The 38 degrees website has come up with another cracker tonight, a petition that will give a public vote of confidence in Jeremy Corbyn for PM. “Please vote,” continues the petition, “to elect Jeremy Corbyn MP and labour party leader as Prime minister.” Things must be getting bad if Corbyn’s supporters feel it is necessary to get a vote of confidence in the great man already. He’s only been in the job for two months and already things are getting desperate. Imagine if Corbyn was a football manager. You’d be fearing the worst.
The next bit is even better: “This is the country’s opportunity to be led by a Prime minister who prioritises the well being and needs of the nation over and above that of personal interest,corporate business or banks.” Now I have no problem with this whatsoever. In fact, they represent part of the reason I have rejoined the Labour Party but there is a slight problem with this: the next general election is almost five years away.
My latest concern about Labour is that, for reasons that are well beyond my level of understanding, no one is conducting any kind of inquiry as to why Labour was so badly beaten in the last general election. So far as I can tell, with the exception of the likes of Jon Cruddas, no one is bothering to ask the awkward questions as to why Labour was so badly beaten. Labour has carried on, with a new leader, scarcely giving a backward glance. I find it very hard to take in.
There were three main reasons why Labour lost so badly:
1) The electorate did not see Ed Miliband as a prime minister in waiting
2) Labour was not trusted with the economy
3) The electorate feared a Labour Party in government would be in hock to the SNP. (Why do people think that Rupert Murdoch did so much to ensure his close friend Alex Salmond received as many votes as it did?)
This looks bad enough, but 38 degrees make it clear the people to whom their petition is aimed. Those who believe that “a fairer society can be achieved without austerity.” In very general, vague terms I find myself nodding my head at that one, although the petition doesn’t explain in any way at all just how this can be achieved. Now I do understand the arguments and agree totally that the deficit needs to be cleared, but recent polling evidence suggests that, as of now, I am in a minority. 58% agree that “we must live within our means so cutting the deficit is the top priority”. Just 16% disagree. Now I happen to think that may well be raw data, obtained without setting out to voters the implications of austerity and what the alternatives might be, but this point is irrelevant. Even Labour supporters are almost equally divided on the question of the deficit. Most voters saw Labour as “austerity lite” which in some ways they were, but my question is this: what is Labour doing about it? So far, the answer is not a lot.
It is not enough for senior Labour politicians to reject austerity but not come out with arguments as to why voters should. On the face of it, it sounds all well and good to say we need to balance the books, but where is the debate as to how it should happen? In Labour, there isn’t one. Corbyn crowd-sources questions for prime minister’s questions (PMQs) which is fair enough but hardly anyone is watching (which is just as well give his latest wooden performances). Why doesn’t he crowd-source the electorate as a whole? It might tell him one or two facts he may not want to read about.
If the majority of the electorate believes that cutting the deficit is a priority, then Corbyn and McDonnell need to be making the arguments as to why it might be slightly less of an overall priority. But no one is. Just like no one is bothering to think about why Labour lost, no one is bothering to come out with a considered alternative to austerity. What is means to people and what it means for the country.
You really do earn by your mistakes and my god Labour has made some desperately bad ones in the last few months. The philosopher George Santayana said memorably, “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” In this instance, the past really isn’t all that long ago, but hardly anyone in the ‘new politics” seems to give a toss.
At the last count, some 6000 people were supporting the petition. Just the other 61 million to persuade, then.
To date, Corbyn isn’t even persuading the centre left in Labour that he is the man and to me, every day in every way, he looks increasingly like he isn’t. I’m still giving the bloke a chance, but if I was on the board of directors looking at his performance to date, I’d be thinking about the next appointment when he’s gone.
