Watching the various Labour leadership hopefuls emerge over
the last few days has been utterly painful, ‘aspiration’ tripping off each
successive tongue to explain each of our communities that the Labour party
failed to reach out to in the run up to the May 7th election. And as
each candidate sets out his or her stall for the leadership, I cannot help but
feel that any ideological identity that the party once had, and each candidate
may at one time have identified with, looks increasingly opaque.
Since the disaster in polling predictions of May 7th
pollsters have latched on to the idea of the ‘shy tory’ as an explanation as to
why their data was so askew. This leadership contest, for Labour marks an
existential crisis, as it seemed on election day they lost all support in
Scotland, most votes that they had relied upon falling back into their hands
from Lib Dem voters in the main went to the Tories and as if that wasn’t bad
enough the Labour core that is those traditional working class voters aided
UKIP in soaring to 4 million of the popular vote. This was not the work of the ‘shy
tory.’ It was more than that. It seems clear that if you peel away the
influence, positive or negative, of Ed Miliband the public on all sides of the
political spectrum didn’t see Labour as being on their team.
Yesterday Mary Creagh joined the race along with Liz Kendal,
Yvette Cooper, Andy Burnham and Tristram Hunt. Taking stock of this list I
cannot see one candidate that may connect with the disenfranchised base or
indeed retake, a social democratic in their attitude, leaning Scotland in the
future. This is without mentioning the inroads the Tories have made into the
centre ground with a strong repetitive narrative on the economy. ‘Call me Dave’s’
brandishing of the note from outgoing Chancellor Liam Bryne, stating there is no
money left, was incredibly effective and any rebut on Labour’s handling on the
Economy was effected incredibly
clumsily. Explaining that budget deficits in and of themselves are not necessarily
a bad thing, unless the nation is made vulnerable by stagnating growth and over
reliance on financial services for example, is not quite as simple as saying: ‘if
you spend all your money, well you just don’t have any left.’ ‘That’s what Labour
did boys and girls.’
Dianne Abbott pointed out yesterday on BBC’s this Week,
fairly anecdotally perhaps, that although Labour had lost votes to the Lib Dems
and the Tories in England she felt that Labour’s staunch cultural connection
remained and that this wasn’t reflected in the vote share. Perhaps, as she
asserted it was such that a growth in disenfranchisement with Labour and
leaving behind its core ideological values is what is driving a low voter
turnout for ‘the Reds.’ In terms of demography, young voters tend to vote
labour as do BME voters yet both of these subsections of society turn out in
low numbers. 44% of 18-24 year olds voted in 2010 and 41% were projected to
vote in this election. As for BME voters only 16% of BME voters voted Tory in
2010.
Mary Creagh’s campaign launch began with a pledge to move
Labours conversation back to “middle England,” and more specifically away from
hyper-focusing on the NHS as she clearly felt the last campaign had. These
comments regarding the NHS, Labours primary weapon couldn’t come at a worse
moment, as today campaigners warned that private firms were undercutting the
NHS’s own working groups in providing services through VAT concessions offered
by government. Comments like these, disregarding what she would describe as “middle
England,” is exactly why the Labour party are facing an identity crisis.
Without the NHS and core socialist principles that attempt to speak to the
proletariat what are they, the Party of the Bourgeoisie? We have one of those already.