Fight the Tories on competence, not morality
In my previous post I had a go at debunking some nice stories that we on the left like to tell ourselves. Quite a few people found the piece rather depressing, and asked me; if all of this is true, what are we supposed to do?
I don’t think anyone could solve all of Labour’s problems in one blog post, but I thought I’d have a go at suggesting some things that I’d like to change. Consider the following:
- Whichever party polls highest on economic trust tends to win general elections
- A recent survey asked people whether George Osborne or John McDonnell would be a more capable chancellor; they chose Osborne by 46% to 29%.
Economic trust, along with leadership, is really critical in terms of winning elections, and currently, we don’t have it. Leaving leadership aside, regaining economic credibility has to be our top priority if we are serious about winning in 2020.
There are two ways we can address this problem, and we need to use both; we can enhance our own credibility, and we can seek to demolish the Tories’.
Increasing our economic credibility is the difficult bit. A few people suggested after the last post that I basically wanted us to copy the Conservatives (join the Tories!!!). I really don’t; for what it’s worth, I wrote a blog about a possible economic approach here.
Tony Blair and David Cameron both enjoyed big leads in economic credibility, despite pursuing different policies. Credibility is not a fixed set of policies for all eternity; it comes in many colours, not just Tory blue.
But. Here’s a TUC poll which shows that the two main reasons people were put off voting Labour in 2015 were “they would spend too much and can’t be trusted with the economy”, and “they would make it too easy for people to live on benefits”.
We need to understand things like this, because they are serious obstacles to us winning elections. The fact is, we are going to need to be very strict in managing public spending in order to win a hearing from voters. So it is a concern that our leadership don’t currently appear to be addressing these weaknesses, but amplifying them.
Jeremy Corbyn was reportedly considering a pledge to reverse every cut made in this parliament if elected, and worryingly, a majority of LabourList readers backed this proposal. Meanwhile, John McDonnell promised “iron discipline” over day-to-day spending last week, as part of an economic plan that sounded pretty reasonable. Then, yesterday, he said he would fight the next general election campaign without any plans for spending cuts at all.
Is it any wonder voters think we might go and spend too much? We can talk about “iron discipline”, but if we’re going to explicitly rule out ever making any cuts just a few days later, are people going to believe us?
Winning economic trust is a long, hard road. Tony Blair found himself promising to match Conservative spending plans for his first two years in office; perhaps the only way we stand a chance at the next election is to propose something similar. That’s not to say there are no choices to be made within that; matching Tory spending in aggregate doesn’t mean we’ll have to spend the money in the same way. But it does say that we just aren’t going to get a hearing if we still seem like a party that can’t be trusted to control the nation’s finances. This is critically important.
I’ll leave this section by saying that economic credibility is also a function of communication, and whether the people at the top of the party can convince voters they will run the economy effectively. Our party is seen as one which spends too much, and is reluctant to make cuts to balance the books. Survey after survey tells us this. We have to acknowledge that, from the top down. Are we currently doing that?
The other side of winning the battle of economic trust is to push the Conservatives’ rating down. To do this, we need to get on the front foot and attack the Tories, but we also need to be smart with how we do it.
All too often, our position has been to respond to Conservative policies by appealing to fairness and justice. Consider the recent budget plans to cut disability benefits with one hand, and pass out tax cuts with the other. I imagine almost every Labour member feels horrified by this move; as Owen Smith says, it shows up Conservative priorities, and it is shameful. As I write, I see news that backbench Tories may rebel against these plans; I strongly hope that they force George Osborne to reconsider.
But I suspect that fighting the Conservatives on the grounds of fairness only gets us so far. There is a sentiment on the left which says that we hold the moral high ground, and if we just keep telling people how wicked the Tories are, eventually they will join us. I doubt it will work out that way. Polling found that even the bedroom tax, far from being a hated measure, is supported by around half of the population. The 2015 election showed that the coalition we can build against Tory injustice is not big enough to win on its own.
What to do, then? Here’s where I think the crucial difference is. When we talk about economic trust, we are saying that the Conservatives can’t be trusted to not run the economy in a horrid way. When the Tories talk about it, they are saying that we can’t be trusted to run the economy at all.
Appealing to unfairness isn’t enough. We need to aim our attacks elsewhere; on Conservative competence. And the budget gives us a fantastic opportunity.
George Osborne originally promised to clear the deficit by 2015. Today, the IFS puts his chance of running a surplus by the end of the parliament at no more than 50/50; his best case scenario is to miss his headline target by five years. He has failed the other two of his three tests, breaching his welfare cap and seeing debt increase as a proportion of GDP. And let’s not forget, Britain lost its AAA credit rating under his watch, something he said would be “humiliating” whilst in opposition.
He’s completely incompetent! He misses every target he sets! I want us to hammer this point home. If I were leader, I would get every single MP, in every single interview, regardless of topic, to bring this up;
“How can we be certain that Trident expenditure will be as the government claims, given their inability to get their budgets to add up?”
“The government has set some ambitious targets here, but given their record on the economy, can we be confident they will be hit?”
I want to hear things like this so often, I become sick of hearing it. It will be worth it to establish a new narrative; “the chancellor who failed every test”. Voters may have backed a Tory party that was unjust but competent; but what if they thought the Conservatives were callous and also bad at governing?
There is opportunity for us here. If I were Labour leader, I’d make sure the entire party hammered this point home; not just for a day or two after the budget, but until the perception of Tory competence collapses.
As Lynton Crosby said, you can’t fatten a pig on market day. Either this budget is long forgotten by the time 2020 rolls around, or we can use it to reshape the economic narrative completely.
So, in answer to the questions I got; if I were leader, this is where I would start.
