Poverty of Ambition
Martin Kettle writing in The Guardian lays bare the poverty of ambition that defines the Labour Party these days.
Under Ed Miliband's leadership the best Labour can hope for is to scrape home as the largest party, but with only one third or so of the popular vote and with a programme which is little different from that of the present Coalition Government.
Miliband is approaching the point of no return. He must now come out fighting
Labour needs to reconnect in southern marginals or raise its game in Scotland. Better still, do both
By Martin Kettle - The Guardian
Illustration by Joe Magee
The north Kent constituency of Rochester and Strood, where probably the most consequential byelection of this parliament will take place in three weeks’ time, is a seat that a strong Labour party could win. A confident Labour party certainly ought to be in strong contention. Instead, Ed Miliband seems resigned to finishing third behind the Conservatives and Ukip. No part of what this says about the Labour party’s condition is good.
Historically, Rochester and Strood is a Tory-Labour marginal. It is essentially the same seat as the former Medway constituency which, in turn, was much the same seat as the old Rochester and Chatham, which was first created in 1950. In most postwar general elections, as Rochester voted, so voted Britain. Over the decades, Labour’s record there has been good. After holding it for most of the 1950s, Labour’s Arthur Bottomley lost the seat to the Tories in 1959. Anne Kerr won it back for Labour in 1964 and retained it until 1970. Bob Bean ousted the Tories in October 1974 and held it until 1979. In 1997, Bob Marshall-Andrews captured Medway for Labour once again, holding on to it – rather to his own surprise – until 2010.
If you know your postwar political history, the conclusion is pretty obvious. To get a Labour government, you have to win Rochester and Strood. It is one of the seats in Kent – like Dartford and Dover – that help to make the difference between Labour general election victory and general election defeat. Without wins in the marginals in such counties as Kent, Berkshire, Essex and Hertfordshire, you don’t get Labour governments.
If a byelection like this had cropped up in the run-up to a general election in earlier eras of Labour opposition, the party would have thrown everything into winning it. Imagine a Rochester and Strood byelection in 1996. Tony Blair’s Labour party would have won at a canter. Today, although Labour has a good candidate, a committed campaign team and regular visits from front benchers, the officially undenied sense is that Labour is doing enough to make a respectable showing but not spending its slender resources on a hopeless cause.
The official response is to shrug the shoulders and observe that Rochester and Strood is only number 125 on Labour’s target list. But there’s an important reason for that. A target list reflects the results of the last election. In 2010, the swing from Labour to Tory in what the statisticians call the outer metropolitan area (OMA) – places such as Rochester and Strood – was particularly strong, 7.2% as against 5% in the UK as a whole. In the Kent Labour seats, such as Rochester and Strood, the swing was even stronger, 9.8%. The result was that Labour lost 10 of its 13 seats in the OMA, leaving only Slough and the two Luton seats.
What this says, therefore, is that seats such as Rochester strongly disliked what Labour offered in 2010, not that Labour can’t reach them if it tries. It says that such seats are volatile, not that they are unwinnable. And, as British politics is becoming more volatile, not less – and more geographically heterogeneous, not less – seats like this are winnable with the right message and good organisation.
Such places as Rochester contain a lot of traditional Labour voters as well as undecideds who have gone for Labour when it has spoken for the times. More than 13,650 people voted Labour in Rochester and Strood even in 2010, 28.5% of the turnout. Living in the south-east, burdened by high housing and travel costs, many of them in public-sector jobs where pay has been squeezed, lots of them will know exactly what a cost-of-living crisis, Labour’s central message, is all about.
At the very least, Labour ought to be increasing its share of the vote in the byelection. It has managed that more often than not in this parliament, even in Heywood and Middleton, though not in Clacton. In Rochester, that may not happen either. While some Labour voters are undoubtedly tempted to switch to Ukip, even when the Ukip candidate is the former Tory MP, there is also said to be evidence that better-off Labour voters are contemplating voting tactically for the Tories to keep Ukip out. For Labour in Rochester, the test is merely to hold on.
This might be a reasonable, if unheroic, strategy if things were going brilliantly elsewhere. But that is far from the case. Johann Lamont’s resignation as the Scottish Labour leader – and her decision to set light to the house as she left it – worsens Labour’s troubles in Scotland, where there seems to be near-panic about at least a dozen Labour seats falling to the SNP next May. A Ukip win in tomorrow’s South Yorkshire police and crime commissioner byelection would only add to the sense of disarray.
Give Miliband his due. He has come a long way since 2010 by staying unruffled. He is carrying out the political equivalent of Muhammad Ali’s “rope-a-dope” strategy of waiting to act until he thinks the time is right. And it may, just, work. Labour is marginally ahead in the polls and the electoral system is stacked against the Tories. But the stakes in late 2014 are now higher than they were in 2010. With the general election imminent, voters are beginning to pay attention, and attitudes are becoming more fixed. Attitudes towards Miliband are dire. Moreover, the cost of an error gets higher all the time.
For Miliband, a point of real crisis has now been reached. This crisis is all about the number of seats he needs to win. Miliband’s refusal to chase votes in southern English seats such as Rochester is predicated on the solidity of Labour seats in, for example, Scotland. While Scotland was secure, it could be argued that Kent did not matter. Now, however, Scotland is not secure. As a result, Kent again matters.
Miliband, therefore, has to come off the ropes now. He must either act decisively to restore Labour in Scotland – which means allowing the Scottish party to go its own way while remaining an ally, as the Bavarian CSU does with Angela Merkel’s CDU – or he must get out of his London comfort zone, fight Rochester to win and thus send a message to England. The option of doing nothing does not exist. But if he wants my advice, he should do both.
The north Kent constituency of Rochester and Strood, where probably the most consequential byelection of this parliament will take place in three weeks’ time, is a seat that a strong Labour party could win. A confident Labour party certainly ought to be in strong contention. Instead, Ed Miliband seems resigned to finishing third behind the Conservatives and Ukip. No part of what this says about the Labour party’s condition is good.
Historically, Rochester and Strood is a Tory-Labour marginal. It is essentially the same seat as the former Medway constituency which, in turn, was much the same seat as the old Rochester and Chatham, which was first created in 1950. In most postwar general elections, as Rochester voted, so voted Britain. Over the decades, Labour’s record there has been good. After holding it for most of the 1950s, Labour’s Arthur Bottomley lost the seat to the Tories in 1959. Anne Kerr won it back for Labour in 1964 and retained it until 1970. Bob Bean ousted the Tories in October 1974 and held it until 1979. In 1997, Bob Marshall-Andrews captured Medway for Labour once again, holding on to it – rather to his own surprise – until 2010.
If you know your postwar political history, the conclusion is pretty obvious. To get a Labour government, you have to win Rochester and Strood. It is one of the seats in Kent – like Dartford and Dover – that help to make the difference between Labour general election victory and general election defeat. Without wins in the marginals in such counties as Kent, Berkshire, Essex and Hertfordshire, you don’t get Labour governments.
If a byelection like this had cropped up in the run-up to a general election in earlier eras of Labour opposition, the party would have thrown everything into winning it. Imagine a Rochester and Strood byelection in 1996. Tony Blair’s Labour party would have won at a canter. Today, although Labour has a good candidate, a committed campaign team and regular visits from front benchers, the officially undenied sense is that Labour is doing enough to make a respectable showing but not spending its slender resources on a hopeless cause.
The official response is to shrug the shoulders and observe that Rochester and Strood is only number 125 on Labour’s target list. But there’s an important reason for that. A target list reflects the results of the last election. In 2010, the swing from Labour to Tory in what the statisticians call the outer metropolitan area (OMA) – places such as Rochester and Strood – was particularly strong, 7.2% as against 5% in the UK as a whole. In the Kent Labour seats, such as Rochester and Strood, the swing was even stronger, 9.8%. The result was that Labour lost 10 of its 13 seats in the OMA, leaving only Slough and the two Luton seats.
What this says, therefore, is that seats such as Rochester strongly disliked what Labour offered in 2010, not that Labour can’t reach them if it tries. It says that such seats are volatile, not that they are unwinnable. And, as British politics is becoming more volatile, not less – and more geographically heterogeneous, not less – seats like this are winnable with the right message and good organisation.
Such places as Rochester contain a lot of traditional Labour voters as well as undecideds who have gone for Labour when it has spoken for the times. More than 13,650 people voted Labour in Rochester and Strood even in 2010, 28.5% of the turnout. Living in the south-east, burdened by high housing and travel costs, many of them in public-sector jobs where pay has been squeezed, lots of them will know exactly what a cost-of-living crisis, Labour’s central message, is all about.
At the very least, Labour ought to be increasing its share of the vote in the byelection. It has managed that more often than not in this parliament, even in Heywood and Middleton, though not in Clacton. In Rochester, that may not happen either. While some Labour voters are undoubtedly tempted to switch to Ukip, even when the Ukip candidate is the former Tory MP, there is also said to be evidence that better-off Labour voters are contemplating voting tactically for the Tories to keep Ukip out. For Labour in Rochester, the test is merely to hold on.
This might be a reasonable, if unheroic, strategy if things were going brilliantly elsewhere. But that is far from the case. Johann Lamont’s resignation as the Scottish Labour leader – and her decision to set light to the house as she left it – worsens Labour’s troubles in Scotland, where there seems to be near-panic about at least a dozen Labour seats falling to the SNP next May. A Ukip win in tomorrow’s South Yorkshire police and crime commissioner byelection would only add to the sense of disarray.
Give Miliband his due. He has come a long way since 2010 by staying unruffled. He is carrying out the political equivalent of Muhammad Ali’s “rope-a-dope” strategy of waiting to act until he thinks the time is right. And it may, just, work. Labour is marginally ahead in the polls and the electoral system is stacked against the Tories. But the stakes in late 2014 are now higher than they were in 2010. With the general election imminent, voters are beginning to pay attention, and attitudes are becoming more fixed. Attitudes towards Miliband are dire. Moreover, the cost of an error gets higher all the time.
For Miliband, a point of real crisis has now been reached. This crisis is all about the number of seats he needs to win. Miliband’s refusal to chase votes in southern English seats such as Rochester is predicated on the solidity of Labour seats in, for example, Scotland. While Scotland was secure, it could be argued that Kent did not matter. Now, however, Scotland is not secure. As a result, Kent again matters.
Miliband, therefore, has to come off the ropes now. He must either act decisively to restore Labour in Scotland – which means allowing the Scottish party to go its own way while remaining an ally, as the Bavarian CSU does with Angela Merkel’s CDU – or he must get out of his London comfort zone, fight Rochester to win and thus send a message to England. The option of doing nothing does not exist. But if he wants my advice, he should do both.
