By John C. Dyer, UK Correspondent
The Bible’s dictum (without a vision the people perish) seems markedly applicable to today’s Labour Party in the United Kingdom. The relative positions of the major political parties as reflected in the polls remains static, despite the demonstrable shift of the electorate away from the Coalition and its policies over the past several months. No where is this shift clearer than in the YouGov/Sun poll (29 June, 2010). Only 29% of the electorate that intends to vote in the next election supports the Coalition’s handling of the country’s affairs.
As of 6 June, it seemed that Labour had gained substantial momentum. The YouGov/Sun poll showed Labour increasing its “market share.” 42-44% of those who intend to vote in the next election said they intended to vote Labour. But over the following week the relative position of the parties remained statistically unchanged. The 15 June poll showed Conservatives at 36%, Labour 42% and Liberal Democrats 9%.
Then came a public eruption of Labour grousing about and backbiting over Leader Ed Miliband's leadership (See Dyer, “The Archbishop and the Prime Minister ...).
Two separate polls the third week of June told a similar story of stalled momentum for Labour even though only 29% of those intending to vote approved of the Coalition’s handling of the job – a decline of 2% in one day.
A note of caution, however, about instant analysis. These figures did not take into consideration potential impact from events associated with the 30 June strike by a half million public workers, including teachers and lecturers, over pension “reform.”
But most significantly, this showed only 29% support among those intending to vote. Historically those who vote hover at around 50%. So support for the Coalition’s running of the country could actually be as soft as 14.5% of the total electorate eligible. It is certainly less than 29% of the total electorate.
Labour Unions and Strikes
Strikes may be more significant in the UK than American or other foreign observers may realize. As in the US, much of the private sector has de-unionized while much of the public sector (even physicians) are unionized. But here the similarity ends. The UK’s biggest single employer, the National Health Service (NHS), is unionized. Teachers and university lecturers are members of unions. Physicians are unionized. Teachers and lecturers went on strike on 30 June for the first time in their 120 year history. The Physicians Union reportedly is considering a strike for the fall.
Early Warning: Unions still essential, strikes less popular
Meanwhile, another potentially significant “sleeper” statistic emerges from a 23 June Reuters report. 76% of the UK electorate agreed that unions are essential to protect workers’ interests, a figure unchanged from 1995. The voters were evenly divided on strikes (48%: 48%) in a poll taken the week before the June strike was scheduled. 35% of the electorate believed unions had too much power. This is up from the 24% who thought so in 1995, but down from the 75% who thought so in 1975. Significantly, 65% of those polled in June said they did not think that unions have too much power.
By 27 June the support for the 30 June strike had softened to 39%. But just as significantly, the electorate polled supported the right of public employees to strike on the issue of pensions despite being evenly divided on whether the pensions should be reformed. See generally http://ukpollingreport.co.uk/ .
This data should have been an early warning signal to both the Coalition and the Labour Party that labor unions are well thought of by the public. One could speculate ad nauseum, as the media has, whether or not the public mood might sour in the fall with the likelihood of extended strike action, but it seems clear that that the tolerance for such future labor action remains intact as of midsummer."
Strangely, Shadow Chancellor Ed Balls and Labour Leader Ed Miliband argued publicly that the 30 June strike would be a mistake. Miliband went even further, arguing that the unions had not made a persuasive public case in opposition to pension reform. Miliband in particular might have been better advised to mind his own poll numbers. But that’s for later in this post.
Return of the class divide?
Longer term, these statistics suggest that the historically sharp class divide in British Society between working man and business man may have returned - and with a vengeance. Hardly surprising with gaps between the incomes of management and workers projected to reach Victorian Era levels later this year; or with the impact of cuts falling substantially on those earning below £60,000 a year (£35,000 is median reported income).
This social divide even showed up on the Conservative back bench in a peculiar incident last week. A Conservative MP –speaking in support of his resolution to require the government to draft a bill to ban animals in the circus - addressed Parliament. During his speech, he informed the members that the Prime Minister’s Office had tried to persuade him to stop pushing the bill, first by offering him a job, and when that failed, by threatening his future. The Member in question then referred to own his background - growing up in a Council House - and declared he would not be intimidated by the Prime Minister. The party whips then freed the members, who voted substantially in favour of the “no animals in the circus” resolution.
In the face of these statistics and meager public support for Coalition policies, not to mention its antipathy for the leadership, even before these policies’ most crushing effects are felt, one has to wonder why Labour’s earlier advance in the polls has stalled.
(Blame and politics are lovers, so one must be as careful of it as instant analysis.) I think the accurate tag line is “UK's swing vote remains ambivalent.” But perhaps the ambivalence is due to the lack of a cohesive alternative vision and loss of focus as Labour’s poll numbers plateaued and the backbiting began.
Why has Labour’s popularity stalled? Look to the leadership
Both Reuters and YouGov point the finger directly at Labour Leader Ed Miliband’s leadership. Reuters showed Miliband at a minus 14% approval index. That must be some kind of record. How does one achieve a minus 14%?
This is how: the approval index refers to a net percentage of voters who were dissatisfied with Miliband’s performance (48%) versus those who were satisfied (34%). YouGov reported the negatives more succinctly, perhaps because it simply asked who thought Miliband was doing “well.” Only 9% agreed.
Are these statistics an echo of the dissatisfaction that rumbled to the surface these past few weeks? Or are they a consequence? It’s still too early to draw hard conclusions, but I suspect that hard conclusions were drawn by some because by 23 June some in the Labour leadership had panicked at what might appear to be a peaking of Labour support (however statistically unsupported this may have been).
Over the next week that apprehension seemed vindicated. Miliband lectured the unions warning them against strikes and criticizing the case they had made on pension reform despite the general support the public workers enjoyed, the long history of the Labour Party’s support for and by the unions, and regardless of the fact that Miliband personally owed his position of party leader to the unions, who had secured the leadership for him against the best judgment of the Party pols.
The 1 July YouGov/Sunday Times retrospective on the strike showed the Labour leader seriously miscalculated the public mood. While the majority of those polled disapproved of both Cameron and Miliband's handling of the 30 June strike, Cameron's disapproval came from other than those who identified as Conservatives. Miliband's disapproval crossed party lines. Only 19% of those polled approved of his handling of the strike. He failed to please Conservatives and swing voters. He also displeased his constituency
There were other “scratch your head” changes in Labour Party tactics as well. Shadow Chancellor Balls ceased what had seemed to be, on balance, effective challenges to the Chancellor’s cuts. Meanwhile, Miliband, in a widely televised speech, lectured his party regulars on being out of touch with the British public.
Just when it seemed that all that was needed to galvanize the public was a vision statement consistent with the public’s disaffection with the Coalition’s policies and providing them with a positive alternative to all the bad news, Miliband began inexplicably to support some of those policies, including the pension reforms suggested by Lord Hutton (on which the Coalition’s proposals are based).
Then during the Prime Minister’s Question Time, Miliband resorted to yet another new tactic. He caught the PM unaware of an emotionally significant consequence of a Coalition policy. The Coalition proposes to dismantle the current administrative framework of the NHS, devolving power from administrative bodies to a physician-led consortium. The Coalition has already dismantled dozens of similar administrative bodies called Quangos in what the Prime Minister dubbed "the bonfire of the Quangos."
The Prime Minister argues that government is too top heavy and bureaucratic. It must be made lean and mean. But, as Miliband triumphantly pointed out, the proposed NHS reform would up the number of bodies administering the NHS by as much as ten-fold and potentially exacerbate the current "post code lottery" as to who receives what levels of care since all of these bodies would be entitled to manage care differently.
While true, it is a niggling point because Labour has made much in the past of the irrelevancy of the policy of reducing the numbers of Quangos. Thus Labour's own record and stance on such administrative bodies turns catching the PM creating more such bodies while advocating less into a school boy gotcha. All that was missing was the "neener, neener, neener.”
The Labour Leader’s PR challenge
But here’s another problem: the Labour leader comes across as mass media handicapped. He is cursed with nasal cavities which often swallow his voice just as he reaches the peak of his rhetorical point. It isn't fair, but there it is. Life ain't fair.
He also suffers from the "Adlai Stevenson syndrome." Eisenhower successfully portrayed Stevenson as an "egghead" who belonged to academia or behind the scenes, rather than meeting the practical challenges of high office.
Furthermore, Miliband too often seems to read from - and be wedded to - prepared scripts that display the careful prose of an academic writer or prosecuting attorney. The Prime Minister delights in pointing this out. These speeches carry no verbal resonance at all. Speaking and writing, of course, are two different mediums.
Mr. Miliband is punchier and far more effective when he speaks extemporaneously in response to pointed questions. But even then, his word choices detract. For example, speaking extemporaneously during Prime Minister’s Questions last week, the Labour leader had the Prime Minister “on the hook.” Miliband had caught the Prime Minister seeming not to know that his own proposed policy on disability benefits would arbitrarily cut off cancer patients who had not yet recovered. Miliband had the PM in a rhetorical vice.
As Miliband crescendoed to peak, he pointed out that Cancer Care advocates had long objected to this arbitrary cut off without the Government taking notice. But just at the height, Miliband asked rhetorically why the Prime Minister failed “to understand these arguments," then trailed off into fuzziness.
More punch and greater rhetorical effect would have been to say something like, “ ... there he goes again, spinning in the face of the facts, spinning as his policies damage the most vulnerable, spinning despite the nation's values, spinning despite the damage his policies do the country.”
Could be manageable
These rhetorical handicaps should be manageable with help from a speech coach, a good PR team- and hours of “Murder Board” preparation in advance of a performance.
I see, however, no evidence of those. Even Milband’s written communications often seem stilted and, well, written by a lawyer. Lawyers see "clear" as meaning detailed and specific. Communications people see "clear" as simple, active, and direct.
Although I see no evidence of such advance preparations, this does not mean coaching hasn’t been available. One should not assume the Labour Leader does not have these resources. Clearly there are others who ignore advice when they have it.
For example, the Government's Justice Secretary Clark seems to routinely ignore PR advice. But then, Secretary Clark is not, nor never will be, the Prime Minister, which is what Miliband wants to be.
In any event, among professional politicians on both sides of the pond, one needs to ask what this lack of communications polish says about a candidate’s readiness to lead.
Today's leader cannot afford to ignore or fail to employ a competent PR team, stick to the three talking points rule, and invest hours in Murder Board before delivering a speech or participating in a debate. In Miliband’s case, it is a weakness that plays directly into his opponent’s strength. The Prime Minister is a past master of public relations and communications-speak.
It is a fact of life in the media age that the public face of all successful parties has changed. A Clinton or Reagan becomes President while a Baker or Panetta becomes Chief of Staff. The specific reasons differ. In some cases it may be a failure in the past that would come out during the intense scrutiny of the campaign. In other cases it may be handicaps in presentation. Or it may be distaste for the fishbowl. But the key is, the nature of the fish bowl in modern politics rules out men and women of great ability who for one reason or another find the fishbowl a hostile environment.
Ability not the only thing in politics
In the long running “West Wing,” Sheen’s character, the President, says to his Chief of Staff in an intimate moment of reflection that had there been any justice in politics his Chief of Staff would have been President. While fiction, it is a telling point about ability. Sometimes ability just does not present well all dressed up and ready for the dance. The dance card remains unsubscribed.
This may or may not prove to be the verdict for Ed Miliband. No immediate need, the Liberal Democrats show no sign of bolting the Coalition, only grousing.
With Miliband's additional disadvantage of being identifiable with the Brown camp in the divisive former Labour Party conflict between Brownites and Blairites, one wonders if the Party might not be better served with someone else as its public face, say an Andy Burnham. Let’s face it: The camera loves Burnham. His speeches are punchy and he comes off well against his adversary, the Education Secretary Michael Gove. Helps too that Burnham is not nearly so identified with the Blair/Brown deal.
Labour suffers from more than just lousy PR techniques
Burnham may well be Labour’s future. But Labour’s market share, it seems to me, suffers from a much greater failure than just poor PR techniques. This failure is the disconnect between Labour’s leadership and the opportunity presented by a public disaffected with its Government, hurting from its policies, divided by its PR, and subjected to a Plan whose failure in Europe now seems clear.
Labour quite clearly lacks a vision in harmony with the hopes and dreams of its potential electoral majority. Here’s the issue: Labour has lost sight of a key factor in electoral success – the need to espouse a punchy and positive vision for the country’s future.
The Coalition lacks it too. It has focused on social mobility and “aspirational” goals. Its leaders say they want more people of poor backgrounds in Oxbridge (Oxford and Cambridge). They want to give people a chance to move up in the world. This may well be laudable but this view also assumes that the voters want to become like the elite who lead the Coalition. That the only people who deserve something in life are those who aspire to upward “social mobility.”
I think the polls and interviews are clear. The people don’t salivate at the prospect of being Nick Clegg or David Cameron. They don’t expect or covet it for their children. They want to be themselves, but with fewer daily struggles. They want their children to be better off than they are, to be more prosperous, better educated, healthier, and have more opportunities. They want to leave their children with a better society than the one they themselves inherited.
But the reality of the Coalition’s stewardship is, children will be less well off than their parents. People see themselves as losing ground. While the Coalition spins its draconian cuts for the sake of preventing the next generation from living with the burden of out of control debt, the Coalition is in fact visiting the burden on the next generation now. The voters seem to sense this. They seem to understand that these policies will roll back all the social and economic progress made by the ordinary citizen since World War II. Ironically, Coalition pronouncements reinforce this impression with their steady drum beat of “the most radical change since ...” announcements of “reforms.”
Leadership with a vision required
The polls, interviews, Question Time, and personal contacts convince me that what the electorate wants, and is not getting, is leadership that will articulate a “New Deal” for them. They want to know that if they do x, y, z, they can count on, in exchange, the expectation that their children will have a reasonable chance of being better, not worse off, than their parents. People will make sacrifices for this goal, but the majority do not see that pot of gold at the end of the Coalition’s policies, only the sacrifice.
The political question of the day: If Labour is to regain momentum and move those ambivalent voters into its camp, what is the party’s positive vision for the future?