And another thing…

ODDLY, the most recent General Election is the one of which I have fewest recollections.

The whole campaign, from what I recall, plodded along rather predictably. The only visual “moment” from the national campaign I can think of was of Tony Blair giving Gordon an ice cream cone. Hardly the Prescott punch or Sharron Storer moment.

In Glasgow, I was fighting for the new seat of Glasgow South, Cathcart having been consigned to history by the recent boundary review (although the Holyrood seat retains the name). There was a good, rather than excited, atmosphere in the campaign rooms – a former café on Clarkston Road, directly opposite my constituency offices. Every day we would arrive early, push up the metal shutters and wait for the inevitable trickle of constituents – both supportive and hostile – to begin. And every day I would print off a new number and display it in the shop window: the countdown to polling day. This was as much a reminder to activists as voters as to how long we had to complete the tasks of labelling, postering and canvassing we had set ourselves. (And I’ve just remembered that 2005 was the last General Election when candidates in Glasgow could attach posters to lamposts; the council have since banned it, to a mixed response from party activists.)

Despite expectations that Iraq would feature heavily in the campaign, I don’t remember that being the case at grassroots level. It was certainly raised on the doorstep, many times. But most voters for whom Iraq was a barrier to voting Labour were, for the most part, unfailingly polite. And when I asked them how they had previously voted, many of them turned out not to be Labour voters in the first place.

It’s a fact that time goes at a fraction of normal speed during election campaigns – well, if you’re a candidate, anyway. So it took about just under two years from the start of the campaign for polling day to arrive. That was hectic, as usual. I was picked up first thing by my campaign manager and taken to the polling station at the end of my road to cast my vote (and no, I’m not telling you who I voted for – it’s a secret ballot). The previous election, when I was first elected, Carolyn came with me to vote and a press photographer captured the moment for posterity. This time round, however, Carolyn was having to balance work and motherhood, so I voted alone.

Over the long day (about 52 hours, give or take) I tried to visit every polling place in the constituency and exchanged a few words with the tellers and the activists (of all parties) standing outside. There’s always a sense of tense calm on polling day itself, an awareness that the arguments are done and dusted, there’s nothing more to be done except await the voters’ verdict. So there’s little point in falling out with your opponents by then.

It was obvious that the LibDems were making a big effort among the substantial Muslim electorate in Glasgow South, exploiting their highly principled* position on Iraq. And I wasn’t surprised to discover later, at the count, that they had leapfrogged the nationalists to come second.

On BBC1 at ten o’clock, David Dimbleby revealed the exit poll prediction: a Labour majority of just 66 seats. I raised an eyebrow; lower than I had expected. But maybe our majority was being underestimated? It turned out not. At eleven, Carolyn and I left the house and met my election team at Queen’s Park Football Club and a small fleet of vehicles headed to the Scottish Exhibition and Conference Centre for the count.

Ah, yes – the count… In 2001, Cathcart had been counted last of the nine Glasgow seats and Carolyn and I had been very, very late to bed. And so it proved omce more four years later. It was after three in the morning before the Returning Officer called all the candidates together to show us the spoiled ballot papers and to read us the result. I was relieved that my majority had held above the 10,000 mark, although in per centage term it was slightly down on 2001. The LibDem candidate was actually the first person I met that night who told me, quite authoritatively, that I had won.

All I remember about the actual announcement of my result was being accosted by three or four reporters as I walked down from the platform immediately afterwards and asked whether or not I thought Tony Blair should resign. Well, of course he should! After all, he surely had to be punished for leading Labour to a third election victory in a row! The b*****d…

I had always believed that Tony’s announcement in 2004 that he would lead the party into one more Genereal Election and then serve a full term before stepping down was a mistake; the frenzied media speculation which began at 10.00 pm on polling day was entirely predictable.

Tired to the point of exhaustion, Carolyn and I headed back to the social club at Queen’s Park where we were just in time to see Galloway’s victory over Oona King in Bethnal Green. Then, a moron from a neighbouring Constituency Labour Party who, shall we say, had faced some difficulty in reconciling his own views on Iraq with the government’s, called me a fascist. Comradeship, eh? But I was too tired to make a big deal of it. Instead, after one drink, we headed home.

As we got ready for bed, I noticed I had received a voicemail from Jim Knight, who was defending a majority of 153 in South Dorset. He was calling with the happy news that, against the odds, he had increased that to 1812. That was a nice note on which finally to go to sleep.

* yeah, right…

Next instalment: 1983

SCOTTISH Labour MPs this afternoon received an email containing a news release issued by the party headlined: “Scottish Labour MEP lobbies Congress to lift ban on haggis”.

David Cairns, MP for Inverclyde, promptly hit the “reply” button and wrote: “Finally, some proper news!”

Four haggises - or "haggi" - yesterday.

OH. WHAT  a surprise – I’m in disagreement with Compass. Again.

This time, I’m stepping up to defend the principle of product placement in TV drama. Compass are upset because it’s all about the kids, see? Apparently the ban on product placement during children’s programmes is all very well, but most children’s daily diet of TV is gleaned from non-specific children’s programming. So if, as expected, the Department of Culture, Media and Sport’s recent consultation leads to a policy decision to allow TV companies to sell screen time to well-known brands, then parents will be forced to feed junk food and alcohol to their under-fives. Or something.

(Sorry, I just took a break from my keyboard to pour myself a refreshing glass of Diet Coke©; it really is the Real Thing© – and delicious too… Anyway, where was I? Ah, yes…)

So, if Compass have their way, production companies would have a major source of income denied to them, forcing them to rely ever more heavily on the TV licence payers. Domestically-produced TV drama would become as rare as a Scottish Tory and we would have thousands of redundancies in the industry. And for what? Some disputed research in 20 years’ time that may or may not tell us that children’s health has improved and that the banning of product placement on non-children’s television may well have played a part, even though no-one can say exactly how much of a part or confirm definitively whether it had any affect at all.

Result!

(Excuse me a second: I have to vacuum the living room before Carolyn gets back. Fortunately, I have a Dyson© DC25 whose revolutionary bag-less design makes all those household chores a breeze…)

Would it be so hard for our “think tanks” on the Left to come up with policy ideas that stopped banning stuff? Why are they so keen to feed the (entirely justified) accusation from the Right that too many on the Left want to restrict individual choice, and don’t trust adults to make their own choices? Don’t they realise that if all these ideas were actually adopted by a Labour government or became part of a Labour manifesto, you’d hear the likes of Tim Montgomerie and Iain Dale high-fiving from miles away?

I reject absolutely the notion that there is anything remotely right-wing about wanting to leave lifestyle decisions to grown-ups. To claim that a desire to respect indivdual choice is incompatible with being Left wing is… well, bloody stupid, actually. And those of us on the Left who still have the sense to speak out about such nonsense do so not because we seek the approval of Tory commenters, but because we want Labour to be successful as a political party and as a government.

Now, I’m going to relax for the rest of the evening, and I’ll start with the delicious aroma of Tassimo© coffee – real coffee, but instant – and perhaps a little bit of that sweet… oh, what’s it called? Can’t remember, but I know for a fact that one a day helps you work, rest and play. So it can’t be bad.

GREAT pub quiz question, this: who succeeded John Smith as leader of the Labour Party?

The answer is, of course, Margaret Beckett. As Smith’s deputy, she assumed the full title on his death, not just that of interim leader.

I was reminded of this little historical nugget when I was in the Government Whips’ Office earlier today. On the far wall there are the framed photographs of every Labour leader since the founding of the party (the serving leader always occupies his or her own spot on a separate wall). And I noticed that Margaret’s picture has recently been slotted in between Smith’s and Tony Blair’s.

And quite right, too. An omission that should have been corrected much earlier.

THE LATEST hysterical (and not in a funny way) email from “Vote For A Change” has reached me, and its tone is so high-pitched that I suspect only dogs can hear it…

Tom,

“Balls has lost his bearings.”

“Fairer elections? Ed says Balls to that!”

And – succinct, to the point, with extra points for creative vowel usage:

“BAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAALLS.”

We’ve received some amazing slogan ideas for Ed Balls’ billboard since I wrote you about it last week. The preceding gems are just a few of them.

But because we haven’t heard your brilliant, Balls-busting billboard idea yet, I’m hoping you’ll share it with us now:

http://www.voteforachange.co.uk/EdBallsBillboard

We’re bringing home the message to Balls that we won’t stand by as he tries to scupper voting reform.

And because we’re doing it by putting up a billboard in his Normanton constituency, we want the best possible slogan our campaign’s collective brainpower can dream up.

Don’t miss your chance to tell Balls exactly what you think about his opposition to a referendum.

Willie

The thing is, after Monday’s post about how insanely obsessed certain people can become on the issue of electoral reform, I spoke to Ed during a vote about the attempts by Councillor Sullivan to reduce his majority on Normanton as revenge for… well, revenge for something or other. And I confess I was disappointed by Ed’s revelation that he’s not only a supporter of AV but of a referendum. Boo!

Is it possible, do you think, that the director of “Vote For A Change” has based his entire campaigning strategy on an unsubstantiated rumour, or that Willie hasn’t even bothered to lift the phone to speak to Ed’s people about the truth (or otherwise) of those rumours? Surely not?

WHEN an “interest” in electoral reform becomes an all-consuming, mindless obsession, take cover.

My latest email from Vote For A Change contains this nonsense:

Tom,

What rhymes with “hypocrite”?

Ed Balls is trying to convince Gordon Brown to take back the promise of a referendum on electoral reform being put in to law before this spring’s election.

Bad, right? It gets worse: Balls recognises our system’s broken. He is in favour of change. He’s just not willing to work for it, because he’s afraid a referendum will hurt Labour’s electoral chances.

We’ve got to bring the message home to Balls: we won’t stand for his obstruction of the reform we so badly need.

So we’re putting up a billboard in Balls’ Normanton constituency, telling him exactly what we think of his opposition to a referendum. And we need your help to come up with a slogan for it.

Your slogan idea can be rhyming, pithy, cutting, or earnest – all your brilliant ideas are welcome.

Willie Sullivan

The email comes from Willie Sullivan, who is not only a former employee of the Scottish Labour Party, but is also a serving Labour councillor in Fife. The only reason this strange organisation could be erecting a billboard in Normanton at this time is to try to cause Ed Balls some electoral difficulties – as revenge, I assume, for his eminently sensible position on electoral reform. So a Labour councillor is actively campaigning to undermine a Labour cabinet minister in his own constituency in the run-up to a general election just because the cabinet minister in question has a slightly greater sense of proportion on a particular policy issue than does Vote For A Change. A Labour councillor publicly calling a Cabinet minister a hypocrite? What the hell’s going on?

Maybe I can answer my own question.

LibDems tend to be able to support electoral reform without looking any more wild-eyed and crazed than usual, because it’s just one of their many wild-eyed and crazy policies. It’s just part of the furniture in CrazyTown, Bonkersshire, so no-one pays very much attention; everyone expects you to support it if you’re a LibDem – in fact, you would be deemed rather odd if you didn’t.

In the Labour Party, however, support for electoral reform is very much a minority sport, so those who feel deeply about it tend to be on the obsessive wing of the party. Pretty soon, everything else (growing the economy, improving pensions, the health service, schools, childcare, that sort of thing) becomes unimportant compared with the One Great Truth. And I’ll give you a beautiful example of that.

In the run-up to the 1992 election, David Cairns, now the MP for Inverclyde, had a conversation with a woman whose name I shall not divulge – let’s simply refer to her as “Mad Mrs McMad”. She was lecturing David on the evils of the corrupt first-past-the-post system which resulted, she claimed, in Labour not even bothering to campaign in “safe” Tory seats. It even resulted, Mrs McMad continued indignantly, in Labour putting up black candidates in places like Wimbledon! (Kingsley Abrams stood for Labour in Wimbledon in 1992.)

So focussed was Mrs McMad on her own pet obsession that she failed to have any self-awareness of her own ignorance and racism. I doubt if she remains a member of my party today. I hope not, anyway.

But that’s what happens when you start to believe that an issue, rather than your party, is the most important thing. Willie Sullivan is a Labour councillor, not because he’s Willie Sullivan, but because he had the words “Labour Party” next to his name. I hope he remembers that before he starts trying to undermine Labour MPs about to fight a crucial election.

Because victory in that election is a hell of a lot more important to the people Willie claims to represent than his silly little policy ever will be.

LABOUR could do far worse in the run-up to the general election than to emulate the phenomenally effective Ronald Reagan commercial from 1984, “It’s morning again in America”.

Positive, upbeat, optimistic, standing on your record in government. That’s how elections are won.

YESTERDAY I poked fun at right-wing and Tory blogs for their refusal to criticise Philip Davies MP for his green-inked rants against political correctness.

Today it may be the other side’s turn for criticism. This story in the Mail on Sunday may not be entirely accurate. There may be some details left out. But for the moment, it’s all we have, and the facts appear to be that a Christian teacher has been sacked after offering to pray for a sick child’s recovery. This, apparently, could have been interpreted as bullying (hat-tip to Iain Dale).

So the question I want to ask is: what do the left-wing and Labour-supporting blogs have to say about this apparently appalling example of moronic discrimination against Christians? What is the left-wing saying? There is no left-wing intellectual analysis that would justify this chain of events as they have been reported this morning. Are there any who are expressing indignation? Given that the overwhelming majority of voters – including a massive majority of traditional Labour voters – will share my own anger at this story, the Left risks looking utterly out of touch by remaining silent.

Why must we allow the right wing to claim that white, middle class Christians are the only minority group in the country that the Left don’t give a damn about?

Someone offering to pray to a God in whom you do not happen to believe is not bullying, even when you haven’t invited such intervention on your own behalf. I have prayed for lots of people who are not Christians and I will continue to do so, with or without their permission.

Christians are also accused of “bullying” whenever they seek to evangelise. “How dare a Christian tell me I should convert to their faith!” is the shrill, defensive nonsense we often hear. Well, I’ll tell you what: if you don’t want to become a Christian, don’t become one, okay? Problem solved. No bullying, just an exchange of views with no minds changed. Move on.

Christians are instructed by Jesus Christ to evangelise on His behalf. If non-Christians – and yes, that includes Muslims, Jews, Hindus, Seikhs and buddhists as well as atheists – feel offended by this form of outreach, well that’s a pity, but they’ll just have to deal with it as best they can.

UPDATE: Humble pie time for Harris, it seems, and rather than delete the above post (which was my first instinct, to save my blushes) I’ll simply add this: Bob Piper has done the rest of us a favour and has actually read to the very end of the article – which is what I should have done had the red mist not descended after the fourth paragraph and motivated me to open my laptop. Bob rightly accuses Ian Dale (and by inference, me) of a Pavlovian response to this story, and of failing to acknowledge that the (supply) teacher in question is simply under investigation – the normal procedure when a complaint is made.

Still, an object lesson in blogging to end the year on. Thanks to A Very Public Sociologist for alerting me to my mistake.

Still, I trust lots of left-wing bloggers (including Bob) will come out in support of this woman in the run-up to the internal investigation…

JOHN Rentoul is, of course, right to warn Labour against choosing class as an electoral battlefield.

Inevitably, there are those who relish the idea, who don’t need much encouragement to embrace class politics as they would an old, beloved yet recently ignored comfort blanket.

These would-be class warriors cite recent polling evidence that attacks on bankers and student politics-type proposals for a High Pay Commission are popular with the electorate.

I have absolutely no doubt that that is, indeed, what electors are telling the pollsters. Just as they consistently told pollsters in the run-up to the 1992 general election that they would be prepared to pay higher taxes in exchange for better public service.

As Rentoul rightly says of the more recent public reaction to the tax on bankers’ bonuses:

The bonus tax is popular in the short term (on the “tax anybody but me” principle), but I think it will have a negative effect on perceptions of Labour over the long term because it makes the party look as if it doesn’t like success.

Rather than using opinion polls as a basis on which to judge the wisdom of class politics, let’s take a rather different measure: general election results. In 1979, 1983, 1987 and 1992, Labour promised tax increases (but only for the wealthy) and got hammered. In 1997, 2001 and 2005, we pledged not to increase the basic or higher rates of tax. And golly! Look what happened!

So, now that we have been running a consistent deficit in the polls for more than two years, what kind of logic dictates that we can win next time by reversing our previous election-winning strategy, by reverting to our old class-based ways?

No party that is seen to sneer at wealth, or which is suspected, because of its language, of treating the wealthy and the wealth creators as the enemy, can hope to win the confidence of the electorate.

Recent political history has established that as a fact. It’s perfectly understandable that, when economic times get tough and political times get tougher, that we should retreat into our traditional positions. There is certainty there, after all – the certainty that comes with drawing “dividing lines” on a map.

But comfortable though such a position may be, elections cannot be won from it.

STUART KING is Labour’s candidate for Putney at the General Election. We met at conference in September last year. He had asked for a meeting because he saw from this blog that we shared many of the same principles when it came to the politics of aspiration v. the politics of envy.

He has written a first class article about the latest spat over GB’s perceived “class war” attacks on the Tories.

And you know something? Stuart is absolutely spot on. Take this, for example:

So the Conservatives have questions to answer, but they don’t concern Eton. The real question to pose should be: is aspiration really encouraged and rewarded by tax cuts for the richest 3%? If you believe it is you’re a Conservative. If you believe tax cuts start from the bottom up you’re a progressive and Labour remains your natural home…

This toff rhetoric sends these lost voters running for the hills because it is the exact opposite of why they returned to Labour in the first place. They supported us because we were a healthy, outgoing, positive and optimistic Labour Party that wants to help those who want to do better. Labour is rightly the party for those struggling to get by; but we must also remain the party for those who want to get on.

You can read the whole thing here.

I really hope Stuart can retake Putney for us, because we desperately need perspectives like his in the Parliamentary Labour Party and in government.