Think Tanks
I enjoyed this blog by Dan Hodges in The Telegraph which is truly worthy of being called a 'think tank' piece as Labour leaders pour over the remnants of their Euro and local elections campaign (in England).
We'll see what comes of the Euro voting results on Sunday, but I agree with the central point of Dan's argument that Labour has failed miserably to establish itself as a credible party of government - or Ed Miliband as a serious figure as Prime Minister.
If voters want a protest party with a wish list of empty promises that fail to stack up, then they'll go for the real thing in UKIP - instead of wasting their votes on Labour.
By Dan Hodges - The Telegraph
A tank, such as those not owned by Ukip. (Photo: Rex)
On the 13th May, 1940, as Guderian’s tank divisions swept across France, one final major pocket of resistance stood before them. The 295th regiment of the French 55th infantry division occupied Buson ridge, the final pre-prepared defensive position between the Germans and the French interior.
The men of the 295th were well prepared, relatively well armed, well dug in, and the German advance units were beginning to overextend themselves. But then as day began to turn to dusk a rumour began to spread throughout the French lines. The Germans were already there. In fact, tanks had been spotted behind them. In a matter of minutes they would be cut off.
What followed became known as the Tank Panic, or the “phénomène d'hallucination collective”. The troops turned and ran. Their heavy artillery followed them. Reinforcements, moving up to support their comrades, were met with a wall of men, trucks, carts, motorcycles and light armour flowing in the opposite direction. So they turned and ran as well.
In reality, there were no tanks. The Germans weren’t even ready to mount an attack on the front of the French positions – never mind circumnavigate them – and wouldn’t be able so for another seven hours. But the damage was done. The line collapsed, and with it France.
This morning the Labour Party is about to embark upon its own Tank Panic. Or rather, its Ukip Panic.
The local election votes are still being counted. The Euro election ballots won’t begin to be counted for another two days. But already the cry has begun: “Nigel Farage is behind us!”
“There have been a number of us saying that Ukip was not taken seriously enough. We were telling them that they were in their comfort zone if they thought Ukip was only taking votes off the Tories,” a shadow cabinet member told the Times yesterday. “Challenging Ukip got lost in the froth and I’m baffled at the failure to condemn what Farage was saying,” said a senior Labour MP.
Both are right. Labour’s response to Ukip over the past few weeks has been politically and morally bankrupt. As I wrote earlier this week, Labour’s strategy for Ukip was initially to ignore them, then to try and paint Farage as the new Margaret Thatcher, and finally to try and paint Miliband as the new Frank Field. And it’s proved disastrous, as it was always going to prove disastrous.
But the local and Euro election campaign is now over. And Labour is about to make its traditional mistake of drawing the wrong conclusions, from the wrong results, at the wrong time.
Actually, Labour is about to draw half a dozen different conclusions. Every faction in the Labour party – the hard Left, the Milibites, the Blue Labourites – will start pushing its own preferred narrative through the prism of the “Ukip Threat”. The Left will say “This vote for Ukip proves what we’ve always said. You can’t take Labour’s working class vote for granted. You have to move Left.” The Blue Labourites will say, “This vote for Ukip proves what we’ve always said. You can’t take Labour’s working class vote for granted. You have to move Right.” The Milibites will say “This vote for Ukip proves what we’ve always said. Ed Miliband was right. We have to find a new way of engaging with a disaffected electorate”. And then they’ll all blame Douglas Alexander.
There will be some merit in what each faction says. But not much.
Over the next few days Ukip are going to adopt the role of the kids from the Scooby Doo cartoons who scupper the old miner's nefarious plan to scare everyone away from his hoard of hidden gold. “We would have got away with it if it wasn’t for that pesky Nigel Farage” will become the settled Labour line. And like just about every other settled Labour line, it will be rubbish.
Labour’s “Ukip crisis” has nothing to do with Ukip. It has everything to do with Labour.
Labour has had a disastrous local election night for three very simple reasons. The first is that four years into the parliament Labour has utterly failed to establish itself as a credible government in its own right. In fact, it hasn’t even tried. It’s simply attempted to claim a vote for Labour was a way of protesting against the nasty, evil, posh, out-of touch Tories and their Lib Dem quislings. And so the voters have said, “Well, if it’s all about casting a protest vote, I’m going with the experts. Hello Mr Farage.”
The second reason is Ed Miliband. Ed Miliband has not had a bad campaign. He’s had Ed Miliband’s campaign. This is who Ed Miliband is, and what he does. He loses elections for the Labour party. If there are people in Labour’s ranks still clinging to the fiction their leader will somehow “come good”, or “confound his critics”, fine. But they have to stop expecting the British voters to buy into it.
The third reason is this. Labour didn’t lose the local elections last night. They lost them four years ago. More specifically, they lost them when they fell into the belief that the 2010 general election was an aberration. As I’ve written countless times before, Labour thought they simply had to sit tight and the voters would come rushing to them, begging forgiveness. But they haven’t. They’ve ambled up to Nigel Farage and said “fancy a swift pint”?
Up until now Labour has been pursuing a catastrophic 35 per cent strategy. Now it’s about to start to pursue an even more catastrophic 29 per cent strategy. That initial 35 per cent was made up of two distinct blocks – a 29 per cent “core vote” and a 6 per cent “Lib Dem switcher vote”. In the days that follow, as Labour begins to chase after the Ukip vote, an internal fight will break out over how to secure that 29 per cent. The Left will say “ape the elements of Ukip’s Left-wing agenda”. The Right will say “ape the Right-wing elements”. And Nick Clegg – remember him? – will start to whisper “see, we told you. We’re the only party who’s really prepared to stand up to Ukip’s nasty nationalism”. And those whispers will resonate.
Here is the staggering irony. These were supposed to be the elections that saw the Tory party either splintering in the face of the Ukip threat, or lurching after it in a desperate attempt to neutralise the impact. But it’s the Labour Party that is set to enter headless Farage mode.
And there’s one final irony. The Ukip threat doesn’t exist. It’s over. Farage’s race is run. There will be lots of excitement. Lots of talk of revolutions and earthquakes. And then people’s thoughts will turn away from registering a protest to electing a government.
But no one in Labour’s ranks wants to listen to that at the moment. The great “Ukip panic” is already under way. So the troops will run. And the front will fold. And Miliband will fall.
Then someone will look around the battleground and say “hang on a minute. Where’s that Nigel Farage?” But Farage will be a long, long way away. And he’ll be laughing.
