Labour’s ABC
It shouldn’t be like this. We’re not mid-term yet but the normal ‘costs of government’ and laws of political gravity suggest Labour should be doing better. Why isn’t it?
Super Thursday’s election results did contain some “red shoots of recovery” including wins in areas Steve Akehurst has termed ‘Blue Wall’ as well as success in Wales, Manchester and other metropolitan areas. We may also be seeing a ‘jab bounce’ which won’t last forever, but Hartlepool was a shocker.
There are numerous explanations for Labour’s malaise including the 2 Cs and the 3 Bs — respectively, Corbyn and Covid; Brexit, Boris and Ben (Houchen, Tees Valley Mayor). These are all convincing but, fairly typically, tend to focus on politics. As the ‘father of psephology’, Sir David Butler put it in the 1950s, “electoral trends cannot be understood without reference to social trends.”
Let me use a different frame and add an A to the Bs and Cs. In 2015, I described a troika of tensions reflecting and shaping British society; identity (who we are), fairness (who gets what) and aspiration (what we want/to be).
Fairness has perhaps been Labour’s traditional heartland — tellingly, the party has used the word within the title of two of its previous four general election manifestoes — but the Conservatives have sought to nullify this. They have shown pragmatism by pivoting towards ‘levelling-up’, warming towards the NHS (in terms of policy, funding and rhetoric), and embracing ‘big state’ interventions during the pandemic including the universal, furlough scheme.
Identity and culture wars are hard to win, easier to lose. Neither Labour nor the Conservatives are immune from the contortions of having to bend to their core base (itself often fragmented) while appealing to new voters, and if the Conservatives are getting it less wrong at present, Labour probably has demographics on its side.
But aspiration, intersecting with fairness, is very culturally relevant right now. As Justine Greening put it last year, “there will come a time when people move from just getting by, to wanting to get on.” That time is now. Last year, Ipsos MORI found 33% agreeing that “People have equal opportunities to get ahead”, down from 46% just four years earlier. This sentiment contains elements of fairness and aspiration.
While fairness can be divisive — who gets what and, by extension, who doesn’t — aspiration is naturally forward-looking, positive and optimistic. This is something that attracts many voters to Boris Johnson and the Conservatives, alongside a sense, for now, that they “get things done”.
After a grim period, people want a sunnier upland. They don’t always want the earth; cheap mortgages, affordable transport, rejuvenated towns and high streets will do. They want to be confident that there will be rewards for their endeavour; a help-up not a hand-out. For example, Right to Buy and Help to Buy had many faults, but they signalled that the Conservatives offered routes into home ownership, something most people aspire too. Similarly, Tony Blair’s New Labour put improved public services at the heart of “things can only get better” alongside pledges to improve ‘your’ prosperity and prospects.
Civic and personal aspiration is something Labour need to connect to fairness. It’s an A1 priority to go with all those Bs and Cs.
