What are the lessons of 1992?

A young relative told me yesterday that after Keir Starmer reduced Labour's planned funding for green investment he will vote Green rather than Labour.  There were similar responses from Radio 5 listeners.

Last week The Spectator had an interesting article on the Green threat to Labour,  Apparently, local polling shows that the Greens are just four points behind in Bristol West, the seat of the shadow culture secretary.

In many ways I think that Labour could also lose some votes to Reform in red wall seats for rather different reasons.   Other Labour voters may stay at home and I think that turnout will be down despite the importance of the election.

Keir Starmer was caught between a rock and a hard place.   He was open to charges of fiscal irresponsibility.   The public finances are in a shocking state.   Conservative plans for public spending allow for only very small real increases when the problem of 'broken Britain' is all too evident.

Reference is quite often made to the surprise Conservative victory in 1992.  Circumstances were different and it is easy to draw the wrong lessons.

I have contributed a chapter to a forthcoming book on John Smith and my concluding paragraphs are relevant:

'One lesson that has lodged itself in the Labour Party’s collective memory has been the myth of the shadow budget.   It is thought to demonstrate that the party must be very cautious about any proposal to increase taxation.  However, the Smith legacy is more complex than that.   Reassuring the international financial community, the City of London that Labour offered a safe pair of hands ‘tended To squeeze out anything too radical or distinctive, diminishing any positive sense of what the Labour Party stood for … Labour risked being portrayed as a pale imitation of the Conservatives.’ 

Labour runs that same risk today under Keir Starmer.  Of course, any new Labour government would have a difficult economic inheritance: low growth, poor productivity and historically high levels of taxation.   It is not unreasonable to reassure business that there would be a more constructive relationship and less erratic policy-making than under Boris Johnson or Liz Truss.  However, Labour has to offer something beyond a more competent version of the Conservatives.  Policy commitments are continually being diluted.   A policy that has become emblematic of this tendency is the refusal to contemplate removing the Conservative Government’s two child benefit cap.   Potential Labour voters faced with an offer of prudence and business as usual may decide to vote for the Greens or not vote at all.'

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[ii] Stuart, John Smith, p.194.

Remain alliance may have limited impact

The Remain alliance of three parties may have limited impact. Sir John Curtice estimates that it could affect the outcome in six seats. Of course, that could be significant in a tight contest.

There is some anecdotal evidence that voters do not like their choice being restricted so that, for example, they can no longer vote Green. It has also been pointed out that the election is about more than Brexit.

Good analysis here, pointing out that Labour is key to the Remain Alliance achieving its goal: Conservative seats under threat

Minor party votes could be important

In what is still a tight contest in Warwick and Leamington, the votes attracted by minor parties could be decisive. Last time they attracted 5.1 per cent of the votes.

My sense of the campaign as a whole, in England at any rate, is that the rise of the Liberal Democrats has blotted out some of the attention that might otherwise have been given to minor parries.

The internal contradictions of BNP policies were exposed when their leader was interviewed on the Campaign Show last night. It doesn't look as if they will win in Barking. The anti-BNP organisation Searchlight thinks their best chance is in Stoke where there has been a local Labour Party split in one of the seats.

I think that the Speaker will hold off Nigel Farrage's challenge for UKIP in Buckingham. I am sceptical whether the Greens will take Brighton (Pavilion).

In Warwick and Leamington, Ian Davison is standing again for the Greens. He has polled respectably in county council elections and some students may support him. I have had two pieces of campaign literature from him which strike a more moderate and reasonable note than some of the statements of the national party. I would forecast a low four figure vote. The interesting question is whether will come ahead of UKIP whose candidate has been parachuted in from Staffordshire.

An independent living in Warwick, Jim Cullinane, is on the ballot paper. Holding a masters' degree in third world politics, he appears to be an anti-politics candidate who states 'This is your opportunity to say "none of the above" without spoiling your ballot paper.' He takes a relatively libertarian line with opposition to excessive regulation. I would expect him to get no more than a few hundred votes.