Ok, Labour had to touch rock-bottom to drag me out of my dissertation work and back into blogging. I won’t analyse too much on yesterday’s by-election because that you can find in plenty of blogs and papers today and probably in the days to come.
But I would like to make some post-mortem observations about the state of Labour and of Brown’s leadership. And as any student that fails to pass his academic year, I would like to give Brown and Labour some revision lessons and summer homework…
The lesson: Glasgow East has been lost because of the current economic crisis and the sense of lack of direction and grip of Brown’s government. Voters don’t hate Brown. They don’t believe he’s hurting them in purpose, Thatcher-style. They just see him as incompetent. The reality for the government is that in the middle of a deep economic crisis Brown isn’t leading the country. There’s no message coming out of No. 10. Listening and feeling the pain of others isn’t enough, they voted for Labour to lead not to just sit there and wait things get better before the next election. Economic crises can’t be stopped by the national government alone anymore, we live in a globalised world, but nevertheless the PM needs to reassure voters that the government is doing everything possible to alleviate the effects of the crisis and making reforms to avoid future crises in the long term by promoting a more sustainable high value-added economic model.
The summer homework: Brown should stay until the next election. The PM should first of all take a vacation (this is no joke, he needs some days off to clear his head, he’s reaching obsessive levels that aren’t healthy neither for the office he holds not him personally). Then return to London and start planning a September blitzkrieg. A new re-energised message (did he have one before?) that helps set Labour’s vision for Britain in the next five to ten years. An argumentative line, a backbone for Ministers and No. 10 to follow in a coherent manner. This new message will help the electorate understand where Labour is coming from and where it’s going and therefore why they should trust Brown. Information at every step of the process is essential to reassure the customer, in politics this is no different.
If Brown clears his head of everything that has gone wrong this past year and he gets himself and the party on the tracks again with a new message Labour has a good chance of winning again in 2010. In two years the worst of the economic crisis would have passed, if Labour is able to take credit for it while articulating a message for the new cycle chances are Brown could be reelected.
A final point and serious warning, although Brown should stay on, things are extremely serious for the party. I believe Brown should stay because he’s a capable man but also because no one of the next generation of leaders (Miliband, Johnson, Purnell) would win in 2010, the electorate won’t accept three PMs without an election in between. If Brown goes, Labour will also be finishing off his inmediate successor no matter what. But more importantly, after Glasgow East the level of disenchantment with Labour is extremely high. Unless the party rebuilds its message and Brown gets his act together Labour could find itself in real trouble with less than 100 seats in Parliament next time around and grave financial difficulties. It’s make or break for both Brown and Labour, better to work together than lose together I’d say.
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