In the “battle for sanity”, the left have won. For a long time that didn’t seem at all likely. Here’s how it happened Five years ago, things looked bleak for the centre-left. We’d had years of hearing about how the Pasokification of the left half of politics, at least in the west, was inevitable. This was so named after Pasok, the traditional centre-left, social democrat party in Greece that had been overtaken by a far left party, Syriza, at the 2015 general election there, never to recover, even after Syriza’s moment in the sun had come and gone. This was the idea that there was simply no place for the usual centre-left politics inspired by New Labour and Bill Clinton in the 1990s. The future of the left could only be through a more hardline, much more left-wing direction. Either the traditional parties of the left moved way further to the left, or they would find themselves overtaken by hard left competitors.
It's too early to say, but it is possible that, with an electorally shattered post-Sunak Conservative party rolling around in the dust and turning a) right and b) on each other, a neo-centrist Starmer party will start to resemble the 19th century Whigs (the Liberal predecessor).
What I mean by that is, from 1830 to the 1870s (roughly speaking), the Whig-Liberal party - as the English 'left' party - was largely dominant, facing divided opponents, and led by its rightwing, a centrist clique that were:
highly-educated;
ruthless;
well-networked with the elite;
obsessed in their own moral rectitude even in the face of manifest hypocrisy;
in position to control public and civil service appointments to many officially 'neutral' posts;
well-financed;
effective in letting their radical left partners campaign for them and feed them ideas on single-issue campaigns without letting them drive;
associated both with liberal progress and national pride;
able to effectively court talent from the centre-right and woo it into their own network, preventing an effective opposition forming;
the only hope for the lower classes to improve their lot, but not representative of them.
In Britain, deep analysis from Yougov, our most accurate pollsters, broke the electorate into 5 components, the right, the centre right, the centre , the centre left and the left. By far the largest group was the centre, but the centre right plus right was bigger than the centre left plus left. As we know, the broad right, mainly the Tory Party, has been winning around twice as many elections as the broad Left, centred on Labour.
The key reason for the roughly 2-1 advantage of the Tories over Labour being that the right has usually been more successful at winning often reluctant centrist voters than the left. According to conventional wisdom, the Tories had a better story on the economy, law and order, immigration and usually more credible leadership. Labour were left with the NHS and more minor electoral priorities. You can put much of this down to the right wing press rather than reality. If you measure growth rates for each government since 1945, it surprises most people that the highest average is not our supposed economically competent Tories, but Labour. You might suppose Labour have been luckier as to when they were in office, but that is a long period to average out and there is a reason.
Labour have had higher average growth rates because they followed more keynesian based expansionary economics rather than the Tories who are much more monetarist. Some examples. In the early 80's Thatcher handed monetary policy to Prof Patrick Minford in a crackpot monetarist experiment on the whole country, only replicated by the millitary dictatorship in Chile, where it was even more of a disaster. We were expected to believe that if monetary expansion was controlled and limited, some kind of equilibrium based on "Sound money" would result in prosperity, although never explained. Instead, every attempt to control one definition of money and credit money, resulted in other definitions going absolutely through the roof. On the ground it was far more serious. Firms could no longer finance their business cycle. Even 100 year old companies with full order books went to the wall because they could no longer finance the next months wages and input costs. 20% of industry closed forever, many towns and small cities in industrial areas of the midlands and north of England, S.Wales and central belt Scotland were blighted, some to this day. Thatcher in this early period was the most unpopular leader in recorded history. So, the most cunning plan was hatched to harness nationalism to the Tory wagon.
The Foreign Office in Argentina was very aware of regular nationalist demos and campaigning there for the country to take back, as they saw it, Las Malvinas. The bleak, windswept Islands of the south Atlantic, about 400 miles away, where only a few hundred, basically Scottish hill farmers were able to scratch a living, where 13 acres were needed to support a single sheep. The FCO pulled the one Royal Navy ship patrolling the islands and this signalled the UK's loss of interest in the Islands. History was primed up with a little war it was reasonable to believe that the world's 5th or 6th greatest millitary power ought to be able to comfortably win, still at the time able to call on a large number of commercial vessels that have since chosen flags of convenience to cut costs.
To cut a long story short, Thatcher's task force won back Port Stanley and the polls transformed virtually overnight, She went to the '83 General Election on the anniversary of it's victory and saw off the hard left's Michael Foot's Labour on 28% as well as the new Social Democratic Party in league with the Liberal Party, which had seen some spectacular by election wins, but here were on 27%.
The Tories had their home grown terrible recession in 81-2 with a real 5m unemployed, massaged to 3.5m It had another recession deeper and longer than on the continent in 1990. Major/Lamont's Exchange Rate mechanism with the D'Mark crashed badly in '93. The next crash was worldwide on Brown's watch in 2007-8. Brown's actions arguably saved the world from a 1930's depression and he managed to get the economy growing again. It was passed to Cameron/Osborne who immediately turned it into recession from shock cuts. That austerity carried on to this day and as keynesian economists forecast in 2010, would end in flat lining and recession. Since 2007, this has been the longest period of zero growth in wages since Napoleonic times. Add to that brexit, appalling productivity, the loss of inward investment to France and others, continued miserable domestic investment, a crash on the pound, much higher interest rates and our continued milking by a variety of inadequate privatised industries.
Starmer is running the Blair 1990's playbook exactly and has taken Labour so far into the centre, it's more like centre right ground too. Needless to say, while hard left Corbyn ended in the 20's percent, Starmer's support is in the early to mid 40's.
This dreadful two party cycle has to be stopped. The SDP/Liberal Alliance and the subsequent LibDems were unable to "break the mould". It has to come from Labour waking up to the disaster that is Britain's awful decline, conducted by the Tories with brexit, deregulation, vulture capitalism, privatisation, corruption, fantasy empire exceptionalism and global market incompetence.
Labour need to realise that they will not remain in power forever, that anything they do that the Tories don't agree with, will be reversed within 1-2 years of an incoming Tory administration. Indeed, anything in public ownership would represent a honeypot to flog off and offer tax cuts. Or that with the exception of Heath's single term, the past 3 Tory governments lasted four terms each. Unless I consume a Japanese diet and eschew alcohol ( I won't), I won't live to see the end of the next one. Labour must change the electoral system to reflect how voters vote, proportionally, rather than where artificially coralled groups of voters live. We need to be deeply into the European & EU mainstream. To get rid of the House of Lords for something elected, to devolve power deeply to a federal system, to have a codified written constitution, citizens assemblies and to make the commons into a more co-operative, less confrontational, horse shoe shape.
Interesting, I would say momentous thing happened on TV last night, not mentioned anywhere.
Former Tory cabinet Minister Sir Robert Buckland said in an aside he had voted Remain and would do so again..........I have never heard this from a Cabinet Minister or former one. The cracks are now showing as Remainers in the Tory Party want to disassociate themselves with Brexit. I imagine he will lose his Swindon seat but hopefully enough Remainers will retain theirs, a lot of the Red Wall Tories are head banging anti Europeans and EU who will be gone anyway.
How important is the role of Cummings in all this? Instrumental in winning the 16 vote, which was the beginning of the end for the Tories,he then was behind the purge which got rid of ant Tory MP sane enough to say they couldn't support a no-deal exit- which in any case was a bluff the EU had long seen through.
There was no equivalent for Corbyn's Labour- although Milne seemed to fancy himself for the role at times. The moderates might have been sidelined, but they were never in the same sort of danger as moderate Tories were at the time.
Unless it was his aim all along to destroy the Conservatives, Cummings was archetypally " nowhere near as clever as he thinks he is."
The hard populist right is fiscally incontinent- excessive tax cuts n the USA; increased public spending if you’re Boris Johnson- and generally more interested in campaigning than administering policy change. The centre left needs to be cautious coming to power, but then to be competent at policy implementation. They need to be wary of the right wing media, and reinstate ‘politicians as teachers’ in a big way. Competence plus a narrative
Great observation that the left has more easily left Covid behind while the Right see it now as a sort of canary in the coalmine for other things popular on the right - like too much government.
Also, post-Covid most economic actors in the US and Europe are looking at bringing back supply chains. This is basically a return to a little bit more planning in the economy, something rejected by the right on principle and more easily embraced by the left if nothing else as merely an idea to get behind.
The raving right still have beans because they have the money, in a way that the loony left didn’t - their only currency was votes in internal party elections. There are enough billionaires willing to fund anyone who will indulge their fantasy politics to keep the real wing nuts in the game.
It's too early to say, but it is possible that, with an electorally shattered post-Sunak Conservative party rolling around in the dust and turning a) right and b) on each other, a neo-centrist Starmer party will start to resemble the 19th century Whigs (the Liberal predecessor).
What I mean by that is, from 1830 to the 1870s (roughly speaking), the Whig-Liberal party - as the English 'left' party - was largely dominant, facing divided opponents, and led by its rightwing, a centrist clique that were:
highly-educated;
ruthless;
well-networked with the elite;
obsessed in their own moral rectitude even in the face of manifest hypocrisy;
in position to control public and civil service appointments to many officially 'neutral' posts;
well-financed;
effective in letting their radical left partners campaign for them and feed them ideas on single-issue campaigns without letting them drive;
associated both with liberal progress and national pride;
able to effectively court talent from the centre-right and woo it into their own network, preventing an effective opposition forming;
the only hope for the lower classes to improve their lot, but not representative of them.
In Britain, deep analysis from Yougov, our most accurate pollsters, broke the electorate into 5 components, the right, the centre right, the centre , the centre left and the left. By far the largest group was the centre, but the centre right plus right was bigger than the centre left plus left. As we know, the broad right, mainly the Tory Party, has been winning around twice as many elections as the broad Left, centred on Labour.
The key reason for the roughly 2-1 advantage of the Tories over Labour being that the right has usually been more successful at winning often reluctant centrist voters than the left. According to conventional wisdom, the Tories had a better story on the economy, law and order, immigration and usually more credible leadership. Labour were left with the NHS and more minor electoral priorities. You can put much of this down to the right wing press rather than reality. If you measure growth rates for each government since 1945, it surprises most people that the highest average is not our supposed economically competent Tories, but Labour. You might suppose Labour have been luckier as to when they were in office, but that is a long period to average out and there is a reason.
Labour have had higher average growth rates because they followed more keynesian based expansionary economics rather than the Tories who are much more monetarist. Some examples. In the early 80's Thatcher handed monetary policy to Prof Patrick Minford in a crackpot monetarist experiment on the whole country, only replicated by the millitary dictatorship in Chile, where it was even more of a disaster. We were expected to believe that if monetary expansion was controlled and limited, some kind of equilibrium based on "Sound money" would result in prosperity, although never explained. Instead, every attempt to control one definition of money and credit money, resulted in other definitions going absolutely through the roof. On the ground it was far more serious. Firms could no longer finance their business cycle. Even 100 year old companies with full order books went to the wall because they could no longer finance the next months wages and input costs. 20% of industry closed forever, many towns and small cities in industrial areas of the midlands and north of England, S.Wales and central belt Scotland were blighted, some to this day. Thatcher in this early period was the most unpopular leader in recorded history. So, the most cunning plan was hatched to harness nationalism to the Tory wagon.
The Foreign Office in Argentina was very aware of regular nationalist demos and campaigning there for the country to take back, as they saw it, Las Malvinas. The bleak, windswept Islands of the south Atlantic, about 400 miles away, where only a few hundred, basically Scottish hill farmers were able to scratch a living, where 13 acres were needed to support a single sheep. The FCO pulled the one Royal Navy ship patrolling the islands and this signalled the UK's loss of interest in the Islands. History was primed up with a little war it was reasonable to believe that the world's 5th or 6th greatest millitary power ought to be able to comfortably win, still at the time able to call on a large number of commercial vessels that have since chosen flags of convenience to cut costs.
To cut a long story short, Thatcher's task force won back Port Stanley and the polls transformed virtually overnight, She went to the '83 General Election on the anniversary of it's victory and saw off the hard left's Michael Foot's Labour on 28% as well as the new Social Democratic Party in league with the Liberal Party, which had seen some spectacular by election wins, but here were on 27%.
The Tories had their home grown terrible recession in 81-2 with a real 5m unemployed, massaged to 3.5m It had another recession deeper and longer than on the continent in 1990. Major/Lamont's Exchange Rate mechanism with the D'Mark crashed badly in '93. The next crash was worldwide on Brown's watch in 2007-8. Brown's actions arguably saved the world from a 1930's depression and he managed to get the economy growing again. It was passed to Cameron/Osborne who immediately turned it into recession from shock cuts. That austerity carried on to this day and as keynesian economists forecast in 2010, would end in flat lining and recession. Since 2007, this has been the longest period of zero growth in wages since Napoleonic times. Add to that brexit, appalling productivity, the loss of inward investment to France and others, continued miserable domestic investment, a crash on the pound, much higher interest rates and our continued milking by a variety of inadequate privatised industries.
Starmer is running the Blair 1990's playbook exactly and has taken Labour so far into the centre, it's more like centre right ground too. Needless to say, while hard left Corbyn ended in the 20's percent, Starmer's support is in the early to mid 40's.
This dreadful two party cycle has to be stopped. The SDP/Liberal Alliance and the subsequent LibDems were unable to "break the mould". It has to come from Labour waking up to the disaster that is Britain's awful decline, conducted by the Tories with brexit, deregulation, vulture capitalism, privatisation, corruption, fantasy empire exceptionalism and global market incompetence.
Labour need to realise that they will not remain in power forever, that anything they do that the Tories don't agree with, will be reversed within 1-2 years of an incoming Tory administration. Indeed, anything in public ownership would represent a honeypot to flog off and offer tax cuts. Or that with the exception of Heath's single term, the past 3 Tory governments lasted four terms each. Unless I consume a Japanese diet and eschew alcohol ( I won't), I won't live to see the end of the next one. Labour must change the electoral system to reflect how voters vote, proportionally, rather than where artificially coralled groups of voters live. We need to be deeply into the European & EU mainstream. To get rid of the House of Lords for something elected, to devolve power deeply to a federal system, to have a codified written constitution, citizens assemblies and to make the commons into a more co-operative, less confrontational, horse shoe shape.
Interesting, I would say momentous thing happened on TV last night, not mentioned anywhere.
Former Tory cabinet Minister Sir Robert Buckland said in an aside he had voted Remain and would do so again..........I have never heard this from a Cabinet Minister or former one. The cracks are now showing as Remainers in the Tory Party want to disassociate themselves with Brexit. I imagine he will lose his Swindon seat but hopefully enough Remainers will retain theirs, a lot of the Red Wall Tories are head banging anti Europeans and EU who will be gone anyway.
How important is the role of Cummings in all this? Instrumental in winning the 16 vote, which was the beginning of the end for the Tories,he then was behind the purge which got rid of ant Tory MP sane enough to say they couldn't support a no-deal exit- which in any case was a bluff the EU had long seen through.
There was no equivalent for Corbyn's Labour- although Milne seemed to fancy himself for the role at times. The moderates might have been sidelined, but they were never in the same sort of danger as moderate Tories were at the time.
Unless it was his aim all along to destroy the Conservatives, Cummings was archetypally " nowhere near as clever as he thinks he is."
The hard populist right is fiscally incontinent- excessive tax cuts n the USA; increased public spending if you’re Boris Johnson- and generally more interested in campaigning than administering policy change. The centre left needs to be cautious coming to power, but then to be competent at policy implementation. They need to be wary of the right wing media, and reinstate ‘politicians as teachers’ in a big way. Competence plus a narrative
Great observation that the left has more easily left Covid behind while the Right see it now as a sort of canary in the coalmine for other things popular on the right - like too much government.
Also, post-Covid most economic actors in the US and Europe are looking at bringing back supply chains. This is basically a return to a little bit more planning in the economy, something rejected by the right on principle and more easily embraced by the left if nothing else as merely an idea to get behind.
The raving right still have beans because they have the money, in a way that the loony left didn’t - their only currency was votes in internal party elections. There are enough billionaires willing to fund anyone who will indulge their fantasy politics to keep the real wing nuts in the game.
As a "soft-lefter", I take issue with this apparent celebration of centrism.
For my analysis of the various terms, see https://nomadron.blogspot.com/2023/09/can-labour-win.html