Her Majesty's Loyal Opposition

The word that keeps coming up in the profiles I'm writing of the Labour candidates is 'loyal'. Of the nine candidates for the leadership and deputy leadership, eight have repeatedly been described as loyal. And in this context, loyalty means voting as the whips tell you. By contrast, the ninth candidate is Jeremy Corbyn, best known for ignoring the party whip on hundreds of occasions, and therefore being disloyal.

But this is a very limited version of loyalty. Traditionally, it was loyalty to the party that was cherished, rather than simply walking into the right lobby at Westminster. And, traditionally, it's been the political right that has been far less loyal than has the left or the trade unions.

The clearest example was the creation of the SDP in 1981, led by Roy Jenkins (who'd previously led the great parliamentary rebellion to ensure British entry into the European Community). When the right had control of the party, the left went along with it, even if they did grumble and moan. As soon as the left seemed to be in the ascendancy, the intellectual right split from Labour altogether.

The arrival of the New Labour right added a new dimension. Tony Blair, Gordon Brown and Peter Mandelson simply plotted endlessly. Blair tried to get John Smith to stage a leadership coup against Neil Kinnock. Then, when Smith did become leader, Blair and Mandelson schemed against him as well. And eventually, they all descended into plotting against each other. Despite the supposed iron discipline of New Labour, there was no loyalty at all to individuals, leaders or the party.

Jeremy Corbyn, on the other hand, has been an MP for thirty-two years, for perhaps thirty of which he has been in a beleaguered minority. He may not have always done what he was told, but he never threatened to leave if he didn't get his own way, and he has never (as far as I'm aware) plotted to stage a coup against the leadership.

This is relevant, of course, in terms of the current leadership election. Should anyone but Corbyn win, there will be demands for unity, discipline and loyalty. Should Corbyn win, don't expect the right to display any loyalty whatsoever.

The challenge for the next Labour leader (in 1992)

The general election last week is widely said to be reminiscent of 1992. So what were the papers saying at the same stage back then, eight days after John Major's shock result, when the Labour Party was looking for a new leader?

This is how The Times started its editorial on 17 April 1992:

Can Labour Win? and Must Labour Lose? were the titles of two bleak books published in 1960, after Labour had lost three elections in a row. Now the same questions are being asked after a run of four defeats.

In language that might well sound familiar, the editorial continued:

Labour has failed to respond to the changing aspirations of the British. In the 1980s the Conservative achievement was to make those born working class feel comfortable about wanting to move up in society. Britain may not yet be as socially fluid as America, but the class system is no longer frozen in ice.

And it concludes:

Whoever wins the Labour leadership election must prepare his party for the next general election by recognising that the world has changed. The politics of envy have lost their potency. Labour need not lose, but it has to find new friends all over the country, and across all social classes and income groups, before it can win.

What actually happened, of course, is that Labour chose John Smith. At the time he was considered to be on the right of Labour, though his enthusiasm for higher taxes was partially blamed for losing the 1992 election.

In today's world, that belief in public spending would have him condemned as a left-wing extremist. So too would the trade union support he enjoyed; asked why he hadn't joined the SDP during the Great Schism of the 1980s, he replied: 'I am comfortable with the unions.' And his Scottishness would be regarded with some suspicion.

I'm not sure that any of this represented a response to 'the changing aspirations of the British'. Nonetheless, Black Wednesday came along a few months later, and by the time Smith died in 1994, he had a 20 per cent lead in the polls over the Tories.

I.F.S. Express

It seems that it's now part of the British constitution that all election manifesto launches should be accompanied by the comments of the director of the Institute for Fiscal Studies. So I thought I'd look back I'd look back at how the IFS has greeted previous manifestos, to see if there are any lines of continuity:

'"We've had thirteen years of people at the top getting preferential treatment," said [John] Smith. "We are starting to speak up for the ordinary taxpayer and the average family." Labour believes that the endorsement of its arithmetic by the Institute for Fiscal Studies makes it "game, set and match".' - Sunday Times 22 March 1992

'[The IFS document] will criticise Gordon Brown's pledge to stick to the existing government spending totals for the first two years of a Labour government. Andrew Dilnot, the IFS's director, has made no secret of his view that the sharp slowdown in real-terms spending implied by the existing plans will be catastrophic for the provision of some public services.' - Independent 9 April 1997

'Howard Reed of the IFS said there was a limit to what to what could be saved [under a Conservative government] without having to make cuts in "real" services on the ground. If there were easy ways to save money without such cuts then other parties would be doing so too, he added.' - Daily Telegraph 16 May 2001

'Robert Chote of the Institute for Fiscal Studies said: "Will taxes have to go up if the Tories win? No, as long as they can deliver the spending cuts they have promised. Will taxes have to go up if Labour wins? Yes, if we are right that revenues will be weaker than the Treasury hopes and if Gordon Brown sticks to his Budget goals for the public finances."' - Evening Standard 7 April 2005

'The independent Institute for Fiscal Studies said the manifesto gave no certainty on the size and combination of tax rises and spending cuts envisaged to meet Labour's pledge to halve Britain's £167 billion deficit within four years. "The party listed plenty of new things it would like to do, but was no clearer about where the spending cuts will fall," said the IFS. "It listed a few tax increases that it promised not to implement, but left the door wide open to many others."' - Independent 13 April 2010