How to balls-up an election campaign that hasn’t even started yet
March 21st, 2005The staggering incompetence of Labour’s election machinery rolls on and on. I mean, you have a 160 seat majority, you’re leading the polls, the Opposition has hardly ever threatened in the past four years to overtake you, and victory is more or less guaranteed. And what’s happening? The Tories are the ones setting the agenda, again and again. First immigration, now gypsies and travellers, and now we’re heading into territory which have hardly even registered this side of the Atlantic - late-term abortion and gun control.
The Conservatives themselves are utterly barren of ideas (Is “School discipline” really the second-biggest issue facing this country?), but can still run the whip over Labour. A combination of bringing forward marginal issues, with a healthy doses of FUD has done the trick (thanks to no small part by his Aussie campaign rottweiler, Lynton Crosby). Labour’s pathetic response has been to negatively campaign against the Tories’ own policies, forgetting that negative campaigning rarely works when you’re an incumbent that has been in power for 8 years, and that as I’ve already said, the Opposition haven’t really got any policies anyway. Labour can’t even get the negative campaigning right, and have to resort to fiddling the figures.
Any other political party in modern history would be envious of Labour’s strong electoral position (despite unpopular policies like Iraq, tuition fees, terror laws etc. the British people are still happy for them to carry on), and yet they seem more than content to let the Tories take over and piss away as many seats as possible. This is what happens when you put a haircut on legs in charge of the campaign. If Alan Milburn (”Forward not back” - how weak and meaningless a slogan can you possibly get?) can’t run what should be a cakewalk, how can he expect to succeed Blair as PM?
March 22nd, 2005 at 01:28:20
Agree with that to a large extent. Two things, though. Firstly, are the Tories really “setting the agenda”, or simply pandering to the unpleasant, often xenophobic nature of our gutter press, who then generate huge quantities of coverage around them? (so far as I can see, any titles owned by Murdoch, Rothermere or Desmond - apart from his delightful porn holdings, of course)
Secondly, when you say the British people are still “happy” for [the current Govt] to carry on - this is hairsplitting of a high order, but really? Perhaps it is just that faced with an unattractive, mendacious and uninspired Government branded as Labour, but an equally unattractive, mendacious and uninspired Opposition, who have the added drawbacks of being largely unknown and branded as Conservative, they reluctantly vote for what might be perceived as the lesser of two evils. Or, of course, the 3rd lot. Perhaps.
Oh, I don’t know. I think I’d like to move, really.
March 22nd, 2005 at 02:33:45
You’re right - ‘happy’ may not be the right word for everyone. ‘resigned to a third Labour term’ could well be many people’s attitude to it (though I don’t have the poll stats to back up either…)
March 24th, 2005 at 01:28:44
The tragic thing is that, if Labour had gone into this with Gordon Brown as leader, they’d probably scoop an even bigger margin that they already have.
Pandering to the Daily Fascist (sorry, Daily Mail) vote does no one any favours. The Labour voters will stay home, the Tory voters will stay home. Lib Dems will be out in force, but not sufficient to change the party in power. God, I’m cynical!
BTW, I really like your blog, very sensible commentary. I’ve been reading for a coulpe of months.
March 27th, 2005 at 13:39:21
It’s amazing, isn’t it? You might forgive a touch of complacency or even exhaustion, but they just seem incapacitated. Is Blair really so scared of his chancellor that he won’t risk letting Brown get involved with the election campaign? It’s all so… bike sheds.
Interesting that Callaghan died yesterday. Seems horribly inauspicious. Meanwhile the ole’ Pope’s still hanging on in there…