Tuesday, May 13, 2008

Brown stuff

One of the more eyebrow-raising claims emerging from the flood of revelations seeping out of heavily trailed and serialised memoirs is Cherie Blair’s assertion that Tony Blair is advising Gordon Brown on how to win elections. It is not just that it is near impossible to imagine Blair helping Brown with anything; it is also that I would demur from the self-image of the former prime minister as some kind of electoral wizard. It might sound odd to say this about someone who won three consecutive general elections, but, if you stop conjecturing and actually look at the figures, British elections are not always as they seem.

In 1997, Blair had an open goal. He didn’t tap the ball in the net; he hammered it. Victory was delivered through a coalition of natural Labour supporters, anti-Conservative sentiment and tactical voting. New Labour had been invented but its main voter base consisted of a contradictory mix of those who voted for them because they were New Labour and those who did so in spite of it. As Labour tacked to the right in power, this voter coalition became like a dysfunctional family. The favoured children were given new bikes and computers; Old Labour types were thrown the odd cheap plastic toy and given a regular clip round the ear - and boy did they resent it.

That contradiction began to show in election results. After two years, it was clear something was happening. Labour fell to 28% of the vote in the European elections of 1999 – back to 1983 levels. Then in the 2001 General Election, though their share of the vote only dropped three points and they gained another landslide in seats, turnout crashed to an unprecedented low and Labour lost around 3 million votes. The next victory in 2005 was even stranger. Their 35% share showed the loss of another 1 million votes, their second lowest total since the war, only the catastrophe of 1983 produced fewer. Labour’s share of the vote was their third lowest after the defeats of 1983 and 1987. In any other year it would have produced a drubbing. It is just that the opposition did even worse and the electoral system worked in Labour’s favour.

Labour’s high point was in 1951. They gained the biggest share of the vote any party has achieved since the war, 48.8%, and lost. This time the electoral system perversely delivered a comfortable victory for the Tories on a smaller vote and, crucially, they went on to gain the political benefits of the post-war boom. In 2005 Labour won with 3½ million fewer votes than they polled in 1951, despite the electorate being larger by nearly 11 million people. Astonishing.

The recent local election results were terrible, yet they are not exceptional. They fit coherently within a pattern of declining Labour support. Nor is this the lowest Labour has sunk when in power. The 2004 European elections saw Labour gain only 22% of the votes and they went on to win the General Election the year after. However, there is a crucial change this time. The Tories have revived. New Labour’s fabled electoral success was mainly the product of a spectacular Conservative collapse.

One of the depressing features of much of the current commentary has been the insistent focus on personalities, especially the incredibly bad press that Gordon Brown is generating. Granted that, to say the least, he has not convinced in the role of Prime Minister and it matters, we should, instead, be talking more about ideologies and models of political economy. However inchoately expressed, these are what affect how people experience their real lives. The key to Cameron’s success in reviving Tory fortunes is that he is inferring that they have abandoned a rigid Thatcherism and are in the process of returning to a patrician and paternalistic tradition of ‘one nation’ Conservatism. On the other hand, as Larry Elliott describes clearly, Labour are clinging doggedly to the neo-liberal post-Thatcher settlement.

A disproportionate and arbitrary electoral system hangs over the debate, inhibiting political realignment and giving extravagant rewards to those who gather a minority of the votes cast. The only encouraging aspect of the whole farrago is that Thatcherism is dying. The natural beneficiaries should be Labour. It remains to be seen whether they will claim their inheritance.

6 comments:

Shuggy said...

Again I have to disagree. I think you're conflating three issues here.

One is our electoral system, which you don't approve of, describing it as producing 'arbitrary' results. It's not arbitrary - it awards government to the party that wins the most seats. And there has only be one occasion where the largest party has not had more votes than the party that came second - this falling in Labour's favour when Heath lost the election. This can happen in any system that uses districts. What you mean is that it isn't proportional, which is a separate issue. I won't bang on about this but since PR can in theory - and has done in practice - produced entire changes in governments without a single vote being cast, why do you think it would be any less arbitrary?

And I think you're mixing this up with the decline in active support for all parties - expressed in declining voter turnout and falling party membership. This is true here - what with the RSPCB having more members than all the political parties - but it is also true of Western Europe in general. It obviously raises profound question as to the nature of our democratic system and how we imagine participation in the future - but one man we know doesn't have the answer is Gordon Brown, which brings me to the third point:

One of the depressing features of much of the current commentary has been the insistent focus on personalities, especially the incredibly bad press that Gordon Brown is generating.

I disagree. I think Gordon Brown's personality is a significant variable in this whole question. He brings an incompetence to the job that is over and above any internal party forces and constraints. While agree with many of your policy priorities, I think you're overstating the role of ideology here. With regards to the state of the party - mightn't the fact that both Gordon Brown and Wendy Alexander were elected unopposed be a more obvious culprit?

Harry Barnes said...

Shuggy: "And there has only been one occasion where the largest party has not had more votes than the party that came second - this falling in Labour's favour when Heath lost the election."

It does not effect your argument, but there was also 1951 when Labour obtained 48.8% of the vote to the Tories 48.0% (with 4 unopposed returns overall.) Churchill replaced Attlee as PM winning by 321 seats to 295. There were 6 Liberals and 3 others.

There are matters which we should concentrate upon before altering the voting system. Including (1) how do we ensure that the 2 million eligable voters are no longer missed from electoral registers - this also distorts the drawing of Constituency boundaries,(2)should we enfranchise residents in this country from all nations overseas in addition to those from the Commonwealth and Ireland ("no taxation without representation"), plus prisoners whose sentences should be their punishment, (3) should we end the enfranchisement rights of those British citizens who have settled overseas, whilst arguing for their enfranchisement in the countries they now reside in, (4) should we have stricter controls on the voting procedure, perhaps restricting the possibility of using postal voting and not moving to other dangerous voting practices?

The Plump said...

Shuggy

I am duly and rightly corrected about the use of the word 'arbitrary'.

It isn't just about '74 and '51 though, my doubts about the electoral system arose in the 1980's, where the disastrous impact of the Labour split at a time of ideological polarisation meant that the majority voted against both Thatcher and Thatcherism, resulting in two consecutive Thatcher landslides!

And I think you're mixing this up with the decline in active support for all parties - expressed in declining voter turnout and falling party membership.

My argument here is that the scale of the decline was above trend. Labour Party membership was actually growing up to 1997. Some estimates suggest that it has fallen by up to 70% since then. Also, a fall from a 71.5% turnout to 59.4% in one election is too large not to be significant. This is also reflects my personal experience and local anecdotal evidence.

Harry

You are dead right about these reforms. We have become careless about our democracy and democratic rights. It is also not just about about enfranchisement but about people seeing a point in participation. As I favour electoral reform, I would mention the phenomenon of the wasted vote, I also like what Paulie writes about decentralisation. However, it comes back to political economy again when the lowest participation is amongst the poorest.

So back to Brown. I am sceptical about leaders and leadership, I think that they are all pretty dysfunctional people but he seems to be unable to hide it and to be particularly inept. It reminds me of why I have never attempted to go for management jobs, I would be similarly hapless. I also like the way Shuggy placed him in the context of Scottish Labour on his own site. However, he could be dazzling with charm, decisive and efficient, but if he still came out with the same old bollocks he would fail.

The only point to Brown was change. If the only change was to be in personality then we are looking at a complete disaster. However, if he was changing policy and ideology (ideally in a direction that all three of us would favour), he could succeed, at least partially. He has a small amount of time but I am not hopeful. And there is no sign of the answers to the 'profound questions' about democracy.

I suppose the main point of this post has been to say that whenever I looked at New Labour I just wished that Emperor would put some trousers on - not a pretty sight.

Shuggy said...

There are matters which we should concentrate upon before altering the voting system.

Agreed - but I'd argue that there more fundamental ones than those you mention. The key one for me is the question: what do you want your electoral system to be able to do? All this talk of 'fair' voting systems is for the birds. FPTP disproportionately gives representation to winners and those that come second; PR disproportionately rewards small parties. Which you prefer depends on what is appropriate for the particular polity. But one of the virtues of FPTP is that if you want rid of one lot, it facilitates their complete removal. This makes it pass an important democratic test in the way that PR with the coalitions that are natural to it does not.

Which brings me to this:

my doubts about the electoral system arose in the 1980's, where the disastrous impact of the Labour split at a time of ideological polarisation meant that the majority voted against both Thatcher and Thatcherism, resulting in two consecutive Thatcher landslides!

The electoral system did in the 1980s what it has always done - what changed is you didn't like the result. FPTP has always given this bonus to winning parties, especially when the opposition is in disarray.

I remember well all this talk about how 58% of the country voted against Thatcher. But our voting system doesn't tell us what people voted against, it only records who people voted for - and the 58% were not voting for the same thing.

The Plump said...

The point of the 1980's for me was that it showed there was a centre left majority that was not only unrepresented but shut out of power. New Labour started out, quite correctly, as a device to secure that centre left majority. It all started going wrong when the silly buggers decided that they would like to add the centre right (and a bit beyond) to their bloody awful big tent.

What they also showed was that a realignment is not possible by forming separate parties as it splits the vote. The only way is a factional fight within a party, allied to the willingness of the losers to hold to party discipline. Electoral reform means that alliance are made openly between between separate parties rather than between factions within parties. I prefer the latter, not least because I feel utterly and totally unrepresented by any of the tosspots on offer.

Good debate. Wish it was over a pint or several.

The Plump said...

I prefer the latter

That should, of course, read 'former'