So we have a reasonable range of would-be Labour leaders to choose from now: two Milibands, Andy Burnham, Ed Balls, Diane Abbot and John McDonnell. For US readers I should explain McDonnell – deputy to Ken Livingstone in the old GLC days – has no chance and Abbot almost none. Which is a pity since at least she’s refusing the distasteful dog-whistling on immigration that is central to the Burnham and Balls campaigns. There’s a good piece on the issue in the Guardian by John Harris (h/t MoN). Harris goes a bit easy on Miliband E’s for my liking – and that’s even though I’m backing EM myself.
{ 26 comments }
christian h. 05.23.10 at 6:41 pm
I still hope that McDonnell, or failing that, Abbott at least get enough MP nominations so they will be able to speak to members and at union hustings and put a more left-wing view across – else it’s just going to be a Blair vs. Brown substitute fight. I am stunned by the position of some on the left that the most important thing is to elect a leader “who can win elections”. How about a leader who, once elected, will do stuff – let’s say, not spend 13 years in power and somehow neglect to abolish the ridiculous anti-trade union laws currently in force?
magistra 05.23.10 at 7:00 pm
Surely it’s not dog-whistling when they’re saying out loud that they should have been tougher on immigration? What’s barely audible about that? What is depressing is the theree factors increasing immigration which Labour politicians aren’t willing to mention: that you can’t prevent Eastern Europeans ‘flocking’ here without leaving the EC, that you can’t cut the number of student visas without UK higher education crumbling, and that the rise in asylum seekers increased a lot because of the effects of invading Iraq and Afghanistan. I presume the Conservative ‘cap’, meanwhile, is cunningly going to be put in place just in time for 2011, when all the Poles are going to be allowed to work in Germany anyhow, so they can claim credit for the probable fall in Eastern Europeans working in the UK then .
Dave Weeden 05.23.10 at 7:25 pm
What magistra said, especially regarding the EU. There really is no available method to block Eastern European immigration, short of reneging on our EU membership. And that’s far too drastic for any party to contemplate. A much easier way would be to discourage economic migration – ramp up unemployment, bust the pound, and ensure that they can’t find work (and they do come here to work, not claim meagre benefits). Oh, so *that* was Labour policy. ;-)
Really, going by Ipsos Mori’s figures I don’t see this concern about immigration reflected in actual voting, and I don’t see how clearly bright former number crunchers like Ed Balls do. Speaking of Balls, I also think that he was unfair to his former boss when interviewed by the Telegraph.
Well, Gordon was only the Prime Minister, which doesn’t leave a lot of time for talking to the public. His party (including Balls of course) should have done that on his behalf and reflected the mood of the country to him. They didn’t – either they’re disloyal rabble, or there was no such mood to report. Either way, none of the candidates Balls names come over as trustworthy. I think I like Balls best of the realistic candidates (ie ruling Diane Abbott out), but that’s largely because Nick Cohen hates him.
I doubt John Harris will have any effect, however, even though he’s much more lucid than Ed, Ed, or Dave have been so far.
ejh 05.23.10 at 7:47 pm
It’s not an original observation, but Roy Hattersley quite rightly observed that Labour used to appeal to (or reflect) the best instincts of working people: New Labour appeals to their worst. but that’s a direct consequence of their rightwing economics: not that they have to go with horrid social politics (often they don’t) but if you’re making your pitch to working people and you’re not appealing to their better instincts, which are going to be egalitarian, you’re going to have to appeal to their resentments instead.
Curious line about Abbott – for whom, hurrah – having taken on “a very unlikely air of saintliness”. Why is it particularly unlikely in her? Have I missed something?
Phil 05.23.10 at 7:57 pm
A representative bit of Abbott snark here. I think the private education thing is a particular red line for a lot of people (myself not included).
Philip 05.23.10 at 8:23 pm
Are Labour really saying they lost the election because of immigration? What was the change in policy or levels of immigration that caused this? There was none, their immigration policies were stricter (on non-EU citizens obviously).
My feelings are that they were struggling in 2005 mainly due to the Iraq war. Then the global financial crisis didn’t help make them popular again.
magistra 05.23.10 at 8:47 pm
One other awkward issue that doesn’t get much mention is the class aspect of mobility of labour within the EU. It’s a generalisation, but there are a lot of working class people who would be reluctant to move even 20-30 miles away from their home for a job – their support networks and roots are in a particular place and they want to remain there if at all possible. They thus have no personal benefit from the possibility of being able to go and work in Portugal or Germany. It is predominantly the middle classes, with a culture of moving away from their community for education or work, who can take advantage of this kind of labour mobility. There are things you could do to make it easier for British people to go and work elsewhere in the EU (like improving teaching of languages), but I think such cultural differences between the classes are likely to remain.
ejh 05.23.10 at 9:04 pm
A representative bit of Abbott snark here
Ah, Liam MacUaid. A bit of a coward, is Liam – likes to publish other people’s personal details and then doesn’t like to answer emails about it. (Sort of Andy Newman writ smaller.) Hence not terribly interested in his opinions as to who else is or is not principled. But to be honest I was mainly interested in John Harris’ reasons for writing what he did.
I see we have a commentor above who doesn’t understand the difference between working-class egalitarianism and working-class resentment. The sort of person to whom the Labour Party should not, I think, be pitching its appeal.
Chris Bertram 05.23.10 at 9:16 pm
[Deleted 4 consecutive comments by right-wing troll]
Alex 05.23.10 at 10:10 pm
It is predominantly the middle classes, with a culture of moving away from their community for education or work, who can take advantage of this kind of labour mobility.
Scottish welders; Polish plumbers. It’s actually far from obvious.
Liam 05.23.10 at 10:30 pm
“doesn’t like to answer emails about it”
Whose details did I publish and which e mail intimidated me into silence? Perhaps the whole thing was so traumatic my conscious brain has blanked it out.
Chris Bertram 05.23.10 at 10:49 pm
Indeed
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Auf_Wiedersehen_Pet
RK 05.23.10 at 11:00 pm
Before the general election, there were a lot of left-wing Labour folks who sneered at the “tofu-and-sandals bourgeois pseudo-lefties” who were voting for an objectively center-right party with no working-class connection. This would, we were told, be the end of properly socialist politics and transform the UK political scene into something like America (ouch).
And fair enough. It turns out they were right. But turnabout’s fair play: LibDem voters can now watch in satisfaction as the duffel-coat-wearing picketers who assured us that Labour was the only mass party of socialism see McDonnell go down without so much as a whimper.
I hope vindictiveness is sweet enough to make up for unemployment and cuts.
sg 05.24.10 at 12:28 am
It doesn’t look much like dog-whistling to me, more like open parading of their anti-immigration credentials. I love the Guardian journalist asking “Why did Labour fail on social housing?” Gee, I wonder why they failed on social housing when their main economic policy was a housing boom?
It’s interesting that commentators now are starting to talk about labour dog-whistling when it has become open; back when they were dog-whistling, supporters of Labour (including Chris, as I recall) were claiming that it wasn’t that at all, oh no sirree, just legitimate representation of working class interests. Perhaps a little more critical attention to Labour’s actual record is in order?
Barry 05.24.10 at 2:26 am
ejh @9:
“Labour used to appeal to (or reflect) the best instincts of working people: New Labour appeals to their worst. but that’s a direct consequence of their rightwing economics: not that they have to go with horrid social politics (often they don’t) but if you’re making your pitch to working people and you’re not appealing to their better instincts, which are going to be egalitarian, you’re going to have to appeal to their resentments instead.”
If you’re going to screw people over economically, you need to have something to distract them and gain their support despite economics. This is where social factors come in. An old story in the USA, and probably everywhere.
Chris Bertram 05.24.10 at 5:40 am
The exact meaning of the “dog whistling” thing is neither here nor there, since, as several of you say, some of the candidates (chiefly Burnham and Balls) are openly making tough-on-immigration noises. I’m bound to point out, pedant as I am, that the original use of the term ( Australia, Howard government see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dog-whistle_politics ) also involved the open parading of an anti-immigration stance, what was thereby conveyed _in a deniable way_ was a sympathy with the holders of racist attitudes.
Chris Bertram 05.24.10 at 5:50 am
_back when they were dog-whistling, supporters of Labour (including Chris, as I recall) were claiming that it wasn’t that at all, oh no sirree, just legitimate representation of working class interests. Perhaps a little more critical attention to Labour’s actual record is in order?_
You can, if you wish, choose the “British Politics” tab under Archives > Select Category. You can then scroll through my posts on the subject and note how uncritical I was of Labour’s performance in power, especially on topics like immigration. Or maybe not.
Martin Bento 05.24.10 at 9:43 am
Clinton and Obama. Blair and Schoeder. Why do the left parties of the developed world keep selecting leaders and platforms that betray the economic positions that have always been the most characteristic concern of the left? It seems to be happening in different contexts. Is there a unified field theory of why Labour cannot seem to get to the Left of Brown, though their voters probably are, nor the Democrats manage to repudiate at least the worst of Bush civil liberties abuses? With all the poly sci academics who hang out here, I’m wondering what kind of consensus may have been reached on the forces that prevent Left parties from behaving like Left (or even liberal in the American sense) parties. After all, it has not always been so, at least not to the degree it is now. Why does someone like Obama, who rose so fast he would seem to owe fewer favors than usual, turn out to be so fundamentally opposed to the best traditions of the country and his party on civil liberties? The electorate was trying to move left – it even overlooked Ayers and Wright, pretty much, which was something to overlook actually, especially Ayers. Yet even when you pick a former (slight) associate of the very worst of the dirty hippies, he turns out to be an enemy of civil liberties, a deficit freak, and an offshore drilling enthusiast, even in the face of an unprecedented disaster. It sounds like the dynamics with Labour are similar.
sg 05.24.10 at 2:28 pm
Chris, the use of the term in 2001 to describe John Howard’s behaviour was late in its development – it first came up in 1997, in reference to his very careful language about Pauline Hanson. This was of a very different character to his 2001 speeches. There’s an interesting Australia Institute article on it which is much better than the wikipedia entry.
The “British Politics” entry on this blog doesn’t seem to contain any entries for the wildcat strikes in February 2009 (I recall them clearly because it was snow day in London but all the “British workers” had stayed home, and only us foreign workers were in the office). At the time I remember a lot of people on the Guardian, and a lot of commenters here, defending the dog whistling at that time as being legitimate defense of workers’ interests. I’m sorry if you weren’t one of them, but my memory is you were; but in any case the comment was aimed at a broader collection than just you, and the point remains. That silly piece in the Guardian, for example, noticing the strident language now when it’s been building for 18 months.
It’s all a symptom of the British left’s ossification around a party that has obviously betrayed them.
praisegod barebones 05.24.10 at 2:48 pm
Martin Bento – you mean, apart from the fact that the rich and powerful get to shape the agenda of what is ‘feasible’ or ‘realistic’ in various ways, bu in a fashion that always amounts to having a fairly substantial hand on the scales?
mds 05.24.10 at 3:11 pm
Well, McDonnell has been grousing about it in advance, so I wouldn’t say “without so much as a whimper.” And if the duffel-coat-wearing picketers still had much of the say in who got chosen, I’d rate McDonnell’s chances better. But as I understand it, those who are already in the party leadership have a selection system that favors those already in the party leadership, a shocking development. So before the duffel-coat-wearing picketers can pick a leader who better reflects their views, they’re going to have to reclaim more of the party levers from the Tory-Lite-Lite.
Martin Bento 05.24.10 at 3:53 pm
praisegod, I mean why more so now than “always”. Social Democracy, the New Deal, and whatever the British version is called were created by the same parties that are now betraying them. There were rich people in those days too. I think the end of Communism has lessened a lot of pressure from the Left, for example, and there are other parts of the obvious narrative. But there seems to be something here beyond the obvious.
Chris Bertram 05.24.10 at 3:53 pm
sg, I think the thread you are thinking of is this one by Harry:
https://crookedtimber.org/2009/02/25/the-miner-and-the-copper/
which you hijacked to sound off about Gordon Brown’s “British jobs for British workers” slogan in the context of the Lindsey oil refinery dispute, on the implausible pretext that the Guardian was running an article about a photograph of the 1984 miners’ strike in order to legitimize a racist agenda. Chris Williams (comment #5) objected to your remarks and there was considerable further discussion, from which you do not, imho, emerge well. My own contribution questioned your account of the Guardian’s reasons for running the article (#11) and _agreed with you_ that “the recent strikes had a nasty racist undercurrent and that Brown’s pandering was deplorable” (#40).
As for “That silly piece in the Guardian, for example, noticing the strident language now when it’s been building for 18 months.” – you clearly don’t follow John Harris’s columns very closely, if you think he’s only just started being critical of Labour.
mpowell 05.24.10 at 5:59 pm
Bento makes an interesting point. It seems to me that in the case of Obama what you might be seeing is a politician who was able to advance quickly by convincing influentials that he wouldn’t rock the boat too much. Internet fundraising aside, he still got the backing of a lot of Democratic leaders and still did plenty of traditional fundraising.
engels 05.24.10 at 8:15 pm
This turns into a discussion about US politics in 3… 2… 1…
sg 05.24.10 at 10:49 pm
it’s a fair cop Chris! My apologies for the misattribution.
Labour has moved from dog-whistling to open anti-immigration rhetoric, and it’s probably the case that the talk about Australian-style immigration laws and firm limits is also dog-whistling, as is a lot of their pre-election talk about denying benefits. At what point do you give up on these people and start voting green? How many lefties did they lose to the Lib Dems (or to non-voting) because of this?
Or could it be that electoral reform from your much-reviled Lib Dems is going to change this, and that is why Labour refused to deal on it?
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