Could be, maybe, possibly …. some day ….

YAWN.

“The response by some to the research has been to say that because these new voters are likely to stick with Labour, because they cannot imagine them going back to the Libdems, the Labour party should stick to reaching out to more voters from the centre.”

Unfortunately there are thousands of core Labour voters who feel utterly and completely betrayed by New Labour and will never go back to them. Fact

“First, the party could have a broad, over-arching message that appeals to both groups rather than pits them against each other. Tony Blair in 1997 managed it (‘tough on crime…(for poorer families) …and tough on the causes of crime (for left liberals)’) in more than one area. It’s not impossible.”

Unfortunately Blair was only ever a ‘soundbite’ and was neither tough on crime nor its causes.
He was however marvellous at duplicity, lies and self enrichment, all while being cheered on by Labour MPs..

Perhaps Labour can build policy on restoring the NHS, restoring the dental health service that they effectively destroyed, highlight and address the fact that the privatised utilities are more concerned with profit than delivering affordable services.( Adjusting for inflation Virgin Railways receives four times the subsidy it took to run the entire British Rail Network).
Ofwat/Ofgen/Ofcom and all the other ‘Of’s either give them teeth to bite or get shot of them and replace them with bodies that will protect the consumer, currently they are no more than ‘sops’ in the pocket of the utilities, about as much use as a nodding dog on the parcel shelf of a 70s saloon car.
Bringing Council Tax back to affordable levels (it doubled under New Labour – do you think we want more of that?)
Address the ludicrous levels of fuel taxation.
Fix public transport (at least in rural areas).

Oh and quite a few people would like a referendum on the EU – without it being a stitch up – remember that promise and the weasel words to get around delivering it.

I could go on and on and on but I will just get angrier and angrier.

And frankly, before any of this they need to restore the public’s faith in politicians and judging by recent events that’s about as likely as flying to Mars in your underpants.

“because these new voters are likely to stick with Labour, because they cannot imagine them going back to the Libdems”
Christ, that’s the New Labour rank idiocy.
As you say, that runs the real risk of estranging “core voters”, taking them for granted etc but also overlooks another interpretation of the data: possibly the voters are moving leftwards in response to the Tories. In which case a move rightwards, to the Blairite idea of where the centre lies (which is nowhere near the middle as viewed by many,if not most) makes no sense at all.
Of course left and right are relative terms, as Ed M is about as centrist as they come. He’s only “Left” in relation to the Govt.

To think voters won’t go back is pretty crazy. Mainstream politics is based on pandering to a supposedly centre-ground* voting demographic that holds no allegiance to any particular party and will vote for a different party at the drop of a hat. We’ve ended-up with political parties that ignore core demographics (and policies) in order to ‘chase’ these voters, voters who rarely think of long term strategies, just what they want on that particular voting day, which might be something very different from the last time they voted. There’s no long standing principles.

Also, with regard to all other voters, the worse the economic/political situation the more polarised any already entrenched political views become: the left will shift left and the right will shift right.

*I’d query any idea that a centre ground is necessarily an equidistant point between a political ‘left and right’. I think right wing media has managed to persuade many voters that centre-right is actually centre or even centre-left.

I know people like tariq Ali, tried to leave the Workers revoltionary party in 1981 and Join labour same as Vanessa redgrave and although some people form that party or the Swp did, like teh woman who stood agiasnt Callaghan at the 79 election with her “withdrawl from Nortern Ireland Shout” there has always been peopel form other far left parties who join laobur after they go into opposition and try to swing it to the left, I know sunny yourself backed bothe the green and iberals before the 2010 election have joined tried to swing it to the left, some joined when Blair went and were disapointed Brown wasn’t as left wing as tehy’d hoped,

of course when those people joined labour after the 1979 election and we swung to the left ,we were elected in the 83 election…….

3 well said, regarding labour left and liberals united over civil liberties, the lfet of labour were more pro innocent peoples DNA being held than the right f the party same as when the tories tried to have people arreested and still innocent of rapes name dragged through the dirt saying that those arrested of rape and found innocent didn’t have their lives ruined,

Although Labour lost in 2010 – these figures suggest quite strongly that 2015 should been seen as a consolidation election. Long term there is always pressure to win over a centre-ground public. But with such a significant new support in place, that new support needs cementing.

Labour in 2001 effectively did this. A large new base of voters had shifted their votes to Labour in 1997 – and that was very much a “new labour” shift of centrist. Labour thus had to focus some attention on consolidating that new support for 2001. It did so very very succesfully, though at the expense of losing a part of its more long-standing base.

The same function is sensible now – but the new base has rather different needs to the new centrist base of 1997-2001. It is more liberal (socially so) and more aligned in some regards with Labour’s older support base than the new support base built up ahead of 1997.

The unusual thing is that because this base has effectively been a consolidation of left-leaning voters under one party – labour doesn’t have to significantly risk losing its 2010 voter base to make the new base happy in 2015. Their views are well enough aligned, or at least not in significant conflict, that the things that it may be possible to please both.

That – if it happens – could secure a significant shift to a more centre-left status quo in UK politics – though some lefities by their nature will not want to take part in that. Which is a shame.

I had a horrible feeling that Sunny would pick up on this. Unfortunately the research behind the Fabian Society piece isn’t much use, which rather means that any conclusions drawn are rather shaky.

The trouble is that, if you look at YouGov’s tables for the survey:

http://d25d2506sfb94s.cloudfront.net/cumulus_uploads/document/xqzac41b6x/YG-Archives-Pol-FabianSociety-AttitudestoState-100412.pdf

all the statements made about the ex-Lib Dems come from those in a sample of ‘Labour gains’ of only 177. And not all those voted Lib Dem in 2010, I reckon only around 133 did.

Now this is such a small sample that few justifiable conclusions could be drawn from t. Furthermore not even all those 133 may be ‘true’ ex Lib Dems – many might have voted tactically in 2010 to keep out a Conservative locally. They might do so again – people tend to vote for the ‘least worst’ option and decisions to vote tactically are usually made only shortly before polling (no matter what they say they will do now).

That’s not to say that some of the conclusions in the article are wrong. For example I think Sunny is right that these ‘Labour gains’ should not be taken for granted (actually I don’t think any voters should be). It’s just that you can’t draw any conclusions from this particular survey.

7 well said, Also the idea that people who come over from the Lib-dem’s to labour now are those who want labour to be left wing exclude John Rentoul’s firnd who was in the SDP and grudgingly voted lib dem when the SDP folded and once labour behaved itself said “he’d come back in 2010″ or david Owen who tactically voted libdem in 1992 after the SDP folded and although ahsn’t voted as he’s in the lords showed consolidation to the Liberals in the last 15 years was in talks of coming over to labour, so that’s 2 who came from libdems to labour who don’t want labour to swing to the left,

John

agreed – it isn’t a “swing to the left” that Labour needs. What it is is a “steady the ship” situation.

Swinging to the left would make sense if labour thought there was a large contingent of people to labour’s left that needed to be won around to win the next election. Labour almost certainly doesn’t think that. It shouldn’t think that as those people are relatively few in number, at least in terms of those who could ever be won around to labour – and because the cost in terms of lost votes elsewhere would probably be too high.

What it means though is that Labour doesn’t need to “swing to the centre”. There are a lot of voters to be won in the centre, and traditionally they have come at a relatively low price (those lost to the left of the party rarely vote for the Tories, and many would stay labour through commitment to certain principles). But Labour has picked up a fairly large centre-left new vote already based on its present position and the slight hints of a more liberal outlook that have come from the leadership – and winning their trust (and so consolidating that new support) could be enough on its own to win in 2015 – so the risk of losing new voters by chasing other new voters who will be harder to win round makes no sense.

It would of course be interesting to know whether the labour machine recognises this.

“Even more notable, 40% of ‘Ed’s converts’ support higher taxes to pay for public services.”

We’ve been here before. It took us many years and election defeats to work out that generally people who say this are lying.

It’s not about them lying, it’s about vested interests creating so many straw men that the media (led by vested interests themselves) scare the public in to believing, that politicians back down quick snap.

Everyone believes in fair redistribution, it’s just shit that the government is so simplistic that they see it as a simple question of income regardless of means and wealth.

My analysis of the London Assembly voting for where I live in Haringey, north London, is that the working class voters went back to Labour from Lib Dem pretty much wholesale.

But the although the left liberal also mostly went back to Labour, a significant number actually switched to the Greens.

Call it lifestyle stuff, perhaps, but the Greens are also more left wing than Labour.

Mike
Green Party

http://haringeygreens.blogspot.co.uk/2012/05/lib-dem-vote-meltdown-in-haringey.html

I always get the feeling that if any effort were made to attempt one of these so called leftward swings, the people it would be aimed at would disregard it due to a lack of trust in politicians.

I think there are center left ideals which don’t have to polarise the newly won over voters (although I think won over is being a bit generous, more likely some people find Labour below their tolerance level), and economically at least, there are a number of fairly solid grounds to approach from a left of center perspective. I think if you show that you’re willing to invest in the economy, you can cover some of the worsening social problems as well, particularly with job creation, training and teaching. You could even, god forbid, protect some areas to reduce the effect of recessions. Financial gambling should not risk people who have no say in these gambles.

As for institutions, I think that’s difficult. I’d actually favour a huge push for a widening of union membership, just because I get the impression that some of them are just little nepotistic kingdoms for the angry far left. You could increase working with groups such as Friends of the Earth or Amnesty, but I think that has risks for both them and Labour. It could also yield benefits as well if done correctly but I’d guess those groups don’t want any overt political affiliation.

Also, are there really that many right wing institutions in this country?

14

The problem for Labour, is that trade unionism is in steep decline, not least because there are more part-time, short contract jobs and, obviously, there is now little heavy industry. This government has also got rid of thousands of public sector jobs, which is another fruitful area for Labour, do all/some ex trade union members remain loyal to Labour?

I’m not sure that the new voters who New/er Labour attracted are enough to make up for the voters they have lost.

And it’s true, left, right and centre are relative, most voters look at policies and who they think really represents their best interests.

@15

Unions don’t have to be based in the traditional sectors of the economy, and we’re actually beaten by the US for private sector union membership. I’m not sure how true this is, but I suspect that the increasing amount of part time/short contract jobs is a sign of worsening trade unionism.

i spend many a year with labour and the vast majority of the left these days I suspect sit at home on voting days I know I did.

But to think these people coming back to labour because Miliband is a socialist, boy will they be disappointed

Now this is such a small sample that few justifiable conclusions could be drawn from t.

Erm. No. A sample of 133 gives you a confidence interval of 8 at 95% confidence. So we can say we’re confident that 69-85% of LDs-returning-to-Labour oppose running public services as a business, which is definitely more than both 2010 Labour voters and the population in general.

The Fabian Society has discovered that those who have given Labour such a commanding lead, which at 14 points would require a 29-point swing to the Conservatives for them to overcome it, are “well to the left of the population at large”. Apart from the question of how that is arithmetically possible, it depends on what you mean by “left-wing”.

The turn to the Labour Party of Ed Miliband, with him of Jon Cruddas, and with him of Maurice Glasman, is the turn by those opposed to the crippling of provincial economies through the slashing of the spending power of public employees far from London, to the breaking up of the National Health Service with a view to its piecemeal privatisation, to the deregulation of Sunday trading, to the devastation of rural communities through the sale of our Post Office and of our roads, to the abolition of Gift Aid, and to the imposition of VAT on listed building repairs, among other attacks on the things most valued by conservative Britain, which rightly looks to the State to safeguard those values.

The present generation is crying out for an alternative to neoliberal economic policy, unrestricted liberal social policy, neoconservative foreign policy, and the triumph of the 1970s sectarian Left and the 1980s sectarian Right on the supposedly centrist basis of the common position at which they have arrived since 1990. Yet that is the foundation of the Coalition established in the aftermath of the 2010 General Election.

It is no wonder that the local elections have proved a triumph for a de facto alternative Coalition embracing all parts of the United Kingdom, all of their respective internal regions, all ethnic groups and social classes, all living generations of voting age, town and country, conventionally left-wing and conventionally right-wing, Labour and Independent. The purpose is now two-fold. To give intellectually rigorous and persuasive voice to the intuitive basis of that alternative Coalition. And to give organisational expression to it, so as to replace, not only one Coalition party, but both of them.

13, Mike, Hi, why do you think the middle calss vote who voted Libdem wnety back to labour is it the Calisition, A ken livingstone effect or Ed miliband being agiasnt Iraq ,Is rhere a middle calss jewish vote In hornsey ior is it everyone from Turkish, And Black and white? thanks.