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What next for Labour? Geoff Mulgan, Montreal, May 2005

What next for Labour? Geoff Mulgan, Montreal, May 2005. What Labour did; and what it needs to do?. Should it continue with its stated goals? How should it respond to public opinion? How should it respond to international competition and example?

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What next for Labour? Geoff Mulgan, Montreal, May 2005

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  1. What next for Labour?Geoff Mulgan, Montreal, May 2005

  2. What Labour did; and what it needs to do? • Should it continue with its stated goals? • How should it respond to public opinion? • How should it respond to international competition and example? • How should it prepare for the challenge of events? • What will be its political base? • What should and will be its future agenda?

  3. 1. Stated Goals

  4. Economy

  5. Education

  6. Jobs

  7. Poverty

  8. Health

  9. Crime

  10. Transport

  11. Environment

  12. Plus and minus • On the most important issues government has been broadly successful, and done what it promised - against expectations • It will continue in broadly the same direction – as set out in the 5 year plans • But also obvious examples of relative failure or problems – congestion and rail; asylum; Euro; pensions

  13. 2. Public preferences

  14. 3. International comparisons and coming priorities

  15. Benchmarking

  16. Future readiness

  17. A composite picture • The best performers show some common characteristics: • -open systems rewarding innovation and performance • high levels of capacity – human, social and other forms of capital • UK reasonably well-focused on future oriented issues and continuing problem areas (productivity, R&D, child poverty, CO2 emissions) Potential? Continued success? ?

  18. 4. Events

  19. Events - improved response

  20. Early 90s beset by failure to manage or plan for events – BSE, ERM • Blair faced fuel protests, FMD • Introduced new mechanisms for scanning for threats, ensuring anticipation, mitigation and response • Appears to have worked well since 2001 • Big challenges will be economic management if more turbulence

  21. 5. The politics of Blairism – and understanding 2005

  22. Understanding the public – using principal components analysis Free Market Bleeding hearts Chianti-swilling Hanging/flogging Isolationism Socialist (from Chris Lightfoot and Young Foundation Fellow Tom Steinberg using YouGov)

  23. Looking along the UKIP axis Longer tale to the left of centre – many people but less agreement Population most concentrated just right of centre Hanging/flogging Isolationism Bleeding hearts Chianti-swilling

  24. Where voters for the parties lie Hanging/flogging Isolationism Bleeding hearts Chianti-swilling Huge overlaps reflects a population struggling to understand the changed political environment, frequently voting from habit

  25. The Tory Problem UKIP voters are disaffected centrist Tories, not the right-hand fringe.

  26. Where the population lies on The Axis of Economics Peak of population slightly more socialist than centre Socialist Free Market

  27. Where the parties sit on The Axis of Economics All parties have plenty of economic Thatcherites LibDem voters fractionally more socialist than other parties Free Market Socialist

  28. Labour vs.Tories Labour & Tory voters separated mainly by attitudes to internationalism & crime; not economics

  29. The Lib-Lab Overlap

  30. The war split the population, but not down any recognizable political lines

  31. Education level

  32. Politics and 2009 • Blair positioned new Labour carefully on this new axis in relation to crime and social order • Used the political capital to invest in internationalism (Europe and global) • Was centrist on traditional left/right axis • New axis gives more scope for Liberal Democrats to play multiple strategies, and more potential scope for Lab/Lib alliances • But if Tories can find credible leader no underlying political reason why they cannot return to 40%, and their potential support is more concentrated • me conclusions …

  33. 6. The future

  34. Future • Much of the 3rd way package will continue; broadly works; fits public preferences; has become the norm internationally • Strong public provision and insurance via health, pensions and welfare • Integrated and universal public services with increasing differentiation and personalisation • Economic policies focused on science, human capital and market flexibility • The problematic issues in 2005 were the ones least part of the ‘third way’ programme – war, migration

  35. But … • Several big strategic issues are becoming unavoidable: pensions, transport, local government – each requiring some hard choices on finance • Politically the challenge will be to reinvent the party to stave off incumbency and antipolitics: a new new Labour that is less spin, less centralisation • New people, language and style • Rediscovering political passion while avoiding higher taxes or leaving space on crime

  36. What happened to cool Britannia … • Government better at prose of delivery and problem solving than either communications or flamboyance • New Labour now well positioned for another reinvention, with new personnel, narratives and policies • Still a better example of alignment of politics, economics and social policy than any other major Western government • …and the third way still works better in practice than in theory

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