Wednesday 5 August 2020

Opposition as Colourless Managerialism

Consider a clutch of recent polls. Here is the latest from Survation - Tories up three on 44%, Labour down to 35%. A similar story is told by YouGov, with Labour again on 35% to the Tories' 43%. Boris Johnson also leads Keir Starmer by two points in the best Prime Minister stakes (33% to 31% - don't knows also on 33%). And then there is this further YouGov number asking punters who would be to blame for a mass of second wave Coronavirus infections. 52% said the public, and 31% said the government. These results - the party preferences, and who's responsible for a Covid repeat performance - aren't divorced from one another.

The reasons for the persistent Tory lead aren't difficult to fathom. 60,000+ dead is not enough to shift the Tories from their we're-managing-a-national-crisis bonus, the promise to do Brexit come what may, and being seen to be doing stuff while the bulk of the Tory coalition of voters, thanks to their age and retirement status, don't have to live with the consequences of Rishi Sunak's "largesse." But this support also persists because Keir Starmer's approach to opposition is to challenge Johnson and the Tories on detail and not on the substance of what they're doing.

This is a fully conscious strategy. Introduce yourself to the public as a serious, statesmanly figure, one who's a safe pair of hands that won't bring the Home Counties out in a cold sweat nor frighten the city boys. Keep the criticism of the government measured so you're not looking like a point scorer or an opportunist, and hope your constructive approach to public health strategy will lead to a popular perception of you (and Labour) as better crisis managers. This orientation has certainly helped improve the party's standing in the polls as well as Keir's figures, but this can only go so far.

Some lessons from recent Labour Party history. In 2010, the summer's long leadership contest conceded Dave, Osborne, and their new friends in the Liberal Democrats time to shape the post-election politics and start moving on their programme of cuts and privatisations without vigorous opposition. Once Ed Miliband was elected, he was forever playing catch-up as the moment for contesting their framing of the crisis had passed. Then in 2016 after the EU referendum, Labour was consumed by a pointless - and again, lengthy - effort to oust Jeremy Corbyn while Theresa May got on with the business of defining Brexit in hard terms, and setting us on the road to where we are today. Perhaps had Labour MPs accepted the result from 2015 and set about opposing the Tories with the same energy they deployed against their leader, May's Brexit strategy might have withered under more scrutiny, more contestation, and the crisis that was later to consume her premiership could have come sooner. And then, at the beginning of this year, Labour's NEC ridiculously mandated another months' long contest as Johnson and Cummings warmed their feet under the table and prepped politics for their cracked schemes. They were not able to take advantage of Labour's three-month virtual absence from the field thanks to the arrival of Covid-19. Instead, we now see Keir now giving them the space to breathe they lost at the beginning of the year. How very sporting.

By focusing on process, Keir is defining himself as a man without ideas. By deliberately eschewing a root and branch critique and taking the Tories to ask for their litany of fatal failures, when he and Labour does venture them after the fact in 18 months to two years' time, it will be a dredging up of an unfortunate past people would rather forget. It runs the risk of an accusation of a lack of serious intent - after all, if Labour were bothered about excess deaths why didn't Keir hang, draw, and quarter the Prime Minister at the despatch box at the time? This failure has other repercussions too. On what the world should be like after the pandemic, how things should change, how public services need redesigning around people's priorities, and the reconfiguring of lives based around work in an age of economic depression, not one shred of hope, not a single glimmer of a better future has shown itself amid the grey plod of Keir's colourless managerialism. This stuff matters, because offering a critique, providing an alternative, and showing how it is better than what is is the very basics to any kind of oppositional politics. You cannot hope to win without it.

We're not seeing any of this so far, and the longer Keir redefines 'opposition' in the most timid and technocratic of terms, the more the government will get away with depoliticising the crisis and foist blame for their catastrophe onto people who don't wear their masks properly, or are careless with the social distancing rules. There is comfort to be found in the tiny number - just six per cent - of Labour supporters dissatisfied with bis performance so far, but as they say only one poll matters. Unless he and Labour politicise this crisis and pin it on Tory carelessness and psychopathy, we might as well begin planning our 2024 leadership contest - following the loss of yet another election.

16 comments:

George Carty said...

The thing that bugs me about the whole Covid-19 saga is that Boris Johnson -- a PM elected on a "Get Brexit Done" ticket -- failed to close the borders at a time when it was actually justified.

Defying advice from a WHO which they suspected of being China's lackeys, Taiwan closed its borders and encouraged mask-wearing as early as the New Year, and thus dealt with the crisis splendidly: only 600 cases and 9 deaths, and no lockdown.

Dipper said...

well ... being seen to be competent is necessary but not sufficient. It is a minimum requirement for a party that aspires to run the fifth/sixth biggest economy in the world to show it has the chops to do that. And in opposition that means looking like you can do the job.

Some vision would be helpful, but a vision that doesn't consist of outright nuttiness at best or at worst unleashing a woke/BLM civil war seems to be hard to come by these days now that the left is just a hobby for trustafarians and other assorted privately educated losers.

Blissex said...

«60,000+ dead is not enough to shift the Tories from their we're-managing-a-national-crisis bonus, the promise to do Brexit come what may,»

Given how poorly they have managed the crisis there has been no bonus for a while, and the Brexit promise value is now zero because Brexit has happened. The only significant fall in the Conservative lead indeed happened around the Cummings story.
In these conditions Labour should be not just 20% ahead, but 30% ahead. Some polls report that Keir Starmer is only a little more popular as a leader than Chuka Umunna, and New New Labour is fortunate that leaders have only a small influence on voting intentions, or else the Conservative lead would be even bigger.

«offering a critique, providing an alternative»

But but but... "There Is No Alternative", "we are all thatcherites now". :-(

«and showing how it is better than what is is the very basics to any kind of oppositional politics.»

The wishful thinking common to both New Labouroids and leftoids is that elections are won by oppositions being something better: better managerialism of thatcherism for the New Labouroids, better socialist alternative for the leftoids.

Actually in the short term oppositions are rarely if ever won by oppositions, they are almost always lost by governing parties; until the governing party screws up, why run the risk of voting for an untested opposition, no matter how seductive their appeal on paper?

The whig entrysts among the Conservatives were arguing that the party needed to "converge to the centre" by accepting gay marriage to become electable just as the whig entrysts within New Labour were arguing that the party needed to "converge to the centre" by accepting thatcherism to become electable.

What actually happened is that despite the electoral toxicity of Tony Blair New Labour only lost power after the 2000s crash, just as the Conservatives lost power only after the 1990s crash despite Margaret Thatcher's electoral toxicity. And the cameronian whigs did not quite win in 2010 after, they only got there in 2015, after 5 years of boom (for tory voters only).

The real importance of intra-party fights is to have your side of the party in control when the governing party screws up and the voters "throw the bums out", not to wow the voters with an ever better management of the existing politics or with a new set of alternative politics.

The main political issue of "the governing party screws up" is that "screws up" depends on the interests of the voters: while various leftoids have been whining about the "austerity" of the past ten years, a plurality of voters sufficient to put Osborne, May, Johnson in power have been very smug about their booming living standards in the same past ten years.

That's where politics can change things, redefining what "screws up" means, but that was not the New Labour or isn't the New New Labour game.

Blissex said...

«Once Ed Miliband was elected, he was forever playing catch-up as the moment for contesting their framing of the crisis had passed.»

He also was under constant attack from the Mandelson Tendency for being an "irresponsible trot" like Gordon Brown, and also an "antisemite" once he upheld Labour's purely theoretical "two state zionism" position like Jeremy Corbyn did later too. That also mattered a great deal, not just the framing.

As to the framing, once criticism of finance and property interests for having created the crisis kept appearing, the "mainstream press" switched almost simultaneously to attacking "scroungers" and the "scrounging lovers" of Labour for the "deficit that has caused the crisis". Showing once again that unless the left start funding for their own mass-media the left cannot expect the mass-media paid for by the sponsors of the right to be fair or even just decent.

The lesson that the party learned from Ed Milliband is that even he was outside the "Overton window" of acceptable thatcherites, and thus now we have Keir Starmer.

Socialism In One Bedroom said...

"with depoliticising the crisis and foist blame for their catastrophe onto people who don't wear their masks properly, or are careless with the social distancing rules."

Why would this be depoliticising the issue?

I am not sure what counts as being careless with social distancing rules but, for example, holding a party in your house with 130 people or going to a packed disco/pub where social distancing is non existent is not careless but criminal. And will no doubt kill more than died in Beirut. I still don't know why we shoot a man dead when he is carrying a knife but don't machine gun these covidiots on the beaches.

There is no excuse for being careless with these rules and it is political to point out the criminality of the Covidiots.

I always regarded capitalism as one big death cult and this pandemic has only confirmed my view (this is why the Islamists criticism has certain merits).

I mean the talk was of lockdown until the end of the year, a few months down the line and people think McDonalds reopening is something to celebrate.

We have a psychopathic government because we have a psychopathic population, all wanting to keep their supremacy, so they can live at 11.2kw while the rest of the world slaves away at 1.8kw!

Blissex said...

«offering a critique, providing an alternative, and showing how it is better than what is is the very basics to any kind of oppositional politics. You cannot hope to win without it.»

If K Starmer has a strategy it is to prove this wrong by simply waiting for 5 years for B Johnson to "screw up", and then winning by simply being not-Johnson when the voters throw B Johnson out. That is pretty much what happened to Tony Blair in 1997 (and yet the New Labour victory in that year was significantly smaller than what polls gave Labour under John Smith).

https://inews.co.uk/news/politics/tony-blair-won-corbyn-turn-179185
“In 1994 the Labour leadership thought they could achieve power by sitting back and watching the Tories implode.”

Jimbo said...

Of course to read too much into opinion polls now would be rather daft. Let's see how the local elections in May turn out

Blissex said...

«Of course to read too much into opinion polls now would be rather daft. Let's see how the local elections in May turn out»

My translation: if the numbers were looking better we would celebrate the magic Starmer effect, but the numbers look terrible, so let's say to wait those for local elections over which national leaders have usually (but not for example in 2004, when Blair's electoral toxicity turned them into a Conservative landslide) even less effect than on national ones: if they are a win, claim it is because of Starmer, if they aren't claim we need to wait for the general elections.

Blissex said...

««offering a critique, providing an alternative, and showing how it is better than what is is the very basics to any kind of oppositional politics. You cannot hope to win without it.»
If K Starmer has a strategy it is to prove this wrong by simply waiting for 5 years for B Johnson to "screw up"»

BTW I think that our blogger however has also made some rather good points as to opposing: even if *political* (as opposed to managerialist) opposition has little effect on "swing voters" compared to "screw up", it may have a significant effect on the party base and their level of motivation, both as activists and people who actually go to vote.

The problem for New New Labour is that political opposition would not only motivate the "trots" who believe in social-democracy but also displeases the upper-middle class swing voters who benefit from thatcherism and just wish that there was a classier, more managerially effective thatcherite in power than B Johnson.

Socialism in One Bedroom said...

The problem for the left is that in Britain how well you do in elections is usually a good indicator of how far to the right you have gone. So it is the wrong metric to obsess over if you are on the left!

Ok Corbyn did show that even in the UK there is a base of leftist ideas, but ultimately Corbyn could not beat the material reality. So I have no doubt that Starmer will fare better in an election than Corbyn simply because Starmer is a representative of opulent England and is one of those practical politicians.

Obsessing over the voting intentions of some of the most privileged, energy using citizens on planet Earth is political nationalism and is much more toxic than economic nationalism.

The left in the UK simply needs to oppose every penny spent on the military, just as communists would always but always vote against the national budget in the good old days of the 19th century.

We can only be oppositional and critical; it is time to resurrect the League of the Just!

We need to push forward a communist vision and let the bloated masses like it or lump it.

In Britain the only left politics with any logic is anti Imperialism.

Anonymous said...

or maybe it's because Corbyn's leadership caused generational damage. If these polls were his you'd be talking them up.

Phil said...

The move of older voters supporting the Tories and younger ones going for Labour has been evident since 2005 and accelerated in 2017 and 2019. My interest is in explaining what we see and how this informs our strategy and tactics. Not everyone is a cynical poltroon hiding behind anonymity.

Blissex said...

«maybe it's because Corbyn's leadership caused generational damage.»

But we were reassured by Peter Mandelson and Tony Blair himself that switching from a "accept soft brexit" to "2nd referendum to reject brexit" would by itself result in a landslide, because all that mattered was to capture the votes of the "Remain" 48%.

But we were ressured by Peter Mandelson and Tony Blair himself that switching from "deranged genocidal trot" to "europhile soft-thatcherite centrist" would by itself wash away the past and result in a 20% polls lead, because all that matters is having a great centrist leader (someone "forensic" and "classy" like Chuka Umunna).

Now we are told that having a great "centrist" leader is not the key to electoral performance, because *past* leaders matter too. But Peter Mandelson and Tony Blair are never wrong, because they won 3 elections! :-) So the only possible conclusion is that K Starmer is not a great leader with magical electoral properties, so we need to call back Chuka Umunna or David Miliband or Owen Smith. :-)

«If these polls were his you'd be talking them up.»

If these polls were J Corbyn's we would not be happy, but then he had much better polls at various points during his 5 years and this despite being under constant character assassination by most of the PLP, by the tory press, the whig press, various right-wing lobbies, and opposing a robotic but still vaguely statesperson-like May.

Now that the PLP is celebrating K Starmer, the whig press is fawning over him, the tory press is treating him with the respect due a fellow thatcherite (even if "soft"), and the various right-wing lobbies have fallen silent, and he is "opposing" an even more terrible government than May's, the excuse for K Starmer is the hand-waving claim that it is still J Corbyn's fault?

That is not a political argument, it is a comical one.

Anonymous said...

I actually think Starmer is simply working on the strategy of letting the Tories screw up and not interefering too much.

The problem Starmer will face will be if he keeps to his 10 pledges. I personally believe he is an honest man, and will attempt to. The press will then go into full on "commie trade unionist renationalisation refugee Marxist bastard" mode. He will then possibly face a revolt and almost certainly face a leadership challenge and we will get someone from the right of the party arguing that there must be a total break from not only 2017 era Corbynism, but also trade unionism and any left wing economics.

That is when it gets really dangerous.

Blissex said...

«The problem Starmer will face will be if he keeps to his 10 pledges. I personally believe he is an honest man, and will attempt to.»

The shadow cabinet he has appointed is incompatible with any "trot sounding" pledge. I personally think that he is a "honest lawyer", that is he will attempt to "finesse" the pledges with clever word-smithing.

«The press will then go into full on "commie trade unionist renationalisation refugee Marxist bastard" mode.»

Even Tony Blair was targeted by the "demon eyes" campaign, because up to 1997 he was still occasionally mouthing the word "socialism" (with Liberal characteristics). The Conservatives will do whatever to win the elections, but Keir Starmer will be subjected to a minuscule fraction of the media persecution dished out to J Corbyn,in part because he is fully aligned with the politics of the Likud party.

Blissex said...

«The shadow cabinet he has appointed is incompatible with any "trot sounding" pledge.»

He has replaced R Long-Bailey with the campaign manager of Owen Smith's leadership challenge, one she wrote of J Corbyn's notorious mysoginism (from Wikipedia): "Even when Jeremy gets that there's a problem, his solutions too often reinforce rather than address the root causes of gender inequality". Everybody must still be astonished that he managed to fool even his closest friends and his party colleagues for 40 years as to his profound trotskysm, misoginy, racism and anti-semitism :-).

Then look at the big departments: the two leftmost people are E Miliband and J Ashworth.

As to that I am astonished that he appointed E Miliband, because when he was party leader he was constantly being attacked for anti-semitism because of actually endorsing the party's official 2-state zionism like J Corbyn and thus deviating from Likud's 1-state political line. But I guess that E Miliband has learned to keep quiet about that deviationism. He may have recanted, but he has not come unequivocally advocating for the return to Israel of of the palestinian-occupied regions of "Judea and Samaria" :-).