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Tory Complacency May Yet Come Back to Haunt Them
By Andy | November 20, 2009
I still don’t really know what to make of the Queen’s Speech. It has been described as being quite surreal and in many ways it was certainly bizarre. Why enshrine a legislative commitment to something when you’ve missed your own targets? And is the financial world so shaky that it needs government to commit itself to reducing the deficit through legislative commitment.
It was no surprise then that the Tories attacked the QS with what seemed like supreme confidence. The problem Brown has is that when he does something like this everyone is bemused, the opposition parties unite, the media is dumbfounded and — almost always — whatever advantage we were playing for gets lost in the surrounding noise.
However, there were things in here that were very important to many ordinary people. The extra commitment to youth unemployment was not only welcome but it was needed but on a more reflective note it might not be enough. The support for the elderly on their care costs is extraordinarily important and — I believe — will be seen to be so by not only those who it is aimed at but by their families who are either current carers or who are now planning for it.
It is sad that it has taken so long to deal with an issue such as the cost of elderly care but this move is significant in that it hails the first real challenge to the political orthodoxy over care that we have seen for many years.
Whether there is a new start or not I am not sure but I do think it is a sign of Labour beginning to renew and re-position itself — this will be important whether or not Labour win or loose the next election.
Even if Labour scrapes back with a tiny majority (in some ways the most painful scenario) it will need to go back to the drawing board.
The first-past-the-post election system means that political parties have to effectively become wide coalitions of interests, a big tent or a rainbow alliance if you like. Labour have lost this over the last twelve years. Whether we have a proportional electoral system or we keep first-past-the-post Labour will need to rebuild its coalition.
Coalition building will not be secured through simple campaigning. You can put as many leaflets through doors as you like but in many areas something more fundamental is needed. Across the country places that were Labour heartlands just a few years ago now have local parties that are so moribund that they do not have the means to renew themselves from within.
Labour’s re-positioning and policy reviews will be influenced, I believe, more by the thinking of groups like Compass and the Unions than by policy officers in Whitehall. Neal Lawson’s great achievement at Compass has been to realise that policies are what brings together alliances and not simply debates on party democracy. Some of the work no being undertaken by Compass, charitable trusts, unions and others will inevitably capture public interest and drive opinion forward. The momentum for the future will be with these folks and not with the few insiders ‘in the thick of it’.
How Labour respond to this stuff will be critical. The QS begins to point a way forward, of renewal based on fundamental principles.
Maybe it is the case that in Brown we haven’t got the leader we need to take advantage of even these small opportunities that we create. I don’t know about that. But in their complacency this week the Tories have revealed something very important about themselves.
Cameron is on a roll at the moment. He is right, it was weird to see no mention of Kelly in the QS. But Kelly will be dealt with over the short term. The public’s appreciation of new political policies will have a longer attention span.
Topics: Westminster Village |
November 22nd, 2009 at 9:03 pm
What a choice the poor British public face: Cameron and his Etonian goons……or ???? for New Labour - perhaps even Peter Mandelson who gets more oleaginous and pompous with each day that passes.
That Labour can allow this disgusting little creep back at the top shows complacency beyond belief.
December 6th, 2009 at 12:37 pm
Andy: This is a very good reason that people like me, who voted Labour all our lives, have turned our backs on the heap of crap that passes for “Labour” policy and politicians these days:
http://news.aol.co.uk/benefits-cruelty-of-cancer-patients/article/20091205210145119014416
I bet Pur-nell is terribly proud of himself.