About Turn, Labour

Ben Wildsmith

From the man on the Clapham omnibus, Pebbledash people, Mondeo man, to Worcester woman, politicians have always been fond of imagining a composite persona for the voters to whom they are pitching woo.

Increasingly distant from the constituencies they represent, our representatives like to imagine the electorate as a more manageable figure than the flesh and blood people behind the rage in their email inboxes.

‘What people want…’, you will hear them say, before trotting out their party’s talking points one more time.

It’s understandable. The electorate is an unreasonable and unforgiving mob that feels entitled to vent its collective spleen at will towards anybody in a position of responsibility.

Speaking to it as if it were less of a nightmare might not persuade it to mend its ways, but at least it allows for that possibility.

Floating voters

The evolving fantasy of floating voters used to be, however broad, rooted in the observation of social trends. The entrepreneurial ‘Essex Man’, for instance, was a caricature for sure, but the emphasis that working people put on individualism by the late 1970s was a real change.

For London-centric politicians, that change was most readily visible in Essex. So, when the Conservatives pitched their free enterprise rebrand to this archetype, it resonated with enough people to shift the dial.

I’m signed up to the Labour Party’s Facebook feed. In the last 24 hours it has released ten separate posts in celebration of its support of steel in Scunthorpe. Here’s an example.

It’s been a while since that sort of imagery has emanated from Labour, isn’t it?  Since Peter Mandelson rebranded the party by switching out the red flag for a rose in the late 1980s, industrial signifiers have been strictly verboten in Labour messaging.

Anything that suggested the party’s pre-Thatcher image was assumed to be fatal to the affections of Mondeo Man and Worcester Woman. Chardonnay and aspiration were in, engine oil and solidarity were out.

Now, though, with the awful consequences of deindustrialisation rearing up everywhere, Ye Olde Marketing Schtick has lost its appeal.

Suddenly, the public appetite for expensively-suited shitehawks smarming around the public/private cash cow has evaporated in retching disgust as it becomes apparent how threadbare our tangible assets have become.

Pipe dream

So, about turn, folks. The Labour Party that dismissed Plaid Cymru’s call for steel nationalisation as a ‘pipe dream’ when Port Talbot was threatened has rediscovered its flat cap and woodbines.

The Prime Minister, whose grammar is as sound as his grasp of history, informed us that, ‘This government is turning the page on a decade of decline, where our manufacturing heartlands were hollowed out by the previous government.’

It’s the Labour way, of course. Tony Blair and Gordon Brown famously nationalised the banks on day one of their first term, seizing assets from exploitative investment firms and redistributing them through a network of worker-owned regional banks to reindustrialise the nation.

If it hadn’t been for that pesky David Cameron, they’d have gotten away with it too…

This volte-face comes with its own problems for Labour. Posing as industrialists might appeal to some voters who are thinking of switching to Reform UK.

One of the ten Keir-Saves-Steel Facebook posts was devoted to correctly highlighting Nigel Farage’s opportunism in calling for nationalisation after a lifetime of asset stripper-friendly politics.

Farage appears on Labour’s feed so frequently as to betray the party’s fear of his appeal.

What though of the metropolitan softies to whom Labour has played since Neil Kinnock joined polite society? Labour is explicitly pursuing economic growth as its priority.

To achieve that it is unambiguously promoting arms manufacture as a source of quick profits. Now, it is propping up heavy industry, to the point of importing coal all the way from Japan. With the Green New Deal already stripped of funding and never spoken about, will environmentally conscious voters still turn out for the party? Does it care?

Stork

Cardiff West MP Alex Barros-Curtis, who you’ll remember was delivered to Cowbridge Road by a stork after Baron Brennan’s late resignation, delivered a 12-tweet admonition to anybody doubting the government’s course of action.

To ensure clarity, he helpfully turned off commenting.

Firstly, Port Talbot should be grateful. If Labour hadn’t been elected things would have been far worse for them. So, shut up about that. The Conservatives should apologise. It is they, and they alone, who caused the mess.

While he was at it, the working-class champion of industry stuck it to all the other parties. The Liberal Democrats are embarrassing and lack honesty. Reform are all talk and no action. Plaid Cymru have let down Wales with their embarrassing nonsense. Only Labour care, thank you and goodnight.

Barros-Curtis didn’t mention the Green Party at all. The sort of people who might vote for them no longer feature in Labour’s fantasy of voters who enjoy this government’s way of doing things.

The seeming humiliation of Ed Miliband this week extends to a large strand of Labour support. Whether the party can afford to lose them is a calculation it needs to get right.