After Ed Miliband’s and Labour's shocking performance in the recent
General Election, the Labour Party find themselves in the position of finding
another leader. Will the next one click with the general public and actually be
electable? History suggests - probably not !
In the last 40 years, only one Labour Leader has
actually managed to win a General Election, that was Tony Bliar, and of course
if we knew then what we know about him now he might not have been elected
either.
But there’s been three Labour Prime Minister’s in that
time you might say. Maybe so, but two of them ‘inherited’ the leadership from
their predecessors and when it came to fighting an election – they lost ! The
Tories meanwhile have also had three Prime Ministers in that time, the
difference being that they all won their elections outright.
So who lost them for Labour? Is there a
common theme?
Jim
Callaghan
Prior to Blair, the last Labour Leader to win a
General Election was Harold Wilson way back in 1974. Like Blair, he knew when
to jump ship and in 1976 handed the Prime Ministerial reins to Jim Callaghan.
Callaghan’s name will be forever associated with the
grim days of the late 1970s, when Britain was paralysed by industrial chaos,
strikes and the “winter of discontent”. Jim Callaghan was the unlucky Labour
prime minister who presided over unprecedented national decline as our country
became “the sick man of Europe”. Even Callaghan himself once admitted that he
would not be “the slightest bit
surprised” if people “come to the
conclusion that I was the worst prime minister since Sir Robert Walpole”.
I would however argue that, for all the miseries of
the Winter of Discontent, Jim caused far less long-term damage to Britain than
his two Labour successors, Blair and Brown. In the notorious words of one of
his advisers, Blair was desperate to “rub
the Right’s nose in diversity.” Our border controls were abolished, visas
were dished out like confetti, and the enforcement of the dogma of
multiculturalism became the central ethos of the UK. All this would have been
unthinkable to Callaghan. In fact, as home secretary in 1968 he pushed through
legislation that restricted the right of Asians from East Africa to settle in
Britain, even if they had British passports. Justifying his tough stance,
Callaghan warned that “immigration and
settlement largely by coloured persons into a relatively small number of
concentrated areas” would “aggravate”
social problems.
Being a child at the time, I do actually remember him.
To me he spoke like a patronising, fussy Headmaster who really got
under your skin! He was soundly beat in the 1979 election by Mrs Thatcher. I don’t think he was the worse PM we ever had, he just allowed
the unions to rule the roost whilst failing to modernise the country. So it was
actually his record in office that ultimately made him unelectable.
Michael Foot
Callaghan was followed by his deputy, Michael Foot. A
complete odd-ball whose scruffy donkey jacket wearing image was enough to put
people off before they’d even heard his policies. A more un-statesman like
potential Prime Minister we had never seen before. Adding to this image was an
extreme Left wing attitude which divided his own party - so much so than some more
liberal members broke awake forming the Social Democratic Party.
One of his most notable policies in the 1983 manifesto
was a call for Britain to take unilateral action to scrap its nuclear weapons,
this was when the USSR was particularly strong and the Cold War at it’s peak.
Interestingly, his 1983 Labour manifesto called for a
withdrawal from the European Economic Community (what is now the EU). Specifically
it said: "On taking office we will
open preliminary negotiations with the other EEC member states to establish a
timetable for withdrawal.” So maybe he wasn’t all that bad.
Foot’s overall image and the ambitious Marxist scale
of the manifesto backfired though, with the far left nature of many of the
policies - combined with Margaret Thatcher’s popularity in the wake of the 1982
Falklands War - contributing to a Tory landslide in 1983's election.
Neil Kinnock
Next up was Welshman, Kinnock. Kinnock and his deputy,
Roy Hattersley inherited a divided party split between the centre and far left.
There was also extremists like the Militant Tendency.
As Labour leader, Kinnock’s main achievement was to
halt the leftward drift of the party, driving out the Trotskyites of the
Militant Tendency. His humiliation of them at the 1985 party conference was one
of the great moments of political theatre.
Kinnock's image, like Foot before him suffered from a lack of
a credibility. He is the only Welsh leader in Labour’s history and
although his working- class Valleys credentials helped him to Westminster, in
the eyes of the London media they were a liability.
He was dubbed the “Welsh windbag” by the media and was
never taken to the hearts of Middle England where the marginal seats that
Labour needed in order to take power were concentrated. His image of
incompetence on satirical TV programme, Spitting Image also re-enforced his
unelectability.
In 1992 however his premature triumphalism at a rally
in Sheffield was seen as costing Labour another election, one it had been
widely expected to win. The Sun amplifying his ‘useless’ tag on election day
with the headline "If Kinnock wins
today will the last person to leave Britain please turn out the lights."
He didn’t and It spelt the end of his career in front line British politics. Kinnock may not have won an election, but he turned
the Labour party round and without him Tony Blair wouldn't have won.
Kinnock was followed as Labour Leader by John Smith,
who sadly died in office. The only election winner in 40 years, Tony Blair
followed with his “New Labour” brand winning three elections on the bounce
before handing what had become a poison chalice over to Gordon Brown
Gordon Brown
Firstly, let me say Gordon Brown didn’t lose the 2010
General Election, he just didn’t win it – but neither did any single party!
Brown is one of the great tragic figures of
contemporary British politics. He yearned and schemed for the ultimate prize
for so long, that when he finally secured it he had no idea what to do with it.
And that tragedy is compounded by the fact that though there is a suitably
proud political epitaph that could be written for him, he refuses to allow
anyone to write it.
Brown, even more than Blair, was the true architect of
New Labour. It was Brown who recognised, long before any of his contemporaries,
just how much Labour would have to change in order to survive. It was Brown,
not Blair, who built the machine to force through that change. It was Brown,
not Blair, who imposed iron fiscal discipline. It was Brown, not Blair, who
wooed business, and sacrificed the sacred Labour cows of tax and spend.
But history is written by the victors. So after New
Labour had become toxic, and Brown had successfully moved against his bitter
rival, he ensured his role within the grand modernising project was expunged
from the record books.
Gordon Brown eventually lost due to his last two years
record in office. The country (indeed the World) was in a period of severe
recession and he was seen by the country as a major contributor to us being
there. He was also tarred with some of Blair’s failures such as the immigration
shambles and an illegal war in Iraq – so he had to go. And along came Ed!
Ed Miliband
I’m not going to say much about Ed that the result of
last week’s General Election didn’t say. Suffice to say image and policies came
to the fore again. Similar to Foot and Kinnock he didn’t ‘look like a Prime
Minister’ and his economic policies appeared to be being made up on the spot. He was also extremely scathing of private sector business showing utter contempt for it, considering the proportion of voters that worked there - that was a seriously bad move.
Dig deeper into the polls over the last twelve months
and the unelectability of Ed is there for all to see. In the polls that asked
who people saw as a good leader, Ed failed everytime. Similarly in those that
asked who voters trusted with the economy, Labour consistently failed. The fact
that his proposed Chancellor of the Exchequer, Ed Balls lost his seat says all
you need to know about how much voters trusted Labour’s economic policies.
So Who Next?
Well so far the following have declared they are
running:
Liz Kendall
Liz is the standard bearer of the right. She is said
to be picking up support from some, but not all Blairites, as well as a number
of the new intake, who appear universally to desire a candidate untarnished by
the Blair / Brown era. Going off her performance on Newsnight last week I’d say
she’s not got a cat in Hell’s chance of leading Labour.
Yvette
Cooper
Mrs Balls was educated at Comprehensive School then
Oxford University. She has managed two years working outside of politics as Chief
economic correspondent of The Independent.
Yvette is a relic of the Blair-Brown era and comes
with plenty of baggage from 2010 and before, as a former Chief Secretary to the
Treasury and Secretary for Work and Pensions. She's begun the race badly, forced on to the back foot after repeating Ed
Miliband’s toxic claim that Labour had not overspent whilst in government.
The fact Yvette chose to marry the odious Ed Balls bring
questions over her judgement and possibly her sanity.
Andy Burnham
Mr Burnham was educated at a Comprehensive School then
at Cambridge University. He has never had a job outside of politics being a researcher
to Tessa Jowell from 1994 until after the 1997 General Election. In 1998 he
became a special advisor to the Secretary of State for Culture Media and Sport,
Chris Smith, where he remained until his election to parliament.
Burnham carries a considerable amount of baggage from
his time as Health Secretary, not least, the Stafford Hospital scandal, the new
GP Contacts and starting the privatisation process of the NHS putting the likes
of Hinchingbrook Hospital out to tender to be run by the private sector. Since
then Andy has publically moved from being a Blairite to the left of the party.
The brothers and sisters of the trade unions are
backing Mr Burnham, and will be hoping he performs better than in 2010, when he
staggered home in a lacklustre fourth place having irritated his supporters by
barely bothering to campaign. To some on the Blairite wing of the party, the
shadow health secretary’s journey towards the left of the spectrum has a whiff
of opportunism, whilst the Left is also suspicious of him.
Mary Creagh
The outsider in the race, Mary was educated at a Comprehensive
School then at Oxford University. She spent 4 years working in Brussels first
at the European Parliament, and then the European Youth Forum. She then worked
at the London Enterprise Agency, a London-wide regeneration body so she has
good a good level of ‘real world’ and business experience.
In general Mary Creah has kept her nose clean, has
very little baggage, she has also done a proper job outside of politics and is probably closer to
the voters than any of her competitors. Ironic then that she’s the outsider.
Tristram
Hunt
Not thrown his hat in the ring yet but I’m sorry,
Labour cannot have a leader called “Tristram” – end of!
So Have Any
Of Them Got A Chance Of Being The Next PM?
The consistent factors of failure of Labour leaders has been image - they didn't look or behave like a Prime Minister and credibility - their policies were too narrow, not thought out, or weren't what voters wanted from a Labour Government.
So going off lessons learned from the last 40 years, the
only thing that seems to get a Labour leader elected is the likeable, smooth
talking, stage managed smarm charm that Tony Blair had. On that basis,
if he pulls his finger out and manages the unions properly then Burnham has the
best chance.
Are Labour really ready for a female leader? Its members talk
the talk but I’m not sure they would walk the walk. Mary Creagh and Liz Kendall
have the least baggage and are far more likeable than Mrs Balls but they’re not
as high profile and won’t get through the first round.
For me, Labour’s best
candidate, Chuka Umunna ticked the most boxes to be a successful leader however
he bottled it and withdrew. So unless Burnham turns into Blair2 then I'm afraid we probably won’t
see another Labour Prime Minister until at least 2025.
