MYTHBUSTING: “IT’S SEATS THAT MATTER, NOT VOTES”
The fact of Corbyn’s unprecedented poll surge during this campaign has led to some truly desperate and shameful contortions by his Labour adversaries.
The transformaton of a 24 point Tory lead into a 3 point lead is so far outside the bounds of their hidebound imaginations that their powers of reasoning have gone into malfunction in trying to process it.
What they (Jess Phillips, Chuka Ummuna and a host of Blairite tweeters) are saying is that it is only the number of seats won, not votes, that matter. The word “only” usually features very strongly in these narratives — a psychological trick to try and get you to forget about vote share completely and from now on only think about seats.
Let’s deconstruct this idea:
Firstly, it’s just an incredibly bitter, shabby and disloyal thing for supposedly Labour figures to say. Even if the election campaign was going badly for Labour you might expect them to troop dutifully on for party reasons, but THIS is what we get from them when the campaign is going well?? As well as being unprofessional, to talk like this reveals their petty, mean-spirited and sour natures.
Secondly, well, it’s simpy not true that “only seats matter”. Yes of course seats is what will lead to a majority, but if a leader delivers a lot of votes for his party then THAT is the measure of his effectiveness. Not his fault if the vagaries of our weird, 17th Century electoral system don’t crank out as many seats as they should. Are Umunna and Co seriously suggesting that if Labour won more votes than the Tories but less seats that would still be an indictment of Corbyn and not the UK’s daft electoral arrangements?
Thirdly, poll ratings are the very criteria by which Blairites are always insisting that we judge Corbyn! That is what they are always pointing to when trying to prove that Corbyn is a disaster, and often brief the right wing press that “they have decided to give Corbyn until September to see the polls improve or their may be another leadership challenge”. “Look at the polls….look at the polls!” is their constant mantra. Let’s leave aside the fact that the leadership challenge, commons rebellions and right wing press briefings were largely responsible for the bad polls. Now that Corbyn has narrowed the Tory poll lead to within the margin of error they are suddenly saying “oh, um, er, well you see the polls don’t count”. Ridiculous.
Finally, to say that only seats matter, not votes, is to switch the terms of the debate that they themselves have set. Previously the raison d’etre of Corbyn’s opponents was to put the case that he is a uniquely and unprecedentedly disastrous leader. Even that he was presiding over “the strange death of Labour England” and other such nonsense. Now we are saying “no he’s not, look at the polls, look at his campaign performance” and they respond “Ah but it’s seats that matter!”
Well, friends, even if that were the case it still totally destroys your previous line of attack: that Corbyn is a hopeless, vote-losing catastrophe of a man.
And who knows, maybe, just maybe, more votes will lead to more seats?
- *****
