It is regarded as the key electoral necessity to winning any general election. Ever since the mid-1980s, “Middle Britain” has been the focus point for most political parties. “Middle Britain” was certainly the focus of ‘New’ Labour throughout its existence, 1997 and 2001 were victories brought upon this wave. Now this does lead onto somewhere if you bear with me….in this case the Labour leadership contest.As George (BULS Treasurer) pointed out in a previous post, the race is indeed between the two Miliband brothers each of which are offering different alternatives on what the Labour party should reach out to. D. Miliband has argued for this aforementioned “Middle Britain” pointing out the lack of Labour seats in the south outside London, while E. Miliband has proposed to reach out to a centre-left coalition. Out of the two, it is D. Miliband that has David Cameron (DC) the most worried http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2010/aug/27/cameron-david-miliband-labour-leadership.
However, since 1997 Labour has lost 5 million voters, but only a million to the Tories, the rest didn’t bother to vote, turned to minor parties or primarily, the Liberal Democrats. What happened in the 2010 general election was that Labour allowed the Lib Dems to represent (and in some cases even become) the radical left/progressives of British politics. While yes, this ethos has been quite destroyed by the coalition with Cleggy abandoning near enough all the policies the Lib Dems stood for at the election, but, there were many areas where people turned to them due to an apparent progressive dominance. Primarily, ID cards, scrapping SATS, scrapping Trident, opposing Iraq War and raising the tax threshold to £10k (which is a policy Labour should’ve introduced years ago).
Logically (almost), it can be seen that Britain does retain a left leaning tendency, while certainly not socialist or social democratic, but rather Britain can be seen as at least on the whole, progressive. Logically (again), it is E. Miliband’s form of electoral base that would be best suited to bringing back those 4 million voters who left Labour for the Lib Dems and apathy.
Max
Although the meaningless term ‘progressive’ is bandied around far too much by politicians and the media these days (and let’s face it, who’s going to pronounce that they are NOT progressive), I agree that most voters in Britain have at least a social conscience and can by and large determine what is just and what isn’t.
The squeezed middle of the electorate will always swing back and forth the two main parties like a pendulum with the electoral cycle, and if you ask me there is not a lot the leaders of the Labour or Conservative parties can do to stop this. Far more votes were lost – and consequently, key marginals and volunteering power – at the election by the disaffected left over issues like the 10p tax, expenses (the incumbents always get most of the blame), housing and a complacency on the part of the new Labour elites.
The clean break with all this has to be Miliband the Younger.
Miliband the Younger… Which one is that?
Good point Luke, but we can’t assume the pendulum will inevitably swing back to Labour, what if (somehow) Boy George’s gambit pays off however unlikely that may be.
EdM over David any day, I`m so tired of hearing that Labour have swung to the right and abandoned its principles. We can be what the disillusioned public are looking for!
Oh, I see, – Ed Miliband. Forgive my ignorance. In that case: I agree.
Nice choice Oliver
David is the only man capable of winning the next election. He is not my ideal politically. I disagree with him often, in comparison to others. But we are voting not for future policies, but for a future leader. And for me, David is the best candidate.
Ed Miliband is a great leftist representative. But the manifesto of the last election and his performances in this campaign, in my view, show that he is not ready for the big job. Nor is Andy Burnham.
Ed Balls and Diane Abbott, meanwhile, have absolutely no chance of winning seats in middle England.
My heart says Ed. My head says Dave. And I am going to make the decision I feel can get us back to government.