Last week I was invited to a meeting by Tom Watson.
The meeting, in Carlisle, was in the Ballroom of a City Centre Hotel.
The meeting was poorly attended. Most seats were empty and those attending appeared to be members of the Carlisle CLP.
The meeting was Chaired by the Candidate for Carlisle who was defeated in the last election by the sitting Conservative Candidate John Stevenson, during the meeting the person next to me played patience on their iPhone.
I live in Penrith and the Borders Constituency and there was no-one I recognised amongst those attending.
Tom's pitch was based around three topics:
Why did we lose the last election?
What are the issues of current concern?
What is the job description for a Deputy Leader?
During his opening presentation Tom Watson rehearsed much that was familiar to those who monitor the election, post-election and party political coverage in The Guardian.
Labour lost because it did badly in Scotland, because it lost the centre ground, because many traditional Labour voters voted for Ukip, and because it failed to answer the question about the deficit.
All of which is true, but is it the whole story?
I suspect that it lost the election long before May and it lost it because the public believed the Cameron/Osborne narrative rather than the Miliband/Balls narrative.
Certainly the discussion in the room reflected a general consensus around welfare cuts, immigration and the NHS.
One comment, that siding with the Tories over Scottish independence was a mistake and that in the debate about Europe it is crucial that Labour has a clear and distinctive story of its own to tell seemed to me to reflect much more accurately the problem that Miliband had and that three of the current candidates for the leadership also reflect.
It is also clear that the centre ground has shifted to the right, so that rehearsing traditional Labour views about welfare, nationalisation and health sound dangerously left wing.
Which is of course why Jeremy Corbyn's success has engendered such panic amongst the former big beasts of the Labour Party.
Watson would not be drawn on who he supported for the leadership but he offered a 'job description' for the job of Deputy Leader that was essentially creating a bridge between strategy and delivery that ensured that the leadership could and would hear the concerns of party members and members would be in the loop as strategy was developed.
He made it clear that he could work with whoever was elected.
So what next?
Well the membership of the Labour Party has increased and it looks increasingly likely that Jeremy Corbyn could win in the first round.
Will this be the disaster that many predict?
My heart, and increasingly my head, tells me that this won't be the case.
As Yvette Cooper has said: 'the Tories lied to the electorate' and it is this fundamental dishonesty that places politics and election victories before policies that mean real and significant improvements in peoples lives, which needs challenging by the next leader of the Labour Party.
What is necessary, it seems to me, is for a programme to be developed that promotes a genuine living wage, rather than a renamed minimum wage, which will mean for businesses, customers who have more to spend and for the economy increased income tax revenue flowing into the Treasury.
Alongside this a home building programme that obviates the need for selling off social housing, that creates jobs and doesn't just mean huge bonuses for the bosses of building companies.
Again, the shift to a reliance on financial services which began under Thatcher needs to be re-balanced back towards manufacturing with emerging businesses supported by a public investment bank.
Add an investment in the public ownership of the railways and the country and the economy begins to appear balanced in favour of both poor and middle income families.
This it seems to me from the recent email I received from the Corbyn team is what we might expect if Corbyn wins.
His leadership of the Labour Party, anti austerity, anti Trident pro public ownership, pro higher education that doesn't result in graduating with debts of £50,000, seems to me to be offering more to the electorate than they have currently or are likely to get from the other candidates.
We will know in September and then the real debate will begin ...... imagine a new social movement transforming politics in Britain and resonating with similar anti austerity movements across Europe.
The meeting, in Carlisle, was in the Ballroom of a City Centre Hotel.
The meeting was poorly attended. Most seats were empty and those attending appeared to be members of the Carlisle CLP.
The meeting was Chaired by the Candidate for Carlisle who was defeated in the last election by the sitting Conservative Candidate John Stevenson, during the meeting the person next to me played patience on their iPhone.
I live in Penrith and the Borders Constituency and there was no-one I recognised amongst those attending.
Tom's pitch was based around three topics:
Why did we lose the last election?
What are the issues of current concern?
What is the job description for a Deputy Leader?
During his opening presentation Tom Watson rehearsed much that was familiar to those who monitor the election, post-election and party political coverage in The Guardian.
Labour lost because it did badly in Scotland, because it lost the centre ground, because many traditional Labour voters voted for Ukip, and because it failed to answer the question about the deficit.
All of which is true, but is it the whole story?
I suspect that it lost the election long before May and it lost it because the public believed the Cameron/Osborne narrative rather than the Miliband/Balls narrative.
Certainly the discussion in the room reflected a general consensus around welfare cuts, immigration and the NHS.
One comment, that siding with the Tories over Scottish independence was a mistake and that in the debate about Europe it is crucial that Labour has a clear and distinctive story of its own to tell seemed to me to reflect much more accurately the problem that Miliband had and that three of the current candidates for the leadership also reflect.
It is also clear that the centre ground has shifted to the right, so that rehearsing traditional Labour views about welfare, nationalisation and health sound dangerously left wing.
Which is of course why Jeremy Corbyn's success has engendered such panic amongst the former big beasts of the Labour Party.
Watson would not be drawn on who he supported for the leadership but he offered a 'job description' for the job of Deputy Leader that was essentially creating a bridge between strategy and delivery that ensured that the leadership could and would hear the concerns of party members and members would be in the loop as strategy was developed.
He made it clear that he could work with whoever was elected.
So what next?
Well the membership of the Labour Party has increased and it looks increasingly likely that Jeremy Corbyn could win in the first round.
Will this be the disaster that many predict?
My heart, and increasingly my head, tells me that this won't be the case.
As Yvette Cooper has said: 'the Tories lied to the electorate' and it is this fundamental dishonesty that places politics and election victories before policies that mean real and significant improvements in peoples lives, which needs challenging by the next leader of the Labour Party.
What is necessary, it seems to me, is for a programme to be developed that promotes a genuine living wage, rather than a renamed minimum wage, which will mean for businesses, customers who have more to spend and for the economy increased income tax revenue flowing into the Treasury.
Alongside this a home building programme that obviates the need for selling off social housing, that creates jobs and doesn't just mean huge bonuses for the bosses of building companies.
Again, the shift to a reliance on financial services which began under Thatcher needs to be re-balanced back towards manufacturing with emerging businesses supported by a public investment bank.
Add an investment in the public ownership of the railways and the country and the economy begins to appear balanced in favour of both poor and middle income families.
This it seems to me from the recent email I received from the Corbyn team is what we might expect if Corbyn wins.
His leadership of the Labour Party, anti austerity, anti Trident pro public ownership, pro higher education that doesn't result in graduating with debts of £50,000, seems to me to be offering more to the electorate than they have currently or are likely to get from the other candidates.
We will know in September and then the real debate will begin ...... imagine a new social movement transforming politics in Britain and resonating with similar anti austerity movements across Europe.
Corbyn ticks all the boxes for me. But you probably know that already from my facebook posts!
ReplyDeleteTo repeat what I posted on Facebook (but being an advocate of comments appearing under blogposts rather than on other social media): I think the mainstream politicians and media may just have underestimated how lefty the great British public might be. UKIP supporters, for example have a very large proportion who support nationalised rail, post office and energy systems and tend to be skeptical of privatising health services. ... it may be that Corbyn is tapping into Britain's Syriza and Podemos effect. What that means for national politics is anyone's guess. But I think there are some mainstream politicians -even in Labour- who do not understand where 'we' actually stand.
ReplyDelete... and perhaps what he's doing is helping us to realise that actually most of us don't like and don't believe the neoliberal narrative we've been cowed into thinking everyone else believes in.
ReplyDeleteThis could be a whole different national political ball game from the last 20 years ...