on 8 per cent. 8 per cent. That really is the floor for the Lib Dems. Their vote share will rise, purely for the reason it has no where left to go. And as it does, Labour’s will fall.

So each of those fundamentals we assumed would protect Labour’s vote share have proven not to be fundamentals at all. And there are others.

First, take what’s happening in Scotland. A recent poll showed Labour had fallen ten points in Westminster voting intention, down from 42 per cent in 2010 to 32 per cent. At the same time the SNP had jumped from 20 per cent in 2010 to 34 per cent. Meanwhile SNP membership has reportedly tripled to 75,000 members in the wake of the referendum. In contrast Labour’s Scottish membership is now said to be in the region of 13,000. Not only will this have a direct impact on Labour’s vote share and seats north of the border, it also means Labour will now be forced to deploy scarce resources trying to defend what was previously thought to be its heartland.

A similar problem is developing in another supposed bastion, London. This morning’s Mirror carries the headline “Labour to calm mansion tax tensions by revealing toned-down plan”. According to Jason Beattie “Labour is set to clarify its plans for a mansion tax amid a growing backlash from supporters. Ed Balls announced at the party conference he hoped to raise £1.2 billion from taxing homes worth £2 million or more. But the policy has been criticised by some Labour MPs who fear it will drive away middle-class voters." Too late. The genie is out of the bottle, and it’ll be zooming in and out of every semi between Barnet to Bromley from now until polling day.

And then of course there is Ukip. In both the supposedly secure North, and the bandit country of the South, Labour is now confronted by Nigel Farage’s guerrilla army. As I’ve written countless times, Ukip is not the electoral threat to either Labour or the Tories the current bout of Kippermania would have us believe. But there is no doubt Ukip will take votes off Labour, and Labour will again have to deploy resources to counter the purple peril.

All of these are concrete reasons why Labour’s vote will be put under pressure in ways it was not in 2010. But there are other fresh existential challenges facing Ed Miliband and his party.

At the last election Labour enjoyed the benefit of incumbency. They represented a known quantity. People may not have liked Gordon Brown or his administration, but they knew where it stood on the major issues of the day. Back then it was David Cameron and the Tories who represented a leap in the dark. In seven months time it is the black void of an Ed Miliband government the voters will see stretching before them. And come the moment of decision many of them will refuse the invitation to jump.

There is one final reason why the 29 per cent Labour secured in 2010 is no longer the floor for Labour’s vote share. A significant proportion of that 2010 vote has already crumbled away. A YouGov poll published in February found that Labour had lost 26 per cent of its vote from the last election. Half a million Labour voters have died. 1.2 million have switched to other parties. And a further 800,000 say they don’t know how they’ll vote now. In fact, YouGov’s survey found the Tories have more “loyal” voters (6.5 million) than Labour (6.1 million). So, based on those figures, Labour’s base is actually around 21.5 per cent.

It’s unlikely that even Ed Miliband will manage to drag Labour that far down. But those Labour supporters who were reassuring themselves with the thought that at least things couldn’t get worse than 2010 were wrong.

In 2010 Labour had a more popular leader. Since 2010 Labour has not acknowledged its mistakes, nor has it moved on. The only way the Lib Dem vote can go is up. In 2010 there was no SNP threat in Scotland. Or Mansion Tax threat in London. Or Ukip surge. Labour enjoyed the benefits of incumbency. David Cameron and the Tories represented the risk of the unknown. And quarter of those 2010 votes have already melted away.

Things can get worse for Labour. A lot worse.