When it comes to modernity in general and the Labour Party in particular, I usually find myself out of step with popular sentiment. So, it came as no surprise to me that, when the results of the Labour leadership election were announced last weekend, I found out that I had backed the candidate who had come last. I am now officially one of the '4.5 percenters', that is, one of the 4.5 percent of people eligible to vote who backed Liz Kendall. It didn’t end there. Predictably, I backed losing candidates for the deputy leadership and the London Mayoral elections, Caroline Flint and Tessa Jowell respectively. I don’t wear my facility to gravitate towards minority positions with pride, rather with a sense of bemused resignation. The reason I put up the 4.5 Twibbon was not an act of defiance, but just a small act of solidarity, like turning on a torch in a dark landscape. The purpose is not to create a signal to steer by, but just to let others know that you are there and that they are not completely alone.
I didn’t support Liz Kendall because she was the right wing candidate. I supported her by a process of elimination. I thought that the Shadow Cabinet of 2010-15 were woefully disappointing. I have written a number of posts bemoaning the fact that Labour didn’t defend its record on running the economy in the Blair-Brown years and didn’t oppose self-defeating Austerity. So I wasn’t going to give my first preference to any former member of the Shadow Cabinet. That left Kendall and Corbyn and, not being someone of the far left, I felt Liz was my natural choice. I pledged my support for her early on, as the anti-Labour establishment, centre-right, at least to the right of Jeremy Corbyn (which granted isn’t saying very much!) candidate. However, I soon became exasperated as her attempt to appeal to Tory and Ukip voters manifested itself as being more down on the deficit than George Osborne and endorsing the crazy idea that we need to run a surplus on the public finances in this parliament. Indeed, I told a Liz Kendall campaign worker, who rang me up asking for my support, in a very theatrical fashion (it had been a long day), that under no circumstances would I support a candidate who talked what I considered to be a load of rubbish about Austerity and running surpluses. To which he replied that he knew it was rubbish as he had studied economics, but it was felt that this was the politically sensible thing to say. How depressing, I remember thinking.
Meanwhile, Jeremy Corbyn was busy going around opposing Austerity and the deficit fetishism that cuts public infrastructure spending at a time when it should be increased. A lot has been written about ‘Corbynomics’ and Corbyn’s ‘People’s QE’. I would simply say that you can’t dismiss the idea that the Bank of England should print money and give it away to ordinary people to help stimulate a flagging economy because it’s put forward by a mad, bearded leftie, when the idea has been endorsed by such doyens of the left as monetarist economist beloved by Thatcher, Milton Friedman, economist and former Chair of the Federal Reserve Bank, Ben Benanke and former chair of the FSA, Lord Adair Turner, to name but a few. So as the campaign progressed, I found myself in the deeply ironic position of supporting the most right wing candidate whilst agreeing with the most left wing candidate on matters of economic policy.
Well, as we found out last weekend, Jeremy Corbyn won the leadership election by a landslide and we are still experiencing the reaction. Former Shadow Cabinet members were queueing up to announce that they wouldn’t serve under Corbyn, or what Diane Abbot quite cleverly described as their rejection of job offers they hadn’t received. The Tories are working out how best to publicly engage with New Left Labour. The media are alternately poking fun, manufacturing outrage and causing embarrassment and discomfort. Fair enough. Other ordinary Party members, including many elected councillors who owe their position on councils up and down the country to their support of the Party, who were part of the Anyone But Corbyn fraternity, together with many Labour voters, are considering what to do next.
I was particularly struck by
this piece from Nick Cohen in the Spectator who announced that following Mr Corbyn’s election as leader of the Labour Party, he was resigning from the Left. It was a very interesting and engaging piece, written with real passion. He was particularly exercised by what he considered to be the hypocrisy of Corbyn and those who supported him. He cited their supposed commitment to equal rights for women against they unwillingness to speak out against the oppression of women in Muslim countries. He also raged against the fact that, in his opinion, despite their anti-racism, they are friends with anti-Semites, presumably because of their Pro-Palestinian/Pro-Arab idealogical position.
However, when I finished this piece I found myself thinking, ‘well, how many ordinary Tory and Ukip voters would care about any of this stuff?’. I use the phrase, ‘care about’ as shorthand for meaning, ‘if asked by a reputable polling company how many floating voters would rank any of these issues in their top 20, let alone their top 10, list of matters that most concerned them’. Or, alternatively, ‘would you decide who to vote for based on what the parties said on these issues alone’. I think that, at best (or worst, depending on your point of view) we could say concerning the issues of gender equality, the Middle East and 9/11, that people when deciding how to vote, would describe them as matters for consideration rather than determining factors. So they are not issues on which Labour can win an election. But they are the issues an obsession with which can prevent Labour from winning a General Election as it demonstrates to people just how out of touch and downright weird the Party is.
For the people of Britain to decide at the recent General Election that they were safer in the hands of the Bullingdon Club than the Labour Party should have been an incredible achievement. Labour’s lack of relevance seems to make it look like it was inevitable with hindsight. We will have to see how successful Labour under Corbyn is at turning this around. Sadly the
first signs are not good.
PS. I just wanted to say a word about the promotion of Heidi Alexander, MP for Lewisham East, to the role of Shadow Health Secretary. I have known Heidi for well over 15 years, even before she was first elected to Lewisham Council. Heidi is not of the Corbyn left. It must have been a difficult decision to accept the call to join the Shadow Cabinet when it came, especially when other more experienced people were deciding to spend more time doing other things. Heidi is not a giver-upper, to quote my Father-in-law and she possesses a steely determination. She also has a huge sense of responsibility. I know that when a call came to do a difficult job, she would be the last person who would say that she was washing her hair. Everyone in Lewisham who has ever had anything to do with Heidi knows that above all her talents one thing stands out and that is her genuine concern for ordinary people. She has a big heart and I wish her well at this difficult and challenging time. One thing’s for sure, I wouldn’t want to be in Jeremy Hunt’s shoes.
