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September 25, 2008
Chances Labour's Lost
Guardian columnist Madeleine Bunting was at ERS's Labour fringe meeting on Monday evening and has written up a great piece about the ideas explored at the event.
The sub-headline is "many in the party now regret the failure to create a parliament that better reflects election results" which I think accurately sums up the mood I experienced at Conference.
Madeleine writes:
"As economic confidence has ebbed over the past week, there's a sense of an era drawing to a close. And with that comes a reckoning of what's been achieved and what opportunities have been missed. It's a conversation which looks back not forward: what we have done, what the Tories didn't do, rather than what we are going to do. It's a dangerous symptom of the fatalism which several fringe speakers such as the outspoken MP Fiona Mactaggart are warning against.
But however dangerous the reckoning, it throws an interesting light on New Labour. So into the balance go the much cited achievements in early years provision. Also winning credit are Labour's reforms on the constitution, praised by political historian David Marquand during the party conference as perhaps the most significant of any government in several centuries: devolution, the human rights act, directly elected mayors, some Lords reform.
But set against these historic achievements comes the bitterness of opportunities missed. The one which is already haunting the Labour party is that they should have gone for electoral reform when they had the chance. If they had fulfilled their 1997 manifesto commitment, they could have truly transformed British political culture. But with the hubris of big majorities, they binned the commitment, complacently assuming they could carry on winning with first past the post. Now, as they stare crushing defeat in the face, they feel keenly the wisdom of their own argument in past years: that big majorities are not just bad for democracy – because they don't represent accurately the country's vote – but they are bad for the party, falsely bolstering a supremacy which can dramatically disintegrate.
There is a strong inclination, as Peter Hain and Mactaggart suggested in Manchester, for a last minute dash. Get some measure of electoral reform – any type will do – in place now before it is too late. There is the sharp realisation that if Brown had gone to the country a year ago with a manifesto commitment to electoral reform, Labour could have been in power for another decade. The fear is that this is the missed chance which will loom over the years in opposition.that huge ambition was probably within their grasp at key moments through their past decade in power but it slipped between their fingers."
Posted by malcolmclark on September 25, 2008
Comments
Peter Hain is a fine one to talk! Wasn't he the one who said that turkeys do not vote for Christmas and that it was a case of the "PR anoraks" looking at it from their point of view
Clearly ANY form of PR will not do. There is not time to introduce it before the next election. Why is Hain not now calling for AV (as he was previously)which would not need any boundary changes which means that there is probably just about time to introduce it BEFORE 2010. AV would probably represent more fairly the WEIGHT of left-of-centre opinion and MIGHT keep out the Tories (if they get in we can say goodbye to electoral reform of any kind for the foreseeable future). Moreover AV would be a logical stepping-stone to STV in multi-member constituencies and to this extent would put an end to the interminable "debate" - all "debate" and no action - about which is the best system.
Posted by: Joe Patterson at September 25, 2008 01:09 PM
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