The first, evidently, is to punctuate Jeremy Corbyn's tenure and emphasise the difference between Corbynism and Starmerism. Considering Keir's off-hand remark at Prime Minister's Questions about Labour being "under new management" back in July upset some, the new slogan has a similar effect but without the immediate connotation of rubbing the left's nose in it. But the vacuity and inclusion of the word 'new' would certainly set Blairist hearts a flutter, of insipid sloganising recalling the memory of better times and saying to them the Starmer project is their project. Additionally, as the leadership question was central to four-and-a-half years of bitter factionalising and scorched earth scabbing by the right, it is well known and widely accepted on the left that Jeremy's chief fault was an absence of decisiveness and a preference for consensus. In the conditions of mainstream politics in normal times, let alone a highly charged moment of political polarisation, this was fatal to the party's prospects and put the brakes on making the left's revolution in the Labour Party permanent. Therefore, talking about leadership signals a break from indecision, though in favour of what is anybody's guess.
The best slogans and soundbites hit multiple targets at once. In his 2008 Labour conference speech against the backdrop of economic catastrophe, Gordon Brown uttered the words "this is no time for a novice". It worked as a sideswipe at Dave's rapid rise without a trace but was a particularly well-timed barb at the blessed David Miliband who was primed by assorted malcontents as a would-be challenger to Brown if the moment arose. Why Labour decided to put out billboards of Dave on a Quattro instead of using this line beats me, but such was the wisdom of the higher ups. "A New Leadership" possesses a similar double meaning. Confronted with the catastrophic political management of the crisis, the slogan implies Labour have, if you will, an "oven ready" leadership ready to take over from the discredited, cynical leadership of the Tories. The "new" here resonates in much the same way as it does for Blair's epigoni in the party. Not that masses of Blair fans exist out in the real world, but the fact New Labour were capable of being decisive. Blair got criticisms for all kinds of things before and after the Iraq War, but failing to be "prime ministerial" was not one of them. The slogan invites comparison between Johnson now, Labour under Blair, and Keir Starmer's steady-as-she-goes approach. The stress on competence and the colourless way of going about politics is a way of playing the personalities game, of opposing serious Starmerism to jibbering Johnsonism.
The use of this slogan is redolent of something else too. It can tick so many boxes because of its blandness, but it also sums up a direction of travel. There is plenty to be gleaned from Keir's shadow cabinet appointments and occasional, semi-cryptic statements about economic policy, but in the immediate future, at least for the next 18 months, the ambiguity of what "Starmerism" stands for will be allowed to stand. Ambiguity is here to stay. Long-time readers might recall Ed Miliband went on a policy-free holiday for the first couple of years of his tenure. Likewise, unless political opportunity requires the adoption of an eye-catching, low political cost policy, there is a likelihood of seeing much the same. Since his shopping list of Corbyn-lite leadership pledges, Labour has been a policy-free zone beyond a few weak coronavirus management and getting children back into school demands. You start as you mean to go on, as the old saying goes. The new slogan's emptiness also complements the leadership's non-positioning by not getting in the way of projection. As Johnson's refusal to adopt any policy this time last year apart from Brexit allowed him to pitch successfully to former Labour voters who wanted to see Brexit over the line, Keir's team are banking on his person acting as a blank canvas for discontented Tory voters as well as Labour people and those whose heads are turned by other parties. If they make the emotional investments in his vaunted abilities now, they are less likely to withdraw them later.
Will it work under the present conditions of political polarisation? Possibly, though it's not without dangers. If it does stand a chance of success, timing for its abandonment is crucial. Labour certainly won't be going into the next election with "A New Leadership" festooning every shadcab podium. But even more important than timing is what follows next. Are we going to get a Corbynism without Corbyn, which Keir's campaign promised? Or, as is more likely, can we look forward to capitulating on establishment redlines over work, the environment, housing, and health? Let's just say if you're hoping for the pulling of a socialist rabbit from a centrist-looking hat, I can forecast a deal of disappointment in your future.
12 comments:
It will only get interesting once he ditches all the policies.
Phil...Housing is big issue...It will be central to winning back the 'Red Wall' seats...
Marxists like me approach the housing crisis in a similar way that Lenin and the Bolshevik Party won over 135 million Russian peasants in the lead up to the October 1917 revolution.
At the time the peasants wanted their own land. In 2020, opinions polls show that ninety per cent of young couples in Britain want to own their own home.
The reality for most young couples is that home ownership is only a pipe dream made worse by the huge expansion of ‘buy-to-let’ landlordism under Tony Blair’s New Labour.
Ironically, most Tory Party members, activists, and councillors, are ‘buy-to-let’ landlords. It is high time that all these ‘buy-to-let’ landlords were put out of business.
The first thing that must be done is to abolish mortgage interest tax relief for all ‘buy-to-let’ landlords. The second is that rent controls and rent control officers should be brought back.
The third is that the so-called ‘right-to-buy’ should be ended. The fourth is that local councils should borrow the money to build thousands of new council houses and flats.
Young couples could then occupy council housing with its attendant low rents whilst they saved up the deposit to buy a home on the open market.
And we could increase the tax rate on income from property to help fund the building of council houses and flats.
I agree a lot of the party slogans since Starmer took over have left something to be desired, but I actually think this one is OK.
And whilst diehard Corbynites think it is just aimed at them, others can see that it is at least as much a dig at Johnson.
Rayner good today, too. Things could be worse.
(when are you going to write about her, btw?)
«At the time the peasants wanted their own land. In 2020, opinions polls show that ninety per cent of young couples in Britain want to own their own home.»
There are several problems with something like "the road to social-democracy is to create more tory-voting petty landowners" as suggested by some "Marxists like me".
The biggest is that "ninety per cent of young couples in Britain" DON'T "want to own their own home", because that is expensive, a hassle, limits mobility, makes upgrading harder, makes one indentured to a mortgage.
What most of those young couples currently want to to own is a piece of paper (whether it is a deed to a property in the Home Counties or London or something else) that can be bought with 20x leverage, is government-guaranteed, and doubles in price every seven years, as their parents and grandparents had, and screw-everybody-else, screw-everybody-else, screw-everybody-else. What they want is Right-To-Buy, with a 70% discount, at 1980s-1990s prices. It worked so well for the previous generations!
The task Labour has is not to create more tory voters (the mandelsonians even established a New Labour policy unit to create more property owners to that end), but to persuade young and middle aged people of two vital social-democratic policies:
* To help create more jobs in the 80% of the country where they are scarce and therefore housing supply is much greater than demand. More jobs with greater safety of tenure, and better benefits, so they can raise their families without worries, and without relying on the ever increasing price of their property as a safety net.
* Secondarily, to support a large rental market, both public and private, with ample offer and low rents, so families can more easily upgrade as they get more children, and can more easily move to pursue better job opportunities, such as promotions etc.
The critical advantage that social-democracy has over thatcherism is that it is much cheaper and more efficient to have collective insurance (risk pools) against many risks than to self-insure. What middle aged people want is primarily to be able to raise their families more stably and safely, and while being tied to one location with a ballooning property price is one way, there are better ways.
BTW in any case young couples already usually vote Labour, because often they are renters.
«The third is that the so-called ‘right-to-buy’ should be ended.»
Gordon Brown was subtler than that in his eternal fight against the mandelsonians: he changed the discount to a small one, and *strengly enough*, "Eight To Buy" purchases fell to almost nothing.
One the first two things George Osborne did on becoming Chancellor was to increase it up to 70%, and *strangely enough* "Right-To-Buy" sales boomed (the other thing was of course to increase VAT).
«The fourth is that local councils should borrow the money»
Many (tory, of one denomination or another, usually) local councils have instead borrowed billions to buy (commercial) property in other local councils, so instead of increasing local taxes in their area, they would increase rents in the areas of other local councils. A perfectly thatcherite policy. Rah! Rah! :-)
Investing in commercial property at the beginning of the online shopping and remote working age looked already like a bailout of commercial property speculators, but with COVID-19 it is likely to turn into a catastrophe.
Love the comment from Smithers above: the 'way that Lenin and the Bolshevik Party won over 135 million Russian peasants in the lead up to the October 1917 revolution'. Conventional politics: promise the earth (literally) and then...oh dear. Needs to read up a bit. Or maybe he's sagacious: promise the earth (figuratively) and then???
«if you're hoping for the pulling of a socialist rabbit from a centrist-looking hat, I can forecast a deal of disappointment in your future.»
I have just read on "The Guardian" that his speech at the online conference was introduced by *Ruth Smeeth*, a choice that could not have been more deliberate (well he could have been introduced by Margaret Hodge).
«if you're hoping for the pulling of a socialist rabbit from a centrist-looking hat, I can forecast a deal of disappointment in your future.»
It is not just disappointment about socialism, but also about internationalism and the EU: as example of how things have changed post-Corbyn, super-extra-arch mandelsonian Lord Falconer recently wrote on labourlist.com:
“Labour wants to get Brexit done. We want the government to succeed in securing a deal in the national interest and to protect the Good Friday Agreement. Like the rest of the country, we want to move on from Brexit and see the UK making future trade deals across the world.”
That's just a repetition of what David Davis were saying for years, It is clear by now that the mandelsonians were for the second referendum only to get rid of Corbyn, now that we see that “Labour wants to get Brexit done” from the shadow cabinet's attorney general, as an expression of Keir Starmer's political position.
He wants power very much- he needs to tell us what for. Know your friends.
To help create more jobs in the 80% of the country where they are scarce and therefore housing supply is much greater than demand. More jobs with greater safety of tenure, and better benefits, so they can raise their families without worries, and without relying on the ever increasing price of their property as a safety net.
A question which I'm curious about: has the economy of provincial England (like the economy of rural America) been somehow sabotaged by local landowning elites?
«has the economy of provincial England (like the economy of rural America) been somehow sabotaged by local landowning elites?»
I have looked at the linked post, and it is mostly agreeable, but with two important qualifications:
* The local landowning elites run feudal-style systems based on the protection racket, like the "aristocracy" of the "Ancient Regime": in our turf you pay us protection or we burn your village (etc.).
* What the local "aristocracy" is afraid of is not "free workers", but to have rivals moving into their turf, be they other protection rackets, or employers for factories and offices.
This said, I think that the power of the big landowners in England is way weaker than that of businesses, finance and residential landowners (who need an influx of workers to shake down). Sure they still control some rural constituencies who return reliable Conservative MPs, but business, finance, residential property interests can override them.
It is quite different in southern America or some mediterranean countries, most of the Middle East or rural India or Africa: there the feudal big landowners are indeed jealous of any rival moving into their turf.
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