Labour loses its lead on the economy
Labour's two and half year lead on the economy has been wiped away after eight months in office. What happened?
Today Britain Elects is launching a new poll tracker. Who of the two main parties does the country trust most to manage the economy? Available for free here.
And now for the commentary.
Because a hard-won perception of competence on this issue has, it seems, been blown away by a series of communications failures and policy decisions.
There can be no doubt the comms of this new Labour government in its introductory - its most defining - months has been appalling.
When voters were pushed to name a positive Labour story, according to More in Common, few came to mind. Instead, the defining stories were the ones every Labour activist loves to hate: winter fuel, releasing prisoners, family farms, the one pound rise on bus fares, Lord Alli’s freebies. These are the stories the voters know. There’s no getting away from that.
Contrast that with voter awareness on the more positive decisions coming out of Westminster and the message is clear: cynicism sells.
Only one of the five Labour policy decisions with more than 80 per cent awareness is viewed positively - the minimum wage rise.
Which makes it almost inevitable that our poll tracker would find Labour no longer has a lead on the economy. That lead lasted two and a half years following— oh, only fourteen years of a Tory one.
I’ve wondered aloud over at the New Statesman whether the government has misread the public mood on welfare. Scroungers vs. strivers, a glut of waste - these were the narratives put about by Conservative Central Office in 2008 to pave the way for a tacit approval of Conservative economics: austerity. It worked. It read the room. And for the early 2010s, the sentiment that “difficult decisions” had to be made when it come to the public finances was widespread. It stymied a Labour recovery, and kept the Cons trusted with the nation’s finances.
But here, in 2024, following an international calamity in which a great many people of medium means had to experience welfare, that sharp elbowed “let’s kick away the ladder” approach is not as endemic as it used to be.
Voter sympathy - empathy, even - towards those in need is greater than it was. Support for Trade Unions is somewhat up on what it was in the early 2010s. And for the government of the day to come in harsh and triumphant on welfare cuts, appearing to think 2010 was only yesterday, represents a poor misreading of the room. One quarter of 2024 Labour voters today do not see a difference between this government and the last.
Considering voter apathy is so high, and just six in ten 2024 Labour voters according to our own tracker now trust Labour with the economy, might this crash and burn in the Labour lead be less down to a failure in comms, and more about Labour’s own decision-making?
Perhaps.
But something to consider is Labour’s weakness on the subject may less be on policy specifics, but rather for something simpler: lack of relief.
The crisis in the cost of living did not subside on 4th July 2024. It persists. Perhaps its persistence is what’s primarily rendering perceptions of the government poor, rather than its own comms. For many, little has changed. Few feel a material difference. And until they do, I suspect all incumbents will be due a kicking.
It’s the basics, stupid.
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People were fed up before the general election, and are even more fed up 9 months later. I vividly remember Prof Curtics reminding us of the thin nature of our victory at Labour Conference 2024, yet it seems that memo wasn't received in Downing Street.
It started as a catastrophic failure to understand how to communicate. WFA was a total clusterfuck. It has become far more worrying as the leadership has stumbled from one unforced error to another. As a result, almost none of the 'good stuff' is cutting through with voters.
The concern that 'nobody cares' has been weaponised by Reform to their advantage. Who wouldn't support a charismatic chancer who behaves like 'Dave from the pub?' Oh wait - we did that when we got BoJo. And we didn't learn.
There are so many parallels between now and 1930s Britain that it is terrifying. My father told me that in the 1930s, he lionised Oswald Mosley, as did many others. He didn't realise where that would end up until it did in 1939. We were on the cusp of repeating many of those same mistakes in the 1960s and Enoch Powell's Rivers of Blood period. And now again we are on that same path.
The difficulty is that the leadership has lost sight of the reality on the doorstep, and communications have given up. The digital team is almost worse than useless. Expecting 'us' to continue parroting talking points without recognising the problems we face on a daily basis is borderline incompetent. For all his past success in defeating the BNP, McSweeney is demonstrating zero comms or strategy leadership in the current environment.
Labour is writing its own defeat playbook - and that is truly tragic.