The Tories suffered humiliating defeats last week in the Newbury
by-election and the county council elections. But Labour has precious little to
celebrate.
In Newbury, the Labour candidate, Steve Billcliffe, got 1,151 votes,
less than 2 per cent of the vote, and lost his deposit. It was the lowest
Labour share of the vote in any parliamentary election since 1918 and, contrary
to Labour claims (after the result) that the party had run a deliberately
low-key campaign, it happened despite strenuous Labour efforts to improve on
last year's general election showing.
This cannot simply be dismissed with a casual shrug of the shoulders.
Although it is true that, as Peter Mandelson said, the voters of Newbury were
essentially voting against the Tories, it is also true that the way they did so
was by placing their crosses next to the name of the Liberal Democrat
candidate.
Given the scale of Labour's humiliation, it is not treachery to ask
whether it is worth going to the expense of fighting by-elections in seats that
Labour knows it cannot win. It is ludicrous to claim that by-elections are an
opportunity to get the message out to the nation: in Newbury the media
treated Labour as an irrelevant side-show. And the claim that running a candidate
in every by-election is essential if Labour is to maintain its credibility as a
national party is more than outweighed if results prove that Labour's claims to
be a truly national party are exaggerated.
Of course, there are few seats in the country where Labour starts from
quite such a low base of support as in Newbury – and there is always the
argument that fighting hopeless seats is good practice for candidates and for the
party apparatus. But Labour would be foolish to press on with its present
policy without some serious thought about its effectiveness.
Newbury saw a level of anti-Tory tactical voting unlike anything
witnessed before in a by-election, and it was not an isolated phenomenon.
Throughout the south, voters in the county council elections backed the
candidate most likely to keep the Tory out. The result was humiliation for the
Conservatives as they lost council after council. The main beneficiaries were
the Liberal Democrats – and this has inevitably raised the question of whether
Labour should relax its antipathy to Lib-Lab coalitions in local government. In
Tribune's view, the answer is simple:
the party should allow county Labour groups to make up their own minds without
interference from the centre.
The more important issue is the implications of the results for
national politics. If the Liberal Democrat surge proves to be a one-off,
Labour's refusal to countenance talk of pacts and coalition will be
vindicated. If, however, it presages a Liberal Democrat revival that does
serious damage to Labour's chances in those parts of the south where the party
needs to win seats, Labour's line will look dangerously complacent and
short-sighted.
Labour can see off the threat from the Liberal Democrats but only if it
develops policies and a style of politics that appeal to people who are now
tempted to vote Liberal Democrat. The problem is that it is still by no means
clear that the party has either the will or the imagination to do so.
Desai wrongly sacked to save
Smith blushes
Last week, Meghnad Desai was fired from his position as a front-bench
Labour economic spokesman in the House of Lords. In his Tribune column last week he had written that, if Labour abandoned
its policy of increasing income tax for high earners, he would "remove
zero-rating for VAT on all items" and compensate for the regressive
impact of such a move by increasing benefits to the poorest.
No one in Gordon Brown’s office had actually read the article, so Mr
Brown was caught unawares last Thursday when Norman Lament, giving the false
impression that the article backed Tory policy on tax, quoted it at him in the
House of Commons. Subsequently, John Major did the same to John Smith during
Prime Minister's Questions on the same day: Mr Smith was made to look a
complete fool after claiming that the article had been written while Professor
Desai was on the back benches. Hours later, Professor Desai was relieved of
his post. The sacking has been treated as something of a joke by most of the
media, but it is nothing of the kind. In his Tribune column, Professor Desai was expressing opinions that are in
no sense at odds with Labour Party policy – and the reason they are not is
simple. Put bluntly, there is no finalised Labour policy on taxation and
benefits. At the insistence of none other
than Mr Smith, the party contracted all that out to the Commission on
Social Justice, which is supposed to have complete freedom to examine the
options on funding the welfare state.
Professor Desai, by suggesting an .option for taxation policy, was
playing a wholly legitimate part in a necessary debate. That he was sacked for
doing so gives the impression not just that Mr Smith is petty and vindictive but,
more importantly, that the whole party leadership is deeply intellectually
insecure and intolerant of discussion. So much for "open opposition",
the buzz-phrase in so many party documents in recent months.
