As promised yesterday I would like to throw out there a couple of ideas for a new political message for Labour. Now that Brown is finally taking some time out (and hopefully getting some good sleep to clear his head) I hope No. 10 staffers are working hard on the new message and calendar to plan a proper (and final) comeback in September.
Here are my two contributions to the debate:
– Firstly, emphasise difference between the Tories and Labour on the economy. They are the party of the rich and powerful, Labour that of the middle and working classes, let’s remind voters of that. In Spain the Zapatero government is dealing with a serious economic crisis of similar proportions to that of the UK. Of course Zapatero, four months after his reelection, is taking a toll on his popularity because of the crisis. But he’s holding up by emphasising the differences in the way he and a Conservative government would handle the crisis. No government is going to have the silver bullet to finish off the crisis at once. It’s an international crisis, and for the UK economy, highly dependent on financial services, the global trend will mark the national trend. So the government should focus on alleviating the crisis for those that are more vulnerable to it. Zapatero has promised in Spain to guarantee social spending during the crisis no matter what, pensions, dependency law, minimum wage, work safety, they won’t be affected by the crisis and at the same time helping people restructure their mortgages to ease their economic circumstances (true, Spain had healthier public savings than the UK but there are ways around it, that’s the challenge for Labour economists). Moreover Zapatero has announced that no public money will be used to save private companies that are in trouble by their own mistakes, pure liberal orthodoxy. At the same time long term measures are being taken to guarantee a switch to a more sustainable economic model (energy saving, investment in railways, higher productivity, less construction and more manufacturing). These announcements give working people the feeling that the government is on their side, not using their taxes to pump up the same economic model that has caused the crisis. Sure, they still feel the pain, but in the long term until the crisis passes this is the only way to get through it. Moreover, Zapatero keeps reminding voters of what the Aznar government did during the 2000 crisis, freezing public sector salaries for years, reduction in public services investment and privatisations without a plan that turned public monopolies into private ones with no promotion of competition (think Telefonica). When voters see the differences between the two approaches they do come around to more progressive ways of doing politics. And this is what Brown needs to do in Britain. Alleviate the pain of the vulnerable and make sure to reform the supervision mechanisms to guarantee enough solvency in the financial sector for the future. Around these ideas should be Labour’s economic message.
– A second idea is that Labour needs to go on the offensive. Find wedge issues, remember the Tory revolt on comprehensive schools?, to stir the Tory backbenches. There are plenty of issues that Cameron is embracing that old Tories are simply uncomfortable with, on social issues, civil liberties, environment. Let’s put those divisive issues out there. Voters are only seeing the nice face of the Tories because Cameron is doing well, let’s show their nasty side by bringing up those issues where their leadership and backbenchers disagree. There are plenty and some of them long overdue to be taken into consideration.
These are my two contributions to the debate on a new message for Labour. They need to emphasise what are the differences between the parties, what makes Labour a better choice, and that should be that it cares about people and it supports them better through difficult times than the Tories would ever do.
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Forgesian Thinking 