This starts off with some rather specific politics, but we get back to some economics at the end.
This post is prompted by an article by Andrew Rawnsley on Labour leader Ed
Miliband’s dismal poll ratings, despite the Labour party being ahead in the
polls. Rawnsley carefully goes through possible explanations. Is it because he
is too left wing? No, the public are to the left of Labour on a number of
issues. Is it because Labour’s policies are unpopular? No, some of the policies
that have been announced have been very popular, like an energy price freeze.
So it seems to be something more personal. To quote: “Voters consistently tell
pollsters that they regard him as inexperienced, weak and incapable of being
decisive.”
Let’s take each of those in turn. Inexperienced does not wash:
as Rawnsley notes: “He has been a member of the cabinet, which is more than
either Tony Blair or David Cameron had been before they became prime minister.”
But ‘weak’ also seems inappropriate: as Neil Kinnock points out, he had the courage to take on the Murdoch press when other
politicians did not.
Wait a minute. Here we have an obvious solution to the Miliband
puzzle. The right wing press has taken every opportunity to attack Miliband. Do people tell
pollsters that Miliband is not fit to be Prime Minister because they keep reading that he is not fit to be Prime
Minister? Rawnsley mentions this possibility, and rather than dismissing it, he
simply says that Labour has to “deal with this rather than whinge about it.” He
goes on to say
“When you know that a substantial section of the media is looking for any opportunity to ridicule you, best not to gift them a picture of you looking silly as you are vanquished by a bacon butty. It was even less wise to try to truckle to those who would destroy him by sticking a daft grin on his face and posing with a copy of the Sun.”
For those who do not already know why that was a crass thing to do, see here. Go back to those personal failings again. Weak and incapable of
being decisive? What could appear more weak and indecisive than trying to appease the Murdoch press that is conducting a
campaign against you?
Posing with a copy of the Sun is trivial stuff, but it may be
emblematic. What is clearly lacking for Labour at the moment is what those in the US would describe as firing up the base. This is particularly important
for Labour, because it is strong among young people, but young people
tend to be cynical about politics and less likely to vote. It is why many think
David Axelrod has been brought in to help. There is also an obvious
issue that can do this job for Labour: inequality. Just as in the US, people think income and wealth should be more equally
shared, and their perceptions underestimate how much inequality
there actually is. Whether justified or not, high CEO and banker’s pay is not
popular.
When in government, Labour was strong on measures to tackle
poverty, but famously ‘relaxed’ about inequality. For some in the Labour
leadership this may have reflected their underlying beliefs,
but for others it may have been just a device to distance the party from ‘old
Labour’. If the latter, that job has been done. Shadow Chancellor Ed Balls has talked about wanting to see the benefits of
growth widely distributed, but if that is a subtle call for less inequality it
is way too coded to fire up anyone. Labour, unlike the Conservatives or
LibDems, is pledged to restore the 50p top tax rate, but it appears
only as a means of getting the deficit down.
So why does Miliband not follow Obama and put inequality centre
stage? This could achieve the twin goals of rallying those on the left, and
appearing strong and decisive. For a possible answer we can go back to Rawnsley again.
“There are senior Labour people, and not just of the Blairite persuasion, who
think that he has struck too many positions that look ‘anti-business’ and
‘anti-aspirational’. That may well put off some swing voters ….” So the advice
Miliband may be receiving is don’t mention inequality, because that might appear
anti-business and anti-aspirational. Perhaps the same people have suggested he
is photographed posing with some banking CEOs instead?
