And another thing…

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.

LAST year, during Labour’s ill-fated by-election campaign in Glasgow East, I met and worked with a young party activist called Yousuf Hamid. Not only was he excellent company and an energetic worker, he has also started up one of the best of the new Scottish blogs around.

I don’t want to sound patronising, or to make Yousuf blush, so I’ll just recommend a visit. You can also follow him on Twitter.

NOT SURE why, but I seem to be on the mailing list for “Vote For Change”, the campaign to hand permanent Cabinet seats to the LibDems change the electoral system.

Last night I received this email from Willie Sullivan, who helps run the campaign:

Tom

I’ve just heard some great news for the campaign – and I wanted to tell you straight away. It’s what we’ve been asking for all along.

The Government’s Democratic Reform Council met yesterday: they have decided to call a vote in the Commons on a legally binding clause that will provide for a referendum on the voting system.

This is the first time the Commons will be able to vote on holding such a referendum in decades.

It’s huge – and it’s down to your hard work for our campaign.

But we haven’t won yet – opponents of reform, especially in the unelected House of Lords, will do their best to kill the bill and stop voters from having their say.

Tomorrow, the press will report this story. It’s going to be big news. But we haven’t won until a referendum is actually called.

We need to put pressure on the politicians – opponents of reform need to know we won’t let them stand in our way. With your help, I know we can do it.

Thanks for everything you have done,

Willie

And here’s how I replied:

Thanks for the alert, Willie – I’ll make sure I’m there to vote against.

Tom

IT’S ALWAYS nice to receive compliments for my blogging. The only problem is that I generally receive them from Tories, rather than from fellow party members.

The latest case in point is the recently-founded Tory Tavern blog, who writes:

So, a fantastic few days blogging from Mr Harris. The landlord has one remaining nagging thought, though. With his common-sense, honest and open approach to politics, his rejection of electoral reform, his commitment to unionism, his criticism of Labour plans to raise taxes on the rich, his dislike of political correctness and his view that Gordon Brown should resign…is he sure he’s in the right party?

So let’s tackle those points head-on.

First off, I don’t think that having a “common-sense, honest and open approach” to politics is or should be the preserve of any one party; there are bloggers from all the main parties who subscribe to those values – and plenty who don’t.

Support for the First-Past-The-Post electoral system is still the mainstream view among MPs and activists in the Labour Party, so supporting it publicly is hardly taking a “maverick” stance.

As far as unionism is concerned, the Labour Party is far more committed to the Union than the modern Conservative Party is. A Tory party committed to making Scottish, Welsh and Northern Irish MPs second class members of the Commons would be a greater threat to the United Kingdom than the SNP could ever be.

On taxes, Tony Blair and New Labour won the confidence of the electorate by persuading the country that Labour no longer believed in taxing for its own sake, that if they have to be raised at all, it should be done reluctantly, as a last resort, and to fund a specific spending commitment. That’s what I – and the vast majority of Labour MPs – still believe.

My frustration with political correctness is actually illustrated by Tory Tavern’s citing of it as evidence that I’m in the wrong party: why on earth must the Labour Party allow itself to fall into the trap of defending it? I haven’t met a single person – of any party or none – who can defend the more witless examples of political correctness. The young boy sent home with a note to his parents revealing that he had uttered anti-German sentiments while his class was being taught about the Second World War? The student who was arrested and forced to spend the night in the cells for calling a police horse gay? And don’t even start me on “Winterfest” or “NeutralFest” or “Let’sMakeSureNo-oneCanPossiblyBeOffendedByReferencesToChristianityFest” or whatever. No-one defends that kind of nonsense, and if Labour Party members do, I’ve never met them.

To the above list of indictments, I should ask for my views on benefit dependency and single parents and my robust approach to asylum to be considered as more “offences” to be taken into account. These have been portrayed by the media as being “anti-Labour” or at least “anti-Left wing”. In fact, on the single parents issue, while I did receive some messages of support from Conservative colleagues in the Commons, I was overwhelmed by the support I received from Labour colleagues who told me it was “about time” someone said what I said.

I don’t specifically adopt these views in order to drive up traffic on this blog or to earn praise from right wingers. I believe that the views I hold are shared not only by the vast majority of what most people understand to be Labour’s “core vote”, but by the vast majority of the wider electorate. And I espouse those views because (a) I believe they are right, and (b) I believe Labour would be more popular if more of its representatives at every level were to voice them.

And that’s the whole point: I want Labour to win the general election and to stay in government, because that, in my opinion, would be in the best interests of my country and my constituents.

So, yes, Tory Tavern, I am in the right party. And if I had my way, your party would have a longer term in opposition ahead of you than behind you.

LIBDEM MP Jo Swinson has revealed through her Facebook page Twitter that she has been dropped by the Beeb from tonight’s Question Time panel.

I know how she feels, though in my case it was a senior minister who ordained that I should not appear, despite the Beeb actually wanting me on the panel. This was in the aftermath of the hoo-ha over my blogpost asking why everyone was so bloody miserable. I was still a minister at the time, and wanted to remain one. So, cravenly, I submitted and withdrew.

“Thanks, Tom, we’ll make it up to you,” I was told. Weeks later I was sacked.

Politics, eh?

TOMORROW’S Observer will carry an Ipsos/Mor poll showing the Tories with an extremely modest (and not majority-winning) six per cent lead. The numbers are:

Conservatives 37 (-6)
Labour 31 (+5)
Others 32

I can go to bed (reasonably) happy now.

CAN LABOUR win under the current electoral system? Well, given that we have won three times in the past 12 years, I would hazard a guess at “yes”.

If some of Labour’s parliamentary candidates reckon we can’t win unless we promise a referendum on the alternative vote on the same day as the general election, maybe they should be examining their own so-called “democratic credentials”.

The ambition of the 34 candidates is truly soaring: “hundreds” of LibDems throughout the country would switch to Labour if we were to hold a referendum on the same day. Phew! That many, eh? Nearly enough to affect the result in … well, a seat, probably.

They propose a “government Bill” to facilitate such a referendum. The only problem there is that such a Bill is very unlikely to succeed. Apart from those Labour MPs who would oppose it (including Yours Truly), the Libdems would be likely to campaign against it on the basis that it’s not precisely the exact system that would most benefit them be most democratic.

And can we please stop all this nonsense about the 1997 manifesto commitment? That was a promise of a referendum, not on AV but on AV+, a version of AV which would be even more calamitous than straightforward AV, with “assisted places scheme” MPs (like those in the Scottish Parliament and Welsh Assembly) being “elected”. We have never made a manifesto commitment to a referendum on AV.

You have to wonder why Labour candidates are so keen to get into Parliament if all they want to do is bargain away power to the LibDems. “Ah,” they will argue, “but the Tories were in government for most of the 20th century and we must make the 21st century the century of progressive politics.”

Yeah, okay, I’ll sign up to that. But you know the best way of electing a Labour government? Not through messy, sordid little deals with the minor parties, but by winning more votes than the Tories. That’s how they stayed in power for most of the last century – by beating us in elections; by offering the electorate policies that were more popular than ours.

By carping on about voting systems, we simply reinforce the notion – and I hope and believe it’s a wrong notion – that we have nothing to offer the voters but electoral calculations.

CONGRATULATIONS to BevaniteEllie, aka the Stilletoed Socialist, for her successful campaign to get the classic Phil Collins video used for the next Labour party election broadcast. Don’t see the relevance, personally, but I can’t fault the musical taste. Class.

THOSE who want to believe that next year’s general election will be a 1997 in reverse might want to consider the following fact: in the last eight years of Tory rule, they won not not a single parliamentary by-election.

I don’t have time to do a Google search on which seats Labour has held in the last eight years – or even four. Or two. I expect one of my readers will be kind enough to do that for me.

The point being: Cameron has most definitely not sealed the deal.