2010 is going to be a year of elections. In Australia, we have three state elections – Victoria, South Australia and Tasmania, and almost certainly a federal poll*. In Britain, the Labour party’s future is on the line; the same party which was variously cited as inspired by the Hawke/Keating government and an inspiration for the ALP in opposition.
Writing in The Guardian, Seamus Milne has an interesting piece on the failed coup attempt against Gordon Brown last week. Theatrics aside, he sees it as a contest for the future of the party, with the Blairite forces trying to enforce the New Labour line through a proxy contest over personalities and electoral tactics:
But by exploiting the coup attempt to demand a change of direction, and making the prime minister’s closest ally, Ed Balls, their fall guy, the cabinet’s anti-Brown majority has unmistakably called time on the Keynesian-inspired and progressive tax measures that have won public support but caused such alarm in the City, Treasury and media.
Milne goes on to argue that the (now) Brownite position makes more economic and political sense.
There’s a big irony here, given that New Labour’s success derived from an argument that the Labour party had sacrificed electoral success on the altar of ideological purity.
There’s also an Australian parallel, as the Coalition appear determined to avoid competing for the centre at any costs, all in the name of ‘defending the legacy’ and ‘differentiation’. So, it seems that the tendency for parties to curl up in an ideological ball in the face of defeat afflicts those of the right, as well as those of the left.
*In theory, Rudd doesn’t have to go to the polls til April 2011.
Elsewhere: Ben Eltham on the year ahead in politics.
Elsewhere: Ben Eltham on the year ahead in politics.
New Labour can be anything you want it to be, and if you don’t have any idea then it can be that too. This is why the prospect of a Labor loss in NSW or the UK would be a relief more than anything else, while more viable Labo(u)r administrations elsewhere might consider themselves robbed if defeated by their opponents.
what is seamus milne talking about, “progressive tax measures” that gained “public support” but caused “alarm” in the city? The Guardian has so severely got its head up its arse that it has nothing sensible to say about the Labour Party, which is falling apart at the seams and cannot, under any duress, under any leader, come up with any solutions to the problems that Britain faces. Reading the Guardian’s clique of Labour arse-lickers is a surreal experience to say the least. And seeing them tying themselves up in knots to explain the latest incomprehensible mistake as a good thing, a revival or a sign of renewed fight is like watching a car crash. Ed Balls could shag a baby on national tv while Gordon Brown ate live puppies, and Polly Toynbee would interpret it as the moment that Labour will win back their core voters and regain their electoral appeal.
The Guardian opinion writers seriously don’t live in the real world. The guy who rants about the folly of swine flu vaccinations was an AIDS denialist until 1995, ffs. The British truly are poorly served when their only left-wing newspaper is off with the fairies.
While I wouldn’t put it as crudely as sg, I’d have to agree that the commentary of Seamus Milne and others in The Guardian about Gordon Brown’s government is delusional on a scale considerably greater than that demonstrated by Milne, Shanahan et. al. in the pages of The Australian during 2007.
When Seamus Milne talks about “Keynesian-inspired and progressive tax measures that have won public support”, he is talking about the Conservative lead in the polls falling from 17 per cent to 11 per cent, and which has now bounced back to 17 per cent. And that is basically about reservations about David Cameron and the Conservatives, and has nothing to do with any sense of confidence in Gordon Brown whatsoever.
Brown changes his message on a weekly basis, depending on whoever is the last person to have talked to him or, more commonly, saved his sorry arse this time from yet another coup plot. The fall and rise, fall, rise etc. of Peter (Lord) Mandelson is the clearest example of this, but he issues a consistent stream of completely contradictory statements on a regular basis.
For example, this week they announced that they will give every poor school child a laptop computer (sound familiar?) while cutting 2.5 billion GBP from the budget to universities. If you can pick out the message on education from that, good luck. The Brown Labour government are increasingly treated as an annoying sideshow by most Britons who do not work for The Guardian.
Any respect I had for Gordon Brown went out the window when his first response to rising unemployment in Britain was to call for “British jobs for British workers”, and was then amazed when migrant workers started getting beaten up at building sites and oil refineries, and there was a sharp swing to the BNP in Labour electorates.
The guy had reaped a whirlwind, and the sooner he’s gone the better. The more interesting question for the British general election is what is going to happen to the Liberal Democrats’ vote, and will they hold the balance of power.
Terry, I think that what Milne is referring there to is the fact that the polls on the surcharge tax for the bankers’ bonuses were so favourable that the Tories didn’t dare vote against it in Parliament (or, if you want to see it in Ozpolitics terms, it was a wedge). I’d also note that the electoral system means that they need a 7% swing for a majority in the Commons of 1 seat. Remember there’s no such thing as a 2 party preferred vote in the first past the post system. So, as you rightly say, there’s some chance the Tories could poll highest, but not win a majority (much less chance of Labour winning a majority).
It’s certainly true that Brown is something of a blancmange. But I think the point is one set of instincts and people pushes him towards a more social democratic stance, and another set of instincts and people (called Mandelson) pushes him back towards Blairism.
The point of my post is *not* to argue that Brown is a good leader or PM. Quite the contrary.
Ok, I’ll go out on a limb:
Tories in Britain will win a good majority (probably 360 to 375 seats) but no Blair-like landslide;
Rudd will win 92 seats (so historic but not the landslide the current polls tip) – I just hard see them winning 100 seats or more (Labor has never won like Howard did in 96 or Fraser in 75 or 77);
The states are harder for me to make a guestimate … I’m not sure if people are bored of the Premiers – they will be in four years time!
Mark, I think the idea that new Labour was not social democrat in instinct is wrong. It has doubled in real terms spending on the NHS. It is probably fairer to say they were / are neither pro nor anti-union. Even here though the logic is somewhat coloured by the record: minimum wage; flexible working for mothers; implementing EU regs on work; parental leave and childcare benefits … In my view the difference between Hawke and Blair is vast and even vaster to Brown. Hawke did reform of society and Blair spent a lot on money to get little. The role of markets in public delivery is in its infancy in Britain. For example in Oz the CES was privatised to the Job Network (under Howard) whereas Blair would never do that. Blair couldn’t get much reform of schools let along anything like the SES voucher in Oz and in health they are in a socialised model versus an insurance model (medicare as well as the health insurance rebate). Whatever you think of one versus the other – Blair was far more social democrat than any Australian PM based on actions in the economy. Britain’s governments even before the crisis were spending nearly 45 % of GDP.
Corin, I guess it depends how you define “social democrat”, and also how much weight is placed on different historical, cultural, economic and political contexts.
The big difference between Australian Labour and UK Labour is that Australian Labour has a reputation for economic competence, and UK Labour does not. The ground made on this during the Blair years has been comprehensively squandered by Brown. And on the idea that there is a battle for Gordon Brown’s soul, it is only because of the recall of Peter Mandelson that Brown is around at all. Seamus Milne is dreaming if he thinks there is a “left” alternative that Brown may conceivably pursue.
The other issue is that the UK is on the verge of a serious and potentially fatal run on the Pound. Britain’s level of public sector debt as a % of GDP is equivalent to that of Greece, and the British economy is now so integrated into the EU economy that it would be possible to trade in Euros is shopkeepers would no longer accept the Pound after a severe devaluation. The idea that Brown can just ignore the deficit, and that he would win public support for doing so, is delusional.
Mark, isn’t that the basis though on which much of the cultural left misunderstood Howard. i.e. that he was conservative therefore he must be an untrammelled economic ‘rationalist’, when in fact he was spending huge sums compared to Keating on welfare given how low unemployment was becoming. I think what we’ve seen is that both sides of politics in Oz and Britain have embraced bigger government in the last decade or so. Indeed, one could say that the Libs made the culture wars because they didn’t have much to fight about on the economy (well until WorkChoices). It has (until WorkChoices) been a very stagnant economic debate in Australia since tax reform. Indeed one could argue that the scale of the election of Rudd was the pang from middle Oz to return to ‘normality’ which they interpreted WorkChoices to have diverged from (and which it largely was). In addition to climate change forging the young onto Labor’s bandwagon. This leaves any Govt in Oz in a difficult position where economic reform will be fraught and potentially catastrophic electorally. In my view that should be a worry. There is no bipartisan emphasis for good economic policy like there was in the 1980s. There is a lot of drift … the success of the stimulus is masking a much wider drift in policy terms toward populism over long term benefit. Rudd argues in tomes and monolougues but we need Keatings and their kind to argue merits of policy and their alternative. Climate change and the ETS is an obvious case.