Welcoming a new baby
Keir Mather's win for Labour in Selby and Ainsty makes him the Baby of the House. Much of the commentary I read around this win was miles away from my canvassing experience.
Last week I joined other Labour Party members to canvass for Keir Mather who won the Selby and Ainsty seat with a massive 24% swing from the Tories. More eye-catching is the comfortable 4,161 majority. The extent of the majority was a surprise. As election day approached, I received a steady stream of email requests to contribute to the campaign on the basis that the outcome was too close to call. Living in an otherwise staunch Tory constituency I understand the concern. We failed to unseat our local Tory councillor by a 150 vote margin in the recent local elections. It was a huge disappointment and for me, I saw similarities between what I heard on the the doorstep locally in April and what I saw in the central part of Selby where I canvassed last week.
In both cases, very few people wanted to acknowledge Tory leaning while there were plenty who wished the Labour candidate well. Locally, there was a chorus of people wanting to know what our ‘invisible’ councillor is doing for residents. In Selby, the outgoing Tory MP was not well liked locally with a few expressing pleasure that he resigned. In Selby, I heard about a wide variety of issues but local transport (public transport is all but dead after early evening), figured large. Some mentioned the cost of living but the tax grab on pensioners was also a concern. Contrary to all the attention towards populist topics, only one person said: “You lot only care about what happens in the South.” No one I met mentioned immigration, nor the alarmist ‘stuff’ around education or CRT.
Selby and Ainsty is a largely rural constituency you’d expect to be comfortable Tory territory. But what no-one mentioned is the fact that farming in the surrounding area is in trouble. A well known multi-million pound online quality butcher in a neighboring constituency went bankrupt a few months ago. Do farming concerns contribute to Mather’s victory? I don’t know but it wouldn’t surprise if die hard Tory voters stayed away from the polling stations.
Above all the macro issues, I was impressed with the confidence and personality of the 25-year old Labour candidate. I came away with two distinct but differing impressions. First, Mather is firmly ‘on message’ albeit with a local twist. I liked the fact he gave prominence to detailed local issues alongside parroting the familiar cost of living crisis lines. Second, he is sure footed and appears ready to attempt firm answers to the inevitable traps that experienced media types will set for him.
Whenever I’m canvassing I want to know what positive messages I should be talking about and what responses I need have to hand when asked: ‘Well what are you lot going to do about (name your concern here.)?” In this context, Mather has no firm answers beyond the politically mangled language of platitudes. However, he is convincing in his concern for constituents and that counts. How long it takes for the bright eyed, bushy tailed patina to become tarnished remains to be seen but the broader point about the ‘How’ is something that Labour cannot avoid forever.
Last week Adam Bienkov wrote in British Voters Demand Radical Change But is Keir Starmer Listening?
An exclusive new poll for Byline Times shows that eight-in-ten voters want either radical or significant change to how the UK is run.
The survey, conducted by pollsters Omnisis, found a huge appetite for transforming the UK, with even a third of Conservative voters saying “radical change” is now required.
By contrast, only one-in-ten voters say they would instead prefer the Government to simply implement “better management of the status quo”.
The findings come as Keir Starmer comes under growing pressure to set out his vision for Britain, amid signs that voters have doubts about the Labour leader’s plans.
According to our poll, voters are split down the middle on whether Labour understands the “scale of change required in the UK” with 43% saying they do, compared with 39% saying they don’t.
I concur and, I suspect, so do many others. More worrying is the growing chorus of voices wanting to understand what Starmer and the Labour Party stand for.
In the last few months I’ve had many conversations with Party colleagues, candidates and Shadow Government MPs. There is a good feeling about where Labour is today compared with the shambles of 2019. So far so good. But. When I ask, what do I say to those who are life long Labour voters but are unclear what the Party now stands for and may switch to the Greens or LibDems, the most common answer I get is an unsatisfactory: ‘Do you really want the Tories back again?’ Watching those same questions raised on national TV is beyond embarrassing, especially when I hear the ‘Keir has a great five point plan’ mantra. These replies are disingenuous at best and wafer thin convincing at worst. They are the kind of response that encourages voters to shrug and look away.
Starmer’s position on every topic, dominated as it is by an iron tight determination to appear fiscally responsible, isn’t working as a convincing message. Labour will say that their by election results are a solid endorsement for their policies. My sense, based on conversations with voters is that it is much more a case of ‘anyone but the Tories.’ That’s the vote of someone who has lost hope. It’s not the vote of someone convinced of a better alternative. Without the assurance of a better alternative, Labour will be lucky to survive one term, let alone get what’s really needed - a 2-3 term cushion - and assuming they get a resounding win in the much anticipated 2024 general election.
Right now, Labour seems to be falling for the long standing economic orthodoxy that favours the market over anything else and promotes growth without questioning why this should be central or what it looks like. Sorry Keir, and Rachel, your Shadow Chancellor, but the market first theory of economics represents a failed capitalism that has delivered a social environment where the wealthy win and everyone else loses. I recall recently asking Rachel Reeves if she plans on hammering the Tories with the Reagan Question, the answer to which was a predictable yes. But Reagan was promising a defined change. Where is Labour on this? If that isn’t bad enough, the transfer of power to capital means that government’s room for influencing the economy and inflation is extremely limited. Heck, even the Tories seem to agree.
I cannot for the life of me understand why Starmer and Reeve don’t see this and/or, are prepared to consider whether alternative approaches might offer a pathway to a more attractive narrative that can trickle through (not down) to key aspects of policy. Without that alternative narrative Labour will continue to see itself boxed in with little alternative but to end up disappointing those who vote it into power - assuming that happens - in 2024.
I am no economist having learned many years ago that all theories of economy are flawed or become flawed. But there are ways to look at society that put the sustainable greater good at the centre and then flesh out supporting economic positions. I am drawn towards Doughnut Economics as outlined by Kate Raworth’s theory that takes the ideas behind the circular economy, where waste is minimized, a few steps further. Some critics dismiss Doughnut Economics as magical thinking. Perhaps. But then there is everything magical about infinite growth as the subtext to much current economic thinking. And what about crypto? (Let’s not go there.)
Today may well be one of celebration for Labour and nothing should take away from the history making context of the Selby result. Based on what I saw, Labour ran a positive campaign in Selby and as I’ve said, Keir Mather seems a bright and promising prospect. But…
In the meantime, here’s a pic of two local colleagues with whom I was paired for canvassing and who were kind enough to provide me a ride home on a day that was drowned out by late rainfall. Thanks Vanda and Liz.
Globalist, national, county and local politics are four very different animals, with many more layers of the onion adding nuances and complexities. UK national politics is still on Bambi legs post EU exit, having previously fallen asleep being over reliant on Brussels and Strasbourg bureaucrats. Sadly that huge opportunity, not unlike Glasnost in Russia, just resulted in the globalists asset stripping the UK under the guise of 'reform'. The Tories are their local agents, no idea what the Labour party is these days, they seem to still be shape shifting into irrelevance.
We have a massive problem in the western world with Trudeau, Macron, Biden, n̶o̶r̶m̶a̶n̶ ̶w̶i̶s̶d̶o̶m̶ ̶
Sunak et al forming a neocon globalist nucleus aggressively supported by their media, only opposed by a few outliers who are savaged and smeared by the media machine. Not healthy at all, especially considering the staggering levels of corruption this facilitates (Biden & Trump).
I'm very involved in our local politics. Amazing how the international media coverage of the DC circus influences voters thousands of miles away despite that circus having a negligible effect on anything local. Discouraging but bravo for attempting to engender positive change..
Always was !