By Lance Price - 26th February 2010
For the first time in almost a quarter of a century, the Labour Party is going into a general election that few of its leaders seriously expect to win. Not since Neil Kinnock faced Margaret Thatcher in 1987 has Labour launched a campaign in such inauspicious circumstances. Then, as now, senior party figures acknowledged privately – though never publicly – that the real objective was losing well enough to be in with a decent shot of power next time around.
There is, however, a crucial difference with that well-received but ultimately unsuccessful campaign 23 years ago. In 1987, many people at the top of the Labour Party didn’t think they deserved to win. In 2010, they most certainly do. Labour will fight with considerable reserves of determination and gusto, fuelled by a profound sense of frustration. With good reason, party members at all levels believe they have the best policies, the most creative vision for the future, and the most experienced leadership team. Persuading a disaffected and grumpy electorate of that will be a very different matter.
The challenge for Labour will be to try to appear energetic and fresh, despite 13 years in office. Those people charged with finalising the manifesto – led by Ed Miliband and ably assisted by advisers like Patrick Diamond – are all too aware of this. The problem is exacerbated by having a leader in Gordon Brown who has been a major figure on the political scene for such a long time, but it goes deeper than that. Labour can’t suddenly rebrand itself for the benefit of this election and nor does it wish to. It believes its core progressive, social democratic values are as relevant now in times of austerity as they were in times of plenty.
The campaign will have to try to achieve two seemingly contradictory things. It must be a kind of insurgency against the perceived wisdom that the Tories have already won. But it must also defend what Labour has achieved in power, and in particular those popular measures that a Cameron government would threaten. So somehow it must fight both as a governing party and as an opposition party at the same time.
Although it is unfamiliar territory for them, the key strategists – Brown himself, Lord Mandelson and Douglas Alexander, with support from hardened campaigners like Shaun Woodward, Alastair Campbell and Lord (Philip) Gould – have been working to try to weave these dual challenges into a coherent narrative for the election. Although we can expect a number of eye-catching, populist campaign themes like keeping the foxhunting ban, the cancer-treatment guarantee, the 50p top tax rate and tough action on banks and the bonus culture, for the rest it will be a values-led story about the future of Britain after the crisis.
Labour will seek to present an optimistic and ambitious programme based on a new green industrial revolution that can produce growth and allow scope for promoting a fairer, more democratic nation. The party slogan, ‘A Future Fair For All’, may not be new but it is seen as the best answer to a Conservative campaign that is expected to talk down Britain and focus on the country’s weaknesses rather than its strengths.
The ‘green New Deal’ deliberately harks back to President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s growth and investment policies after the Great Depression of the 1930s. It appeals to both Brown and Mandelson because it is based on jobs, technology and enterprise. Labour wants to give the regions and major cities the chance to become engines of growth with a focus on low-carbon and environmental technologies, digital industries and advanced manufacturing. Although Labour will struggle to replicate the Obama campaign’s upbeat optimism, it will seek to answer the question so often asked on the doorsteps – ‘why doesn’t Britain make anything any more?’ – with the answer, ‘we can’.
The concentration on democratic renewal may have less obvious electoral appeal, but Labour will say it is both right in itself and the best answer to the current negativity about politics. Of course, it will invite cynicism of its own when people ask why the government hasn’t implemented more of it already during its time in office. But we can expect to hear a lot about devolving more power, completing House of Lords reform, votes at 16, and a referendum on the electoral system.
In the past, talk of empowering citizens hasn’t had much popular resonance, but Labour’s more creative thinkers believe the time for it has come. With so many voters feeling they can’t trust politicians at Westminster to get the job done, they may now be more receptive to having more power given to individuals and communities to shape their own futures.
The biggest challenge for the manifesto-writers and campaign strategists is to find a way of keeping the message as simple and uncluttered as possible. The usual formula is to include a little bit of everything in the manifesto, giving every department and interest group something to point to. Labour isn’t short of policies. As Sunder Katwala of the Fabian Society points out, it is choc-a-bloc with them. He and others have suggested a much shorter, pithier document than usual.
Gordon Brown was widely criticised for entering Number 10 without a well-developed programme for Labour’s renewal. The coming election campaign is his last chance to show that he and his team do have a vision for Britain that can be explained in simple, compelling terms. If he can achieve that, then the widespread perception, shared by many in his own party, that the election is already lost, might just be proved wrong.
Dods Parliamentary Communications Ltd