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By Andy | February 9, 2009
Lots of Party campaigners and planners are looking back to pre-1997. What was it that we did — in campaigning, in machine terms — that we can learn from today. But it’s not mechanics or campaigning techniques that I think we need to reflect on most urgently.
In the run up to ‘97 one of the most important planks in Labour’s armoury was Blair’s ability to connect with the population on a whole manner of fronts. Blair spoke the language of middle Britain and connected with their aims, their aspirations, their worries and their fears (I’m speaking of how it was then rather than what it might seem to have become later). The real issues were not ones of rules or of laws even. What Blair did magnificently for many was simply capture what felt right and just, what seemed modern rather than old and — most importantly — what was just plain fair. For many of us hard-bitten politicos fairness was a bit of a limp notion. But for people one of Blair’s greatest attractions was the way in which he articulated fairness.
I was reminded of this on two different counts this weekend.
Firstly, I was having a meal with a friend of mine on Friday evening. He’s political in the sense that he would only ever vote Labour. When very young he campaigned for the Labour Party but over the last twenty years or so he’s been an armchair supporter. No, strike that. For the last twenty years he has been a keen advocate for Labour, advocating its broad cause at work and in all manner of social events. Us hard-bitten politicos ignore this kind of work at our peril. My friend never canvasses or puts leaflets through doors. But he has been a passionate, articulate and consistent campaigner for Labour all of this time.
My friend sees things differently to me and my mates. For him Blair is still something of a hero. He supports Brown from attack but really would like Blair to still be around. And he is not alone. My friend does not engage in long, rambling and detailed policy arguments. But he is a powerful defender of fairness. He had a hard background and has worked against the odds to become qualified first with a Law Degree and secondly as an Accountant. He doesn’t earn a lot of money, usually working in the accounts departments of public agencies. He is a working class kind of guy with an education and a fierce sense of social justice. It is fairness — and the need to create a fairer world — that impresses him the most.
Cut to Sunday morning and I wondered where the sense of fairness had gone.
I’m speaking of Jaqui Smith’s decision to designate her Sister’s flat in London as her main home and her family home in the Midlands as her secondary home. This arrangement is the most financially lucrative in terms of expenses.
Jacqui Smith argues that she has done nothing that is against the rules, and I’m sure that this is right — not least because Balls and Cooper were cleared after an investigation into a similar issue a few months ago.
But this kind of thing is not right. If it is not right normally it is certainly not right in these times of recession and difficulty. While many of Jacqui’s constituents are really having to adjust to life in a depression she’s seen manipulating the expenses system to maximum benefit.
Whatever else this is — from the ordinary woman or man in the street — this isn’t fair. It isn’t right.
I feel very sad about this. I was impressed when Jacqui was appointed Home Secretary. She brought an ordinariness to the job — and I mean that in the best possible way. I was very impressed with how she started, and I wrote about it here.
Like others though, things have begun to look not so shiny for the Home Secretary.
When Brown talked about his Moral Compass he was reaching out to that wider constituency and recognising the need to address fairness and what is simply right.
The government seems to have lost its way, or at least stopped taking readings from Gordon’s compass. Something has to be done to end this kind of thing otherwise we will suffer the consequences. It doesn’t matter how many leaflets we shove through doors or how many phone calls we make. Incidents like this simply emphasise the difference between the government and themselves.
Jonathan Ross and Russell Brand got into difficulties — I’m convinced — because of these recessionary times. In hard times the kind of flippancy and behaviour that might be shrugged off in times of difficulty just doesn’t seem right.
Of course, both Carol Thatcher and Jeremy Clarkson fall into something of the same camp. But then so do politicians.
Are we too far gone that we can’t do anything about this now? Can Gordon get the Compass properly calibrated?
Topics: Westminster Village |
February 9th, 2009 at 11:35 pm
Except when he has had his hand forced, Brown has consistently shown indifference to this sort of behaviour from his comrades… Surely yours is a triumph of hope over expectation.
February 10th, 2009 at 6:47 am
WEll, two points. I don’t mean to be rude about your pal, Andy (Heaven forfend!) but if he holds up Blair as a model of “fairness”… I always remember the night back in ‘97 when he left his poor hapless Minister to try to defend and get through the benefit cuts to single mothers, and while she was doing that (wasn’t it Harman?) he was off at No 10 hobnobbing with Blur, a beat combo popular at the time.
I would like to think your mate ciould be cured of his hero-worship, but I fear he is a hopeless case. One can only shake ones head and move on….
As regards what can be done today, surely you can see it is a lost cause, Andy?. Too much has happened. In the early days there was Ecclestonegate, which gave the lie to the “my government will be purer than pure” nonsense. Then we had the shennanigans of Mandleson and Robinson, the property speculation of Mr & Mrs Blair. The constant attempts to pull Labour further to the right.
I’ve said it before Andy, and I’ll say it again if people want Tory policies they will VOTE Tory (and I think events have proven me right). Old, straight, true Labour (call it what you will, or what you are allowed to) are turned off and disgusted by the Blair/Brown quasi-Tory stance of this ramshackle government.
Brown made an early mistake, just like Blair. he didn’t promise to be “pure” (though “Moral compass” runs it close) but he promised a government “of all the talents”. But what talents? Digby Jones, Lord Adonis, John Hutton, James Purnell, Alan Milburn, Peter Mandelson….. “talents”? - arguable. but ALL gthe talents? - where are the left wingers? where is Jon Cruddas? He did far better in the deputy leadership than Blears, who came last, yet she has a top job, Jon gets nothing - or such a poor offer he couldn’t accept. ALL the talents should mean just that - not just Brown’s right wing mates.
There is nothing in this government for the Left. they take union money, but that doesn’t stop them union bashing - we had Mandy’s pompous side-taking with Total last week, his wish to part-privatise Royal Mail could result in job losses of up to 16,000 - and this from an unelected minister who twice had to resign from government in disgrace and has been rewarded with a peerage. If two words would explain why i personally would never vote Labour again under this sort of leadership, even if they gave me a million pounds to do so, those two words would be Peter Mandelson. To bring him back was the laast and worst insult. he has not been a good Business minister, with several big High Street names and many smaller viable businesses allowed to go to the wall in the past three months.
Brown has made himself appear a liar and very shady: are we really to believe he so disagreed with Blair’s policies when he has done nothing to reverse them (with the sole exception of those revolting super casinos) - and is his distaste for Mandleson really ne;ieveable since he bought him back and rewarded him? I suspect that the Blair/Brown feuds were manufactured. His acoyltes like to pretend he was “real Labour”, but there uis no evidence of that.
In short, I believe that New Labour has now been rumbled by the public, they have been weighed in the balance and found wanting.
I think the only way to at least reduce the damage, so that Labour lose by less would be to replace Brown with a more credible leader - the only one I can think off (though personally KI can’t abide him) would be Alan Johnson - at least he has working class credentials, but he would have to ditch the Blairite element from the cabinet. And we need the cabinet to sing from the same hymnsheet: Alistair says we will recover within the year, Balls is now trying to riase the spectre of meltdown and the rise of the BNP.
People see the panic going on, and beseeching the unemployed to turn to God as Blears suggested last week isn’t quite enough. And you’re rigfht, when people afre losing their jobs, or fear they will, greedy people like Smith Balls and Cooper and their expenses, brings the party into even more contempt. Especially when such people gtalk about their “careers” while they are perfectly happy to see ordinary people take “jobs” at minimum wage. Labour has lost it’s sense lof morality and affinity with the poorer people and working class and is perceived to be just as greedy and dodgy as the Tofries, and this is what will ensure they lose the next election, and we will have to cope with the Eton toff and his jejune sidekick Osborne.
February 10th, 2009 at 11:34 am
A lot of people do see the world like my mate. I wasn’t making any comments about the quality of his view, rather pointing out that for many voters the perceived sense of fairness is the most important thing they make judgements on!
I can’t see Brown going now and I can’t see where the future leadership is! It’s not going to be a nice year in very many ways.
February 10th, 2009 at 11:35 am
Prague Tory,
There’s nothing wrong with hope. Mind you — and coming from you lot— I find it all a bit rich. There’s precious sign that you lot of really adapted behaviour that much. And we still have tax exiles flooding money into marginal seats.
February 12th, 2009 at 6:45 am
“I can’t see Brown going now and I can’t see where the future leadership is!”
He just can’t be allowed to shamble on like this Andy. I think we only keep him on out of cruelty. He is way out of his depth. You can almost see Mandelson plotting to annoint a new leader in His image, but one would hope there would be a leadership challenge: one from traditional Labour and one of the Blairite rabble to mollify them. Any one of a number of nondescript nonentities in the latter category come to mind…..
March 3rd, 2009 at 7:46 am
We dropped Conway (almost) immediately. I’d like to think that emails from myself and other grassroots helped force the leadership’s hand.
“And we still have tax exiles flooding money into marginal seats.”
Why don’t you recognise the law as it is rather than as you would like it to be? As a former overseas voter, I know that it is eligibility to vote rather than tax status which determines the permissibility of private donations. Donations from companies ust be British trading companies.