Liam Byrne, the Shadow Work and Pensions Secretary, has opened the new year with the announcement that Labour will be taking a tougher approach to the welfare state – an end to the “something for nothing” culture.
Although Labour had a lot of political ammo to use against the coalition last year, opinion polls continue to show that they are behind on many counts. The revelation that most Britons accept the need for austerity, and that they believe unemployment benefits are too high seems to have scuppered Labour’s move to the left, and so a reversal is in order – one where it seems that their line of action will exert more effort targetting benefit scroungers than corporate tax dodgers.
That is not to say that the public isn’t also in favour of catching and punishing thieves at the top of society too, but as Rafael Behr pointed out in a New Statesman article, the public often attribute the rhetoric of being as tough at the top as as at the bottom of society to David Cameron rather than Ed Miliband. Labour clearly see that they need to do something to reclaim their demographic of outraged (employed) voters.
Labour have also been advised by the Shadow Defence Secretary Jim Murphy that they must gain credibility by accepting some of the Government’s cuts – particularly a proposed £5bn worth in defence. It has already been acknowledged that the main political argument is now about how fast the cuts should be implemented rather than whether they should happen at all. This reveals the country’s resignation to neoliberal orthodoxy, and spurning of many Leftist economic principles.
Compounding this idea, throughout the papers last week commentors have been pointing out that Labour and the Left are on their way out unless they adopt a series of large changes. Peter Oborne suggested in the Telegraph that on most issues in public life, Conservatives are “winning the argument”, Maurice Glasman – advisor to Ed Miliband’s and intellectual father of ‘Blue Labour’ – wrote in the New Statesman that Miliband is stuck in a rut and needs to change his strategy, and even the incorrigible James Delingpole decided that the ‘warmists’ (i.e. much of the centre-left) have lost the argument on global warming. Elsewhere, Mary Dejevsky in the Independent wondered if Labour’s success might be found in a rightward shift. Only Polly Toynbee and Richard Seymour have voiced their concern at Labour’s apparent ideological stirrings.
But the Government has failed on a number of issues. Instead of trying to usurp their more right-wing outlook, Labour should be developing a credible set of policies based on facts about how the Government’s approach will make the country worse off. Last year Labour managed to use the various scandals to their advantage aesthetically, but this didn’t have a long-term effect on their policies.
Now Labour must focus on specific issues. They could argue that: benefits should not be a race to the bottom; the amount of people on benefits has been caused by the Government’s stifling austerity measures leading to mass unemployment rather than on an innate unwillingness to work; that the financial industry’s amorality was ushered in by Thatcher’s monetarist policies; and that the Government’s claims that it will clamp down on tax dodging continue to ignore the City of London and the tax havens the UK is sovereign over.
This is not to say that Labour should not take advice to become credible, but they must also maintain a visible Labour identity throughout their policies, otherwise there will be little to distinguish them from the Government. Ed Miliband seems accepting of the constructive criticism he has been given, but is also intent on continuing to challenge the policies of the Government. The Left will be hoping he can catch the imaginations of the wider public before Labour is too entrenched in their minds as the party of irresponsibility and untrustworthiness.
Posted on January 8, 2012
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