General Election defeats are a time for introspection. After the hurt and pain of polling day, the losers need to look at themselves and think why they lost, and what they need to do to rectify the problem. 2015 should have been the election to make Labour realise that they weren’t trusted enough on economic credibility, and that they should adjust and adapt accordingly. Instead, we’re back to the post-1979 view that Labour lost because they weren’t left wing enough, and that’s a very serious misunderstanding.
Franklin D. Roosevelt once said that it’s common sense to take a method and try it, and “if it fails, admit it frankly and try another”. The problem with the far left is that they don’t admit to failure, but rather they cling to a kind of unattainable purity that’s never ‘truly’ been given a fair shot. The ‘logic’ goes that Ed Miliband was too right wing, and that a Corbyn approach would have carried Labour to victory in May. As I have argued in recent blog posts, it’s a very insular thought process as it clings to outdated methods from tribal loyalties, rather than putting the country first. This was tested in the 1980s and it failed miserably, yet I’ve been told that his views should be “given a go” to see what happens in 2020. However, when the inevitable election hammering takes place, I cannot see the far left and the militants holding their hands up to say “fair enough, the country didn’t want our manifesto. We need to listen and change”. The media would be blamed (rightly so, in some quarters), but Corbyn would also be portrayed as a sell-out; only a truly left wing candidate would get it right in 2025, someone to nationalise all of industry, and so on.
A failure to heed lessons from the electorate is a recipe for disaster, and it’s not an exclusive trait of the left. William Hague failed in 2001, along with Michael Howard in 2005, and it took David Cameron’s pitch of moving to the centre ground to get back in to government (whether you think he’s a centrist is another matter). However, the Right appear to have been more efficient in adapting to election defeats. Winston Churchill’s Conservatives lost in the 1945 Labour landslide, but they were back in power by 1951, and Labour didn’t get back in to office until 1964. A Thatcherite approach in 1951 from the Tories would have been a refusal to adapt and to listen to the electorate, so they stuck to the post-war consensus script. The Tories may not be liked, but they know how to win elections, and are ruthless in doing so. 2020 poses a serious concern, as a Corbyn-led Labour Party could make the Tories look like a moderate, decent, sensible outfit, even if they continue to revel in harsh welfare changes and Euroscepticism.
I made reference to 1945, and Clement Attlee can help to illustrate my point clearly. He is heralded as a great Prime Minister (with justification; he’s in my personal top three), but also as a shining example to the Left. Attlee did indeed initiate a radical programme for government, but he was also very pragmatic. The social structures of society did not change, there was no egalitarian approach to education and much of industry was left in private hands. Should we label Attlee a ‘sell-out’ for introducing prescription charges to the NHS (something which Nye Bevan resigned over)? It would be treasonous to label Attlee in that way to someone on the far left, but by their own purist standards he would technically merit the tag. Perhaps Nye Bevan should be lumped in to the same sell-out category for coercing private doctors by “stuffing their mouths with gold”? Attlee and Bevan clearly weren’t sell-outs, but even they can’t win when judged against the unattainable standards of many on the far left.
There’s nothing wrong with idealism, but you can’t enact your ideals without listening and adapting. You don’t have to be left wing to care about poverty, inequality and justice, nor are you a raging Thatcherite for having concerns about the budget deficit. David Steel sums up my views on this: “I’m not interested in power without principles, but I am only faintly attracted by principles without power”.
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