CAN LABOUR EVER WIN AGAIN ?

 

 

I’m not sure Labour can ever win another General Election, certainly under Corbyn and possibly anyone else.

The industrial and trade union base went long ago. Their traditional working class support is flirting with UKIP or if they are old, voting Tory. Scotland has fallen to the SNP and if the Scots want an alternative, the Tory Ruth Davidson is a better bet than Kezia Dugdale, the latest unknown to lead the Labour Party in Scotland.

Then there are the vicious Tories. Not content with smashing the Lib Dems, they are now targeting Labour with a string of legislative measures that will weaken them like individual voter registration, the reduction in parliamentary seats and the requirement for trade unionists to opt in to paying the political levy.

Then we come to the director of the polling organisation Britain Thinks. I heard Deborah Mattinson speaking at a Labour conference in London last weekend. Delegates had just heard party leader Jeremy Corbyn speaking. He was calm, unspun and true as ever to his socialist principles. He gave unilateralism a rest, instead coming up with the idea that companies should be prevented from paying dividends to their shareholders if they didn’t pay the living wage.

He was given a good round of applause and then the delegates spent the rest of the day looking at the mountain, nay the north face of the Eiger, that they would have to climb to win power again. They will need to win an additional 106 seats and 40% of the total vote to win in 2020. Last year they needed a swing of 5% in the marginal seats, next time it will be 10 %.

Now here’s the killer for Labour. In 2015 they could rely on large numbers of Liberal Democrats coming across. Next time 4 out of the 5 new voters Labour will need will have to be people who voted Conservative last time. How likely are Tory voters in Milton Keynes, Nuneaton, Bolton West and Morley to vote for Jeremy Corbyn?

Next the age problem. Older people vote and are increasingly voting Tory whereas the young who are more left leaning are far less inclined to go to the polling station.

Now I want to turn to a man with a low profile but who had a big job in last year’s election, Tom Baldwin. He was Ed Miliband’s senior adviser. He spoke some home truths to the activists, like don’t trash your record and expect to win. He was referring to the way the record of three time election winner Tony Blair has been heavily criticised by Labour activists keen to distance themselves from “New Labour”. Baldwin says that was why the Tories were able to blame the last Labour government for messing up the economy when in fact it was the victim of a global crash.

It gives me no satisfaction at all to write this. I want a vibrant democracy with two or three parties vying for power under a fair election system. But if we are not to face the prospect of the Tories in power for twenty years, what is to be done? Labour MPs who believe in “heart and head” social democracy need to sink their differences with Liberal Democrats and moderate Greens. Then they need to form a new party to represent the centre left where the British people have been in 1945, 1964, 1974 and for thirteen years from 1997.

 

TORIES MOVING AT PACE

 

GOOD FOR BUSINESS?

It’s the first wholly Tory Queen’s Speech since 1996 and David Cameron is in a hurry to get things done. That’s sensible politics because the grim reaper and rebel backbenchers may erode his fragile majority. Also after the EU referendum, the clamour will rise for him to depart. The downside is that the 20 odd bills are rammed through without proper scrutiny in the first session of the parliament in contrast to the zombie session that is likely in 2019-20. Our poor legislative calendar leads to poor laws.

The programme reflects the Conservatives breaking free from the Lib Dems and business will welcome many of the proposals. The Enterprise Bill promises to cut red tape (where have we heard that before?) and sets up a conciliation service to deal with disputes between firms. The “Tax Lock” Bill has been criticised by former Chancellor Nigel Lawson, and quite right too. Passing a law to stop rises in income tax, VAT and National Insurance is unwisely restrictive. It shows how low political credibility has shrunk and there are ways round the income tax pledge anyway. The bill to let housing association tenants buy their homes will do nothing to deal with the underlying problems of the housing market. There are already signs of overheating in the South East now that the threat of a mansion tax has gone away.

One had hoped that in, what is effectively a second term, the Conservatives would have introduced wide ranging constitutional reform to deal with ending two tier local government and the House of Lords amongst other things. Instead a piecemeal approach is being adopted. Scotland will get devo max whilst Ministers hope to make low key changes to parliamentary standing orders to introduce English votes for English laws. Then we will have a bill to give power over transport, housing, planning and policing to northern cities. And that’s it. The interim elected mayor for Greater Manchester is due to be announced this afternoon. It may be a close vote between current Combined Authority leader Peter Smith and Police Commissioner Tony Lloyd.

Trade Union members are going to have to opt in to contribute to the Labour Party in a bill that also raises the threshold for calling strikes. We now need a bill to allow customers to deduct an amount from the price they are charged by companies that fund the Tory Party.

It is good news that the EU Referendum Bill will define the question to be asked, “Should the UK remain in the EU?” That gives those of us supporting our continued membership the opportunity to be on the bright positive “yes” side whilst the better off out brigade will be associated with the negative “no” proposition.

MANDY FOR MANCHESTER?

Manchester University is on a roll under the leadership of Vice Chancellor Nancy Rothwell. The institution is embracing the Northern Powerhouse with all the opportunities for business and the academic world to work together.

Now Lord Peter Mandelson wants to lend his shoulder to the wheel by becoming Chancellor. It is an honorary position but one where he could use his worldwide contacts to benefit the university. In government he had responsibility for higher education policy and was a northern MP.

He obviously brings some political baggage but he would be a high profile successor to Urban Splash boss Tom Bloxham.

Mandelson is opposed in the election by writer and broadcaster Lemn Sissay and the Music Director of the Halle Orchestra Sir Mark Elder.

 

LONG MARCH BACK FOR THE LEFT

 

EARLY MOVES.

Despite the smorgasbord of left wing parties on offer at the General Election, the Conservatives sail serenely into total control.

It could well be a ten year journey for Labour. Their banker seats in Scotland have been wiped out and the Tories will put through boundary changes that will cost Labour twenty seats.

There are serious worries amongst Lib Dem insiders about whether they can survive financially. The cost of lost deposits alone is huge.

The Greens are likely to remain victims of the first past the post system which the Conservatives won’t change.

The first step on that road needs to be a really radical debate, it could even include a discussion about a merger between Labour, The Lib Dems and Greens. The scale of the left’s defeat means it is a time when the possibility of ending tribal divisions should at least be considered.

The early moves amongst the defeated are encouraging. Westmorland’s Tim Farron is clearly the best person to lead the Lib Dems make a clean break with the taint of tuition fee and Coalition betrayal. Insiders tell me that party grandees are pushing the nonentity Norman Lamb but the battered grass roots activists will back one of their own, Tim Farron.

Labour’s National Executive were right to play their leadership election long to allow for a full inquest to take place, then getting a strategy to win in southern England, then choose a new leader.

ERIC PICKLED.

The best news from the Prime Minister’s reshuffle has been the sacking of Eric Pickles as Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government. From scrapping the Regional Development Agencies to his futile attempt to force councils to do weekly bin collections, he has been uninspiring and useless.

In comes Greg Clarke, a good appointment. We are already familiar with him in the North as Cities Minister. He has been at the heart of the Northern Powerhouse and City Deals and is a pragmatic Tory. However he is committed to insisting on elected mayors in return for devolution. So Leeds may have to rethink its opposition to the post if it wants Manchester style powers.

CHESTER: THE RED CAPITAL OF CHESHIRE.

Not only did the parliamentary seat go narrowly to Labour, but on Saturday evening exhausted count staff eventually produced a one seat victory for the party on Cheshire West and Chester Council.

Labour also took West Lancashire Council but apart from that there was little change in the North West and Yorkshire. This is not surprising because Labour has made major advances in the Coalition years and reached its high watermark last year.

VERY LATE SWING TO THE TORIES.

It begins to look as if the Tories had a narrow lead in the polls from last autumn and then had a late surge on polling day. One insider told me it was so late that he saw a number of ballot papers with initial x for Labour scratched out with the voter then supporting Labour.

 

UK SET FOR BREAK UP.

 

The strain on the unity of the UK is very great in the wake of the General Election. Scotland has voted massively for the Scottish National Party. England has reacted by backing the Conservatives. The Scots complaint that they never vote Tory but frequently get Conservative governments has been reinforced.
The fact that they ignored Labour’s warnings that a vote for the SNP would let in David Cameron, merely shows their total determination to express their frustration.
Although the SNP’s MPs have been elected to the Westminster parliament and the election was not a vote for a new independence referendum; the probable dynamics of the next few years point in that direction.
Far from being the power brokers at Westminster, the SNP will be shut out in the face of this unexpected Tory majority. Furthermore we will now have a referendum on our membership of the European Union. As I have argued before, there is a real prospect of a no vote. If the SNP isn’t already demanding a second independence referendum; they certainly will do as they are dragged out of the EU by English votes.
I thought the Tories would get the credit for the improvement in the economy but didn’t expect them to be rewarded with a majority. Nor did I expect the Lib Dems to be so brutally punished for their decision to go into coalition.
The parties performances across the North of England told the tale of the night. Labour did well in areas like Merseyside. They increased their majorities and took seats like Chester and Wirral West; although in the latter case the loss of Esther McVey as the sole Tory voice for the area may prove a disadvantage.
Around the Pennines Labour’s results were poor. Ed Balls defeat on the outskirts of Leeds attracted most attention but Labour missed target seats from Pendle to Pudsey.
The Lib Dems terrible night saw them lose their trio of seats from Withington to Hazel Grove. Ukip got impressive votes but no cigar in terms of seats.
Now we wait to see where the Tories will make twelve billions of cuts and whether the Northern Powerhouse will be fully developed across the north.