As I covered in my previous entry, "Blue" or "One Nation" Labour is the direct descendant of the centrist policies of Tony Blair and New Labour. You can be as socialist and as red as you like, but just as Ed Milliband did after his appointment as leader; and as Andy Burnham did at the beginning of his leadership campaign, it is hard to fight against the tide of the centre-right Parliamentary Labour Party. Similarly I covered why it is this Blairite-MAX that resulted in Labour's defeat at the last election.
The strongest leadership contender in the Labour party however is not on the ticket.
Not anymore at least.
Chuka Umunna is widely regarded as one of the brightest young politicians of the current era. He is the epitome of Blue Labour. Born in London and the son of a Nigerian businessman and English/Irish, solicitor he went on to study Law at Manchester and Nottingham before returning to practice law at a firm in London.
Three days after he announced his candidacy, he withdrew it stating he had been "uncomfortable" with "the added level of scrutiny that came with being a leadership candidate." Lets be clear about Chuka, he leaves a life far removed from that of a former Yorkshire coal miner. There are not many MP's who were former DJ's and who have admitted smoking marijuana whilst. He has a key to a secret entrance to a gentleman's club with £4000 cognac, is personal friends with Tinie Tempah who has played at said club and he has a bar at the club named after him.
A working class lad he might not be but smart and intelligent he is. He know's his stuff and despite his withdrawing from the contest this time round, I believe he is playing his cards close to his chest. This contest was the first operating under the new election rules for Labour and was distinctly unknown territory. The fallout from the last election was difficult to measure and what the party activists wanted wasn't entirely clear, mostly due to the rhetoric of the Parliamentary Labour Party. A smart, sensible and intelligent man would hold back. Gauge which way the winds were blowing and let his competitors throw themselves to the wolves and watch how they feed.
Furthermore, the rest of the field were all shadow cabinet colleagues bar the now favourite Jeremy Corbyn. As we have seen: Andy Burnham; Yvette Cooper; and Liz Kendal; all have suffered from being unable to differentiate themselves from the rest of the pack. The teams behind Burnham, Kendall and Cooper have done well. They have all been very boring and run of the mill. No gaffe's to speak of. Not upset or offended anyone and called an old lady a bigot. But the trouble is that all in all what these three have done is say..... nothing. They are all cut from the same cloth essentially. All they can say is "Don't vote for Jeremy". None of them truely have a belief in their own suitability, and none of them really thinks any of the others can win.
None of the current shadow cabinet minister candidates were willing to withdraw and what we have seen is a split of the centrist vote. This is far from a difficult outcome to predict. Ed Milliband who was seen as a distinct socialist when compared to his brother still managed to poll half the votes from Party members and exceptionally strong votes from the unions. It is not difficult to see how a lone left-wing candidate could perform strongly when half the centrist vote would end up being split amoungst three people.
Chuka is about as pro-business and Blue Labour as it gets. His capitalist ideals cannot be questioned and that will serve him well in the run up to an election. If he judges the situation well though and uses his law-educated noggin, he will learn how to woo the left. He already believes that we should get rid of trident which will play well to those in Scotland and those that have migrated to the Greens. He needs to bring some of those socialist ideals into play.
Although some may balk at this suggestion, TfL is a pristine example of how a public organisation should run. High cost but with constant reinvestment. The Victoria once it has finish the latest of upgrades will have operate a service with a train every 100 seconds, the most regular service in Europe. Similarly when National Express controversially handed back its contract for the East Coast mainline to the Government. The state owned railway had a turnover for the year to April rose 4.2% to £693.8 million, generating £208.7 million profit for the taxpayer.
Some of Jeremy Corbyn's ideas are a little far-fetched I grant you. Reopening coal mines is both financially unsound and lacks serious consideration for the environmental impacts. As a technologically advanced country we have the ability to push for technologies that allow us to utilise renewable resources. Creating a nationalised renewable energy company would be a far wiser move economically and politically. But fundamentally the ideas Jeremy puts forward are popular with the electorate and it will prove useful to take some of the less extreme ideas and utilise them to bring the unions and the left with him
Chuka Umunna has in recent days played his opening gambit in his, writing privately to Labour MP's and close supporters saying the party needs to "look beyond recent Labour policy prescriptions" and that "we have failed to do sufficient political and intellectual mobilisation in this regard". Delivering hope is what is needed by the party. It's what Tony Blair brought and its what David Cameron brought. Hope means not standing still, moving forward and not just blindly to the right. The center of the party can be strong again and electable, but it needs someone to lead it.
Chuka Umunna may be and have deliberately placed himself, as that person.
"half the centrist vote would end up being split amoungst three people."
ReplyDeleteDoesn't the electoral system remove the possibility of "splitting" the vote in this way?